Professor Rigid on Evolution (must "believe" to get med school rec)

Micah Spradling was OK with learning about evolution in college, but his family drew the line when his belief in the theory became a prerequisite for continuing his education.

Tim Spradling said his son left Texas Tech this semester and enrolled in Lubbock Christian University after en countering the policy of one associate professor in biological sciences.

Professor Michael Dini's Web site states that a student must "truthfully and forthrightly" believe in human evolution to receive a letter of recommendation from him.

"How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?" Dini's site reads.

Dini says on the site that it is easy to imagine how physicians who ignore or neglect the "evolutionary origin of humans can make bad clinical decisions."

He declined to speak with The Avalanche-Journal. His response to an e-mail from The A-J said: "This semester, I have 500 students to contend with, and my schedule in no way permits me to participate in such a debate."

A Tech spokeswoman said Chancellor David Smith and other Tech officials also did not want to comment on the story.

At least two Lubbock doctors and a medical ethicist said they have a problem with the criterion, and the ethicist said Dini "could be a real ingrate."

Tim Spradling, who owns The Brace Place, said his son wanted to follow in his footsteps and needed a letter from a biology professor to apply for a program at Southwestern University's medical school.

Spradling is not the only medical professional in Lub bock shocked by Dini's policy. Doctors Patrick Edwards and Gaylon Seay said they learned evolution in college but were never forced to believe it.

"I learned what they taught," Edwards said. "I had to. I wanted to make good grades, but it didn't change my basic beliefs."

Seay said his primary problem is Dini "trying to force someone to pledge allegiance to his way of thinking."

Seay, a Tech graduate who has practiced medicine since 1977, said a large amount of literature exists against the theory.

"He is asking people to compromise their religious be liefs," Seay said. "It is a shame for a professor to use that as a criteria."

Dini's site also states: "So much physical evidence supports" evolution that it can be referred to as fact even if all the details are not known.

"One can deny this evidence only at the risk of calling into question one's understanding of science and of the method of science," Dini states on the Web site.

Dini is in a position of authority and "can injure someone's career," and the criteria is the "most prejudice thing I have ever read," Seay said.

Both doctors said their beliefs in creationism have never negatively affected their practices, and Seay said he is a more compassionate doctor because of his beliefs.

"I do not believe evolution has anything to do with the ability to make clinical decisions — pro or con," Seay said.

"A student may learn about a subject, but that does not mean that everything must be accepted as fact, just because the professor or an incomplete body of evidence says so," Edwards said.

The letter of recommendation should not be contingent on Dini's beliefs, Edwards said.

"That would be like Texas Tech telling him he had to be a Christian to teach biology," Edwards said.

Harold Vanderpool, professor in history and philosophy of medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said he has a problem with Dini's policy.

"I think this professor could be a real ingrate," Vanderpool said. "I have a problem with a colleague who has enjoyed all the academic freedoms we have, which are extensive, and yet denies that to our students."

Vanderpool, who has served on, advised or chaired committees for the National Institute of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, said the situation would be like a government professor requiring a student to be "sufficiently patriotic" to receive a letter.

"It seems to me that this professor is walking a pretty thin line between the protection of his right to do what he wants to do, his own academic freedom, and a level of discrimination toward a student," he said.

"It is reaching into an area of discrimination. That could be a legal problem. If not, it is a moral problem," Vanderpool said.

Instead of a recommendation resting on character and academic performance, "you've got this ideological litmus test you are using," he said. "To me, that is problematic, if not outright wrong."

William F. May, a medical ethicist who was appointed to President Bush's Council on Bioethics, said he cannot remember establishing a criterion on the question of belief with a student on exams or with letters of recommendation.

"I taught at five institutions and have always felt you should grade papers and offer judgments on the quality of arguments rather than a position on which they arrived."

Professors "enjoy the protection of academic freedom" and Dini "seems to be profoundly ungrateful" for the freedom, Vanderpool said.

He said a teacher cannot be forced to write a letter of recommendation for a student, which he believes is good because the letters are personal and have "to do with the professor's assessment of students' work habits, character, grades, persistence and so on."

A policy such as Dini's needs to be in the written materials and should be stated in front of the class so the student is not surprised by the policy and can drop the class, Vanderpool said.

Dini's site states that an individual who denies the evidence commits malpractice in the method of science because "good scientists would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs."

People throw out information be cause "it seems to contradict his/her cherished beliefs," Dini's site reads. A physician who ignores data cannot remain a physician for long, it states.

Dini's site lists him as an exceptional faculty member at Texas Tech in 1995 and says he was named "Teacher of the Year" in 1998-99 by the Honors College at Texas Tech.

Edwards said he does not see any evidence on Dini's vita that he attended medical school or treated patients.

"Dr. Dini is a nonmedical person trying to impose his ideas on medicine," Edwards said. "There is little in common between teaching biology classes and treating sick people. ... How dare someone who has never treated a sick person purport to impose his feelings about evolution on someone who aspires to treat such people?"

On his Web site, Dini questions how someone who does not believe in the theory of evolution can ask to be recommended into a scientific profession by a professional scientist.

May, who taught at multiple prestigious universities, including Yale, during his 50 years in academia, said he did not want to judge Dini and qualified his statements because he did not know all of the specifics.

He said the doctors may be viewing Dini's policy as a roadblock, but the professor may be warning them in advance of his policy so students are not dismayed later.

"I have never seen it done and am surprised to hear it, but he may find creationist aggressive in the class and does not want to have to cope with that," May said. "He is at least giving people the courtesy of warning them in advance."

The policy seems unusual, May said, but Dini should not be "gang-tackled and punished for his policy."

The criterion may have been viewed as a roadblock for Micah Spradling at Tech, but it opened a door for him at LCU.

Classes at LCU were full, Tim Spradling said, but school officials made room for his son after he showed them Dini's policy.

jennyp wrote: And yet there was no sea near the Garden of Eden, and every picture I've ever seen of the Garden has the serpent up in the tree. QED.

LOL....that was what the evolutionist said when they ran into a problem.

Evolutionist said:But the fossils also have obvious legs and lived in the sea. That doesn't jibe with the traditional view of ancestral asps, which are thought of as legless burrowing reptiles..

So in the April 17 issue of the Journal Nature, Caldwell and Lee advance the bold suggestion that snakes are most closely related to the mosasaurs, giant swimming reptiles that lived at the time of dinosaurs..

That was from evolutionist...not me.

And remember camera's hadn't been invented yet, so we don't have a real picture of the event as it happened, just man's drawings & ideas...man is only using his imagination to try and figure out how everything evolved...but I go by what God said & He said this: :)

Gen 3:1 The serpent was the craftiest of all the creatures the Lord God had made. So the serpent came to the woman. "Really?" he asked. "None of the fruit in the garden? God says you mustn't eat any of it?"

Gen 3:2 "Of course we may eat it," the woman told him.

Gen 3:3 "It's only the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden that we are not to eat. God says we mustn't eat it or even touch it, or we will die."

Gen 3:4 "That's a lie!" the serpent hissed. "You'll not die!

Gen 3:5 God knows very well that the instant you eat it you will become like him, for your eyes will be opened--you will be able to distinguish good from evil!"

Gen 3:6 The woman was convinced. How lovely and fresh looking it was! And it would make her so wise! So she ate some of the fruit and gave some to her husband, and he ate it too.

Gen 3:7 And as they ate it, suddenly they became aware of their nakedness, and were embarrassed. So they strung fig leaves together to cover themselves around the hips.

Gen 3:8 That evening they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and they hid themselves among the trees.

Gen 3:9 The Lord God called to Adam, "Why are you hiding?"

Gen 3:10 And Adam replied, "I heard you coming and didn't want you to see me naked. So I hid."

Gen 3:11 "Who told you you were naked?" the Lord God asked. "Have you eaten fruit from the tree I warned you about?"

Gen 3:12 "Yes," Adam admitted, "but it was the woman you gave me who brought me some, and I ate it."

Gen 3:13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, "How could you do such a thing?" "The serpent tricked me," she replied.

Gen 3:14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, "This is your punishment: You are singled out from among all the domestic and wild animals of the whole earth--to be cursed. You shall grovel in the dust as long as you live, crawling along on your belly.

Creationism is not anti-scientific. It is the only theory of the origin of the universe that abides by scientific laws. Laws that the entire scientific community abides by, laws that were approved and formulated by Evolutionists. Laws are laws, and according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics all systems tend towards disorder (entropy). In every reaction that takes place, the amount of useable energy decreases, until there's nothing left. We see this in the slowing down of our solar system, in batteries, in rotting wood. If you leave something alone it decomposes. There are about a million other ways to refute evolution. Evolution is a shady belief with missing holes. Try and find two evolutionists with the exact same views on evolution theories. As much as you hate it, Creationism is the only theory that has stood the test of the laws of thermodynamics and other governing principles.

The author (geneticist and anthropologist) is not speaking against evolution per se , but rather the overstatement or misrepresentation of the facts. He observes that biological anthropology is much needed because pronouncements such as 99% Chimpanzee fail on closer inspection. For instance,

The point is where you start the counting. For example, let's say I have a 1000 instruction program and I add to it 100 instructions for printing after the first hundred instructions. Now if you start counting both from the beginning you will have them be some 90% different whereas if you knew the code you would realize that they are only 10% different because you have all but the 100 instructions you inserted as different. Also, many of the differences may be trivial such as hair, skin or eye color which do not matter much, we cannot tell without knowing what the entire organism is about and we are nowhere close to knowing that.

So your point is, that the picture is wrong? I would agree, but I know of no one attributing anything to that particular picture in these discussions. However, Scientific American has untruth about this following program(previously posted on this site) and actually uses it in argument


THE COMPUTER PROGRAM IN APPENDIX E IN "UPON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS" BY 
RICHARD HARDISON

10 REM 1984 R. HARDISON
11 PRINT "RANDOMIZING ALPHABET"
12 PRINT "WRITE HAMLET, KEEPING"
13 PRINT "SUCCESSES."
14 PRINT :; REM N-COUNTER: # OF TRIALS
15 REM T=COUNTER:REUSE "TO BE"
16 PRINT "SUBROUTINE TO
17 PRINT "RANDOMIZE AND SELECT"
18 PRINT "LETTER"
30 N = 0
40 FOR G = 1 TO 10
50 T = 0
60 GOTO 80
70 X = INT (26 * RND (1)) + 1: RETURN
80 GOSUB 70
90 N = N + 1
100 IF X = 20 THEN PRINT "T": IF X = 20 THEN GOTO 120
110 GOTO 60
120 N = N + 1
130 GOSUB 70
140 IF X = 15 THEN PRINT "O": IF X = 15 THEN PRINT : IF X = 15 THEN GOTO 160
150 GOTO 120
160 N = N + 1
170 GOSUB 70
180 IF X = 2 THEN PRINT "B": IF X = 2 THEN GOTO 200
190 GOTO 160
200 N = N + 1
210 GOSUB 70
220 IF X = 5 THEN PRINT "E": IF X = 5 THEN PRINT : IF X = 5 THEN GOTO 240
230 GOTO 200
240 T = T + 1
250 IF T = 2 THEN GOTO 460
260 N = N + 1
270 GOSUB 70
280 IF X = 15 THEN PRINT "O": IF X = 15 THEN GOTO 300
290 GOTO 260
300 N = N + 1
310 GOSUB 70
320 IF X = 18 THEN PRINT "R": IF X = 18 THEN GOTO 340
330 GOTO 300
340 N = N + 1
350 GOSUB 70
360 IF X = 14 THEN PRINT "N": IF X = 14 THEN GOTO 380
370 GOTO 340
380 N = N + 1
390 GOSUB 70
400 IF X = 15 THEN PRINT "O": IF X = 15 THEN GOTO 420
410 GOTO 380
420 N = N + 1
430 GOSUB 70
440 IF X = 20 THEN PRINT "T": IF X = 20 THEN PRINT : IF X = 20 THEN GOTO 60
450 GOTO 420
460 PRINT "N=";N;" KEYS PRESSED TO WRITE 'TO BE OR NOT TO BE'"
470 PRINT "FOR";G;" RUN(S) OF PROGRAM"
480 PRINT
490 NEXT G
500 END
510 REM  IF THE PROGRAM WERE
511 REM  WRITTEN TO INCLUDE
512 REM  PUNCTUATION MARKS ETC.
513 REM  THE PROGRAM WOULD
514 REM  TAKE LONGER, BUT WOULD
515 REM  STILL NOT BE PROHIBI-
516 REM  TIVE
517 PRINT
518 PRINT  "WITH 3000 RUNS, THE MEAN"
519 PRINT  "# of trials=333"
520 PRINT  "THE MEAN TIME REQUIRED"
521 PRINT  "WAS .14 MINUTES TO PRINT"
522 PRINT  "TOBEORNOTTOBE"
-------------------------------
From this analysis of Darwin, Hamlet, Dawkins, Hardison, coincidence, and 
selective evolution, we may conclude that whether the reality of evolution is 
to be believed or not to be believed, methinks it is like a weasel of truth 
nonetheless.

Michael Shermer

Well to have authority you have to be given authority, so the bad vibes bit? Hey this is pretty new ground, and these are pretty new times. My guess is you are going to be seeing a lot more of this stuff in the near future.

No we live in the same world. Second hand descriptions with text is very hard, but think a boulder the size of a car placed in a streambed with mellon sized rocks on the side of a hill. First, keep in mind that a stream bed sorts rocks. The water speed and force is directly related to the "fallout" size of the rocks, that is why you will find small rock streambeds placed around round rocks, not random sized rock streambeds. A closer look at any placer streambed will show layering. The more wide ranged the size of the rocks in a given layer the more unstable or turbulant the water at the time of the layer, where the more matching the layer in size and mass the smoother the transition. After a normal flood condition the rocks will "shift gears" on down as the waters abate and the stream will layer all the way to sand.

So you can read the relative fury, time, surge pattern by the rocks. After a good storm you can read the streambed like a book, the pages tell the story of the storm.

A large rock placed On a normal stream bed means that the flood was ripping into the streambeds, a large rock placed in a normal stream bed means the stream bed is later than the rock. It is in how the rocks are deposited under/around the large rock. It is pretty important to a prospector, do you follow a pay streak around a rock or under it?

It also means you can tell if a pattern of deposit was done with a huge flood (which is what it takes to rain out car rocks over a wide area) or a localized one that deposits them in a line formation following the stream bed.

Not just any rocks mind you, just placered ones.

Now go look. But let the streams speak for themselves, if you go look with brown glasses it will all just look like a bunch of, uh brown stuff to you. Take the glasses off. I assure you we are on the same planet, I live on earth, and there was this guy named Yeshua...

-grin-

As for the gold, I still have to ask: Why do you assume the hills were 4500 feet tall when the gold was deposited crosswise over them? In between the original shallow sea and the current upthrusted 4500 foot canyon walls, there were many different intermediate states - including hilly intertidal areas, etc. Secondly, I wonder how many ice ages there were between 1.8mya and today? Up in WA State, there was a natural ice dam in ID that burst and flooded to create what is now eastern/central WA high plateau. Then of course there's the earth dam that burst & let in the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, likely giving rise to a certain myth about a guy named Noah...

Hey, apparently tsunamis in inland lakes are not unheard of! Can you believe that?

Now the rules are, according to the Bible that you are suposto lay a hand or hands on the hurt spot and pray, but I figure God may make an exception for a round the world prayer. If one leg shows up shorter, let me know. I would like to pray and see if a round the world prayer works.

OH THANKS A LOT. If it works, you will be hearing from my lawyer! >:-O

Seriously, if you think you're getting consistent results with faith healing, then I can point you to someone who could set up a blind test. They're offering a million $$$ if you can show results.

Well you got me there. If you can move mountains at any point to any level then anypoint on earth could have been anywhere at any time. There is no zero on the ruler, no reference. So in return how do you know there was not a flood if every moutain top has fossils?

Then of course there's the earth dam that burst & let in the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, likely giving rise to a certain myth about a guy named Noah...

Uh, myth? Myths dont create fossils. Nor do bodies of things laying around. That creates stink. I have seen a lot of dead deer and other critters in water and out of it. Never saw a fossil in progress, just maggots. You know maggots stir feathers? What ever makes fossils is faster than maggots or keeps flys away.

Hey, apparently tsunamis in inland lakes are not unheard of! Can you believe that?

Sure. Never seen one tho...

OH THANKS A LOT. If it works, you will be hearing from my lawyer! >:-O

NO NO NO! First do the leg length test and if one is SHORT let me know. Trying to curse someone in Gods name is like trying to fly with lead baloons. Don't work, never will.

Seriously, if you think you're getting consistent results with faith healing, then I can point you to someone who could set up a blind test. They're offering a million $$$ if you can show results.

Hmmm, I think they should try to go see it happen themselves, would be much cheaper. I don't have much use for a million bucks, but what is the point? Is it to heal someone or to put a silly test on God? If it is to play with Gods mind I don't think it would work, I or the child were not the healers, we were just the messengers. I don't like trying to force God's hand. He lets me sometimes when I am being stupid, but you have to understand that I love God. This is not a game to me, and I feel pretty bad if I misuse his grace. Kinda like finding out you took advantage of someone you love. You feel loved but feel icky at the same time. I don't like icky.

God is pretty smart, don't think anybody has ever pulled the wool over his eyes. There is a lot of healing in the Church, it seems the person who is willing to risk a million bucks at this point is a pretty even bet that they got heart problems that would prevent them from using their eyes to see. My bet is that it is a waste of time.

I was just giving my own first person perspective. Hey, just grab a girl friend and do the leg check for a lark. Don't need to make a big deal of it, just say you have heard it causes back problems and you wanted to check yours and hers. The dice are loaded a bit against it working as per the rules above but I know God lets His hand be moved. To remove a lot of the dice loading, publish the results if it does not work as you wish, but if it does publish it privately if you wish. I am not offering to prove something but to test something, and if you get a healing in the course of the test good. Perhaps we should take this to email at this point, I am getting way off thread...

My apologies to ya all on my long chat here.

How do you know that half a wing isn't in any way useful?
So for instance it can help a bipedal animal to make bigger leaps while running (IOW fly a little bit) or it can be used to glide from trees.

Feathers on the other hand existed for the purpose of insulation so the more nested their structure the more they are suited for this purpose since they can better store the warm film of air (I think VadeRetro provided some examples of flightless dinosaurs with primitive feathers). Only later they also proved to be suitable for flight.

Also, a mutation doesn't have to be beneficial to spread in a population, a neutral mutation can do that as well. It may not be as likely to spread as a beneficial one but the chances for this are not zero. Especially in small populations this can happen quite often (-> founder effect, genetic drift).

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