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

The Lubbock Avalanche Journal ^ | 10/6/02 | Sebastian Kitchen

[hispanarepublicana]

Professor rigid on evolution </MCC HEAD>

By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN </MCC BYLINE1>

AVALANCHE-JOURNAL </MCC BYLINE2>

On the Net

• Criteria for letters of recommendation: http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/dini/Personal/ letters.htm

• Michael Dini's Web page:

http://www2.tltc.ttu. edu/dini/

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.

Edwards said Dini admits in the statement that the details are not all known.

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.

"It is appalling," he 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.

Academic freedom should be extended to students, Edwards 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.

"Skepticism is also a very basic part of scientific study," he 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.

skitchen@lubbockonline.com 766-8753

[Right Wing Professor]

I guess nobody at this site can understand genomics: Creation Scientists in the Biological Sciences

If this list of people is meant to impress anyone, it's a sad effort. I've already mentioned that Gish doesn't have much of a record as a biochemist; in fact, his online c.v. has some very curious features. He was on the faculty of a medical college for a year, then went back to being a postdoctoral. Inquiring minds want to know what happened in that year; it's far too short a time for him to be denied tenure, and no one voluntarily quits as a faculty member and goes back to the lowly life of a postdoctoral. Damadian, as I've already posted, is a nut who tried to steal the credit for inventing MRI. I ran SciFinder searches on several of the others, and came up with no publications or a very small number. If this list is meant to prove active biological researchers can be creationists, I'm afraid it has rather the opposite effect.

[Right Wing Professor]

Even in the era of the genomics, there are some important inconsistencies.

Sure. If there weren't, the field would be a bit uninteresting, no?

Do DL Hart's credentials impress you?

You betcha. But I hope you're not trying to imply he's a creationist. Quoting from his web page:

Research in the Hartl laboratory is at the interface of evolutionary biology and molecular genetics. We study genes and genomes in order to learn about the processes by which organisms evolve and new species come into being.

[AndrewC]

Damadian, as I've already posted, is a nut who tried to steal the credit for inventing MRI.

You have your work cut out for you.

Damadian, Raymond V.Born: 1936
Birthplace: Forest Hills, N.Y.

Apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue—Damadian invented the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner that has revolutionized diagnostic medicine. The MRI yields radio signal outputs from the body's tissue that can be either transformed into images or analyzed to provide the chemical composition of the tissue. (1989)

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RAYMOND V. DAMADIAN

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Raymond V. Damadian, inventor of the method known today as magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, was born in Forest Hills, New York in 1936.

[Right Wing Professor]

It's fine if you want to think that creationism (or, by extension, any school of thought that questions Darwinism) is a fringe movement, but if it's official establishment policy to stamp it out, even when it has little to nothing to do with the subject under consideration for a grant, then it's pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that it's a fringe movement.

I never suggested or even implied such a thing. I said you can't get creationist 'research' funded. Grants undergo peer-review. No group of active biological researchers is going to positively review a grant proposing reserch that rejects evolution.

[Nebullis]

Something as big as MRI will have a number of individuals clamoring to get all the credit. AFAIK, Lauterber made the first image. Richard Ernst received a Nobel for MRI related transformation work. Damadian contributed to the field and others did as well. Such "inventions" are never attributable to one single individual. Before images could be produced, others laid the ground work. NMR had been around for a while before medical applications were found.

The New Yorker, that leftist rag, which I read every week, carried an interesting article last summer on the invention of the TV; who got the credit, who did the work, who did the marketing, who really made it happen. They are not all the same person.

My husband, who now does his research in MR physics, started out in PET. If you look at the web pages of any of the people first involved in PET, you'll see each of them claiming the invention for himself.

[Right Wing Professor]

Damadian's single-mindedly spent the last 25 years trying to convince the world he did it. He hasn't convinced the IEEE, the Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the National Academy, or any other reputable scientific organization. He has, apparently, convinced inexpert comilers of biographical information.

Here's Lauterbur's original abstract, dated 1973.

Image formation by induced local interactions. Examples employing nuclear magnetic resonance. Lauterbur, P. C.. Dep. Chem., State Univ. New York, Stony Brook, N. Y., USA. Nature (London) (1973), 242(5394), 190-1. CODEN: NATUAS Journal written in English. CAN 78:166990 AN 1973:166990

A new imaging technique called zeugmatography is disclosed which takes advantage of induced local interactions to overcome the wavelength-dependence limitation of normal imaging systems. In the presence of a 2nd field that restricts the interaction of the object with the 1st field to a limited region, the resolution becomes independent of wavelength, and is instead a function of the ratio of the normal width of the interaction to the shift produced by a gradient in the 2nd field. As an example, NMR zeugmatography was performed with 60 MHz (5 m) radiation and a static magnetic field gradient corresponding, for proton resonance, to 700 Hz/cm. The test object consisted of two 1-mm inside diam. thin-walled glass capillaries of H2O attached to the inside wall of a 4.2-mm inside diam. glass tube of D2O. �

By all means try to find anything by Damadian predating this abstract (or even in the following year or two) that mentions imaging. You won't. Damadian was measuring the relaxation properties of tumors in test tubes, not thinking about how to image objects.

[Nebullis]

Offhand though, the only career I can think of that meets that criterion [a career in science for which evolution is relevant]is teaching evolution.

When you think about it a little longer you'll realize this offhand dismissal alone involves all academic researchers in biology related fields.

It has been my experience that people who are interested in science, particularly biology related science, have enough interest to study and understand the field and readily embrace evolution. Those who insist on creationism are usually the same people who either don't understand science or are motivated against science.

[AndrewC]

Now I understand why he is considered a nut by someone.

This is from Answers in Genesis, Darwininians are warned.

Hall of Fame

The 1989 National Inventors’ Hall of Fame inductees. Dr Damadian is second on the left.

Dr Damadian’s invention has earned him several top awards, including the United States' National Medal of Technology, the Lincoln-Edison Medal, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame alongside Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers.

A Bible-believing Christian, this great inventor is convinced of the scientific truth of Genesis creation and its foundational importance to church and society.

Despite his fame, however, life has had its difficulties for this revolutionizer of medicine.

First, there were the years of hard work against much opposition and many doubters. His interest in the idea of MRI began when he was a young professor engaged in active scientific research at the State University of New York. Skeptics sarcastically informed him that to use the then-young technique of nuclear magnetic resonance (see box) in a medical imaging machine would mean rotating the patient at 10,000 revolutions per minute!

Dr Damadian with President Reagan.

He said that ‘theoretical physicists claimed to have done calculations demonstrating that my idea was beyond what the theory of physics would allow.’ This worried and confounded would-be financial backers, but Dr Damadian took it as a challenge for himself as an ‘experimentalist’ to ‘do something the theorists say can’t be done.’

Finally, he was granted a US patent for a functioning MRI machine. Today, MRI is a world-famous, multi-billion-dollar technology with more than 4,000 of these complex machines installed around the world. Dr Damadian told Creation magazine of how his company, formed to exploit the legal patent with great potential benefits to many Americans, experienced something extraordinary. Several huge overseas and multinational firms began manufacturing MRI scanners in spite of his patent. Dr Damadian’s small company was forced to go to court — a jury trial in 1982 found the patent to be valid and in-fringed. He had won!

The happiness, however, was short-lived. For some reason the judge, six weeks after the trial, ‘voided the jury’s verdict and substituted his own.’ Dr Damadian had lost. He says that after his company had spent $2.2 million in legal fees he learned the difficulties of a ‘little fellow’ inventing a BIG product. Undaunted, his small company nevertheless carved a niche in the marketplace. However, the really huge rewards are going overseas, to companies which were not involved in the invention at all.

[AndrewC]

LEMELSON-MIT PROGRAM BESTOWS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD TO PIONEER OF DIAGNOSTIC MEDICINE

-- Raymond Damadian Invented MRI Machine for Scanning Human Body –

Enabled Early Detection of Cancer and other Diseases --

 

New York, NY, April 24, 2001 – The man who invented the MR scanner, a non-invasive diagnostic tool used for the early detection of cancer and other diseases, was today named winner of the seventh annual Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award for invention and innovation. Dr. Raymond Damadian, the pioneer of magnetic resonance scanning technology, is being recognized for his contributions to diagnostic medicine.

Dr. Damadian wrote his first paper about his proposed MR scanner in 1971 and received a pioneer patent in 1972. Since his first scan of the human body in 1977, MRI technology has grown into a $5 billion per year industry and is universally recognized as the premier diagnostic imaging method. It detects diseased tissue more efficiently, accurately and safely than other means. MR machines use radio signals emitted from the body's cells to enable instant mapping and analysis of tissue. Data collected by MR scanners can be transformed into images for visual diagnosis or analyzed for chemical composition.

Although the technology used in Damadian's machine – nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR or MR), where harmless magnetic fields and radio waves cause atoms to emit tiny, detectable radio signals–had existed for 25 years, Damadian was the first to successfully apply the physics of NMR to clinical medicine.

In 1971, Damadian demonstrated for the first time that the MR signal could overcome one of medicine's longstanding deficiencies – the inability of the x-ray to create the contrast needed to see the body's vital organs. Citing this contrast deficiency in a paper published in Science, Damadian proposed that the profound differences between the decay rate of the MR signal of soft tissues and the decay rate of the MR signal of cancerous tissues had the potential to address this long-standing, critical need in medicine. He proposed the creation of a new body scanner based on the MR signal and on his discovery of the critical differences in the MR signals that existed among the body's vital tissues. The images of the interior of the human body that resulted from Damadian's work were far superior in detail to those of existing X-ray devices because the MR could generate the tissue contrast that was missing in x-ray pictures. This is of particular importance because the majority of fatal diseases occur within the body's soft tissue.

As with any groundbreaking invention, Damadian's MR scanner was met with great skepticism. "What I learned in the process of developing the MR scanner was that criticism is an integral part of the process and always has been," comments Damadian. "The bolder the initiative, the harsher the criticism."

Damadian, a violin student who left the Juilliard School of Music to pursue a medical education, first became interested in medicine at the age of ten, after witnessing his grandmother's pain and suffering from cancer. He chose medical research over clinical practice because he believed that carefully executed experiments could result in major medical contributions with the potential to benefit many people. Damadian felt that research would allow him to help many millions of people, rather than the thousands he would be able to beneficially reach in the day-to-day practice of medicine.

Today, Damadian oversees FONAR Corporation, the Melville, NY-based company he formed in 1978 to produce and market his MRI scanner. After twenty-three years in business, FONAR continues to research and develop, manufacture, sell and ship its own MRI scanners.

FONAR's recent MRI innovations include a full-sized MRI operating room that allows unrestricted 360-degree access to the patient and ample space for an entire surgical team and their equipment, and the Stand-Up MRI™– the only scanner to allow MRI patients to simply walk in and be scanned while standing. The revolutionary design of the Stand-Up MRI™ allows all parts of the body to be scanned in the weight-bearing position.

"Raymond Damadian's unwavering faith in his ideas enabled him to forge ahead amidst enormous skepticism, and to invent a machine that has transformed the field of diagnostic medicine. Jerry Lemelson would have been elated to see this 'inventor's inventor' being recognized through the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award," says Lester C. Thurow, Lemelson-MIT Prize Board chairman.

Other recipients of the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award include such distinguished inventors as Al Gross, wireless pioneer who invented the walkie-talkie and pager; Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar® (used in a variety of products from bullet-proof vests to airplane bodies); Wilson Greatbatch, creator of the implantable cardiac pacemaker (the first successful major biomedical device); and Gertrude Elion, innovator of drugs that combat cancer and facilitate organ transplantation between non-related donors.

The Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award is conferred annually by the Lemelson-MIT Program, which recognizes the nation's most talented inventors and innovators and promotes living role models in the fields of science, engineering, medicine and entrepreneurship in the hope of encouraging future generations to follow their example. Dr. Damadian will be formally presented with the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award on Wednesday, April 25, at a special ceremony at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. This year the ceremony will be held in conjunction with "Nobel Week," a series of programs honoring the centennial of the Nobel Prizes, hosted by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Lemelson-MIT Program was established in 1994 by the late independent inventor Jerome H. Lemelson and his wife, Dorothy. The Program celebrates inventor/innovator role models through outreach activities and annual awards, including the world's largest for invention–the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize. The Program is funded by the Lemelson Foundation, which supports other invention initiatives at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Hampshire College, the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and the University of Nevada, Reno. For more information about the Lemelson-MIT Program, please visit its Web site at http://web.mit.edu/invent or contact Kristin Joyce at (617) 253-3352.

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Argue with them. I merely note the attributions.

[Right Wing Professor]

The happiness, however, was short-lived. For some reason the judge, six weeks after the trial, ‘voided the jury’s verdict and substituted his own.’ Dr Damadian had lost. He says that after his company had spent $2.2 million in legal fees he learned the difficulties of a ‘little fellow’ inventing a BIG product.

The 'some reason' was that the basic idea for the machine was already in the open literature. You can't patent someone else's discovery. Poor Damadian never figued that out.

[f.Christian]

2 + 4(lies) + 18(ego/bias) -(minus) 68(truth/science) x 1M(evolution) = 2(master race/'science')!

Evilution algebra---calculus---logic---LAWS(none/license)!

[betty boop]

Hey hey! Lighten up on the name-calling, ladies!

LOL PH!!! You are very dear, so I wouldn't be calling you names. :^).

[AndrewC]

Web

Images

Groups

Directory

News-New!

Searched the web for mri inventor Lauterbur.

Results 1 - 10 of about 27. Search took 0.17 seconds.

MRI of PC. Lauterbur's Birthday Cake
... tribute to the inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and on the occasion

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Web

Images

Groups

Directory

News-New!

Searched the web for mri inventor Damadian.

Results 1 - 10 of about 299. Search took 0.26 seconds.

Raymond Damadian - Inventor of Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI
... MRI Inventor Raymond Damadian Raymond Damadian invented the magnetic resonance

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As far as I am concerned Damadian gets the title.

[Nebullis]

This is from Answers in Genesis, Darwininians are warned.

As far as I am concerned Damadian gets the title.

I understand why.

[Nebullis]

LOL. And I was wondering why you would take issue with such an inane point.

[AndrewC]

You can't patent someone else's discovery. Poor Damadian never figued that out.

US 6,414,490 B1

MRI magnet with enhanced patient entry and positioning

Timothy Damadian, Syosset, N.Y. (US); Gordon Danby, Wading River, N.Y. (US); Raymond V. Damadian, Woodbury, N.Y. (US); Hank Hsieh, Berkeley, Calif. (US); and James J. Persoons, East Northport, N.Y. (US)

Assigned to Fonar Corporation, Melville, N.Y. (US)

Filed on Feb. 21, 2001, as Appl. No. 9/789,460.

Claims priority of provisional application 09/789460, filed on Nov. 25, 1997.

Claims priority of provisional application 08/978084, filed on Nov. 21, 1997.

Claims priority of provisional application 08/975913, filed on Dec. 28, 1992.

Claims priority of provisional application 60/031610, filed on Nov. 27, 1996.

Claims priority of provisional application 60/032589, filed on Nov. 29, 1996.

Int. Cl.⁷G01V 3/00

U.S. Cl. 324—319

31 Claims

1. A magnetic resonance imaging magnet comprising:

(a) a magnet frame having a pair of pole faces spaced apart from one another along a horizontal pole axis and defining a patient-receiving space therebetween;

(b) supports holding said frame so that said pole axis is above a floor of a structure so that a patient may enter said patient-receiving space by moving across said floor of said structure;

(c) a magnetic flux generator operable to provide magnetic flux in said patient-receiving space; and

(d) an elevator for raising or lowering a patient relative to said frame, wherein said elevator has a platform and said elevator is arranged to move said platform into a patient boarding position wherein said platform is close to said floor so that a patient standing on said floor of said structure can step onto said platform or can be wheeled onto said platform on a wheeled carriage.

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A search of the patent office for Lauterber

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Your search did not return any documents. Please revise your search and try again.

[AndrewC]

LOL. And I was wondering why you would take issue with such an inane point.

Funny, yes. I did not bring up the name. I found out all about these two gentlemen today. If it was inane, blame RWP.

[Nebullis]

Apparently, the dates are meaningless for you. There are thousands of patents in MRI technology.

[Nebullis]

In other news, Jimmy Carter won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Peace.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

Now I follow, thank you. Actually, I don't disagree with this at all since I see the left as abandoning the uncertianty of democracy and majority rule for the assurance technocracy and expert rule.

152 posted on 9/10/02 12:17 PM Pacific by Liberal Classic

BTW...

do you know what exercising religous/philosophical/spiritual force/repression---

through political means is?