[wideawake]

"Good scientists would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs," he writes.

Then no good scientist can be a doctrinaire evolutionist, by his definition.

[BibChr]

Gee, enlightened, open-minded, scientific, non-religious people don't do this sort of thing! This is... this is a, INQUISITION! Only religious people do that!!

< blistering sarcasm >

Dan

[borisbob69]

What I've never understood is the fact it takes sooooo much more faith to believe in the (theory) of evolution than it does to accept the Biblical story of creation, and yet the anti-God crowd mocks us for our beliefs and our faith!

[Steve_Seattle]

I sympathize with the student, but no one has a legal right to a letter of recommendation from anyone. In this specific instance, the professor might simply think that a supporter of creationism is not upholding rigorous scientific standards.

[Theyknow]

This may be a matter of free speech. If the students don't follow what he teaches then he can't very well recommend them, can he? If the situation were reversed I wouldn't expect the Creationist to recommend a student who didn't believe.

[Theyknow]

This may be a matter of free speech. If the students don't follow what he teaches then he can't very well recommend them, can he? If the situation were reversed I wouldn't expect the Creationist to recommend a student who didn't believe.

[ClearCase_guy]

I confess that I did not go to the link. But it seems to me that this issue is not about Freedom of Religion or Freedom of Speech. It seems like its about forcing someone to speak in your behalf even when they feel that you are not worthy of support.

Maybe the Professor should write letter of recommendation like: "Joe does not have the makings of a scientist. He is incapable of logical thought and does not adequately recognize scientific proof versus wishful-thinking. He cannot grasp complex data and jumps to unwarranted conclusions far too rapidly. I suspect he is fit for a low-level clerical job with the government, but nothing more stenuous."

Now, I consider myself a Creationist (or at least an anti-evolutionist) but if this Professor feels as he does, then I think he would be justified in writing such a scathing letter. He is being kind if he is attempting to dodge that task.

[LiteKeeper]

Point of Order: AP is just breaking this story that has been around for over two weeks. Nice that they can get on board.

YEC

[Cicero]

My first reaction was to get angry at the professor, because I think the General Theory of Evolution is scientific hogwash.

But given his beliefs, I think he has a perfect right to refuse recommendations.

Just consider the alternative, which would have been to agree to write recommendations, and then secretly write bad ones. That happens all too often. Much better that he is open about it.

How can you force someone to write a recommendation he doesn't believe in? Most courts are very reluctant to get involved in academic matters like this, and hopefully the lawsuit will go nowhere. I sympathize with the students, but this isn't the right answer.

[OperationFreedom]

His career needs to be hung by the balls

[B. Rabbit]

This isn't about creationism versus evolutionism. This is about freedom. Do you want to force this man to write glowing reports about these students? No matter how you see the theories of evo or creationism, what kind of society would we be if people could force professors to write whatever we wanted them to about students?

What these students and the groups supporting them are doing is a liberal tactic.

[Kryptonite]

Have you seen this disturbing report?

[coloradan]

An unasked question: Why would a creationist student ask for a letter of recommendation from an evolutionist teacher in the first place? It's like a pacifist asking a letter from the ROTC instructor.

[sphinx]

The professor is wrong. First and foremost, belief in evolution is irrelevant to most advanced courses of study in "the biomedical field." Certainly it is irrelevant what physicians may think on the subject. Nor do I see why it makes a difference to research scientists in most fields. The prof is simply imposing a substantively irrelevant religious test.

If the professor feels strongly enough about it, his proper course of action would be to write a straightforward recommendation and then express his concern in an explanatory postscript. This, of course, would make the professor look small, which is probably why he doesn't handle it this way.

[Right Wing Professor]

As I've written elsewhere, my policy (which I've never had to apply) is simply to note in the letter that the student has creationist beliefs, since this is likely to be relevant to certain medical fields, and let the Med. School make its own decision. But the faculty member is well within his rights. Creationists want to enjoy the fruits of modern biology while denying its foundations. Modern medicine is become increasingly genome-based. The genome makes no sense except in the context of evolution.

Is it religious discrimination to deny an Amish a job as a truckdriver because he won't drive a vehicle fueled by an interal combustion engine?

[IowaHawk]

In what bizarro universe is a student entitled to a letter of recommendation? Where a professor is obligated by a court to recommend them?

I normally laugh when I hear Christian Conservatives likened to Islamic mullahs. A story like this makes gives me pause, though.

[Right Wing Professor]

"Just 'cos I think 2 plus 2 equals 5, that's no reason to keep me out of accounting" ping.

[the_devils_advocate_666]

"Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot therefore be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of [hu]mankind trained from infancy to believe in error." -- Robert Owen

[Heartlander]

“As an example, read the following caution that comes from a recent syllabus for a science education class at a major U.S. university”:

Cautions about sources and topics
Never cite a religious science source such as ICR, Answers in Genesis, or anything else like that. It is easy to recognize these groups. They are virulently anti-evolution. This caution also extends to the new ID (Intelligent Design) movement - another anti-evolutionary charade. These people are 95% wrong. As for the other 5%, no answer is known so they make up things that are not supported by experimentation. More than 100 years of rigorous investigations in fields from biology to geology have proven evolution as a fact. The debate is about mechanisms and it is a vigorous one. This debate is the theory part of evolution. You will be penalized for citing anti-evolutionary material. It is not science. If the thesis of your paper is anti-evolutionary (akin to arguing against the germ theory of disease or against the atomic theory of matter) you will receive a failing grade. Scientific journals do not publish papers with creationist and ID themes. I will certainly not accept them.

Source

”Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity. “

“We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history.

May he guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.
-President Bush's State of the Union address to the nation on January 28, 2003

[arm958]

It's the theory of evolution, not the law of evolution for a reason. I'm amazed at how man so-called scientists can be so blind.