Biology Professor Refuses to Recommend Students Who Don't Believe in Evolution

Texas Tech ^ | January 29, 2003 | Michael Dini

[the_devils_advocate_666]

you should also believe that God doesn't make up fairy tails for our amusement and that Creation as described in Genesis is the literal truth.

"If the bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." -- William Jennings Bryan

[NativeNewYorker]

Please don't make assumptions about my faith based on your reading of the bible.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Then please enlighten me.

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

You haven't seen my cats patrol my garden. They like baby rabbits too. While inside they are the freindly little lap cats. Outside they are the Lords of all they survey. Mice, birds, rabbits, etc.

[NativeNewYorker]

A belief in the Theory of Evolution is as fundamental to a doctor as being able to ride a motorcycle. Useful, sure. Clinically useful, not really.

Is a belief in G-d "useful" but necessary to, for example, celebrate Mass? Or is command of Latin and ritual all that's necessary?

[Mamzelle]

"If you won't tapdance to please me, I'll keep your rear out of med school."

[Burkeman1]

I think anyone who believes the world is 8000 years old and that all of Man descended from Adam and Eve to be just as insane as those who say the Earth is flat.

Having said that however, I am less than convinced that millions of complex life forms emerged from some primordial sludge and believe evolutionary theory as it is now explained has major problems and contradictions that simply cannot be adressed without being labeled a "creationist".

[sleepy_hollow]

It is NOT the case that there is lots of physical evidence for evolution. Not a single transitional fossil has ever been documented. Any taht have been put forth have been debunked as problematic or outright frauds.

Also, it really is too bad that most people do not know how to engage in critical reasoning. For example, the professor uses the phrase "how do you think the human species originated". So if the question is one of belief, how can it also be scientific. Furthermore, he speaks of "good" science. Where does morality come in when we are dealing with evolution? I thought this was the whole point of evolutionary theory, namely that we are the result of random amoral processes. I just cannot help thinking that evolutionists are no more lucid than babbling street people. Their ability to twist reason and logic defies the very truth they claim to seek. I cannot say for sure whether evolution is true or not, but I know I cannot be convinced by the likes of this professor that it is an honestly arrived at intellectual position. It is clearly a matter of faith for him, the very notion he believes he is fending off with his ill-phrased litmus test- a test of nothing, but the way. Hmmm... How "scientific is he really being? Well, as a Christian, I guess I am not qualified to comment. I think I'll just go practice my religious "magic" some more.

[the_devils_advocate_666]

I think anyone who believes the world is 8000 years old and that all of Man descended from Adam and Eve to be just as insane as those who say the Earth is flat.

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." -- Martin Luther

[sleepy_hollow]

I am the Way and the Truth and the Light

- Jesus Christ

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Natural selection is as central to biology as belief in G-d is to, say, Judaism. I wouldn't go to a faithless rabbi. YMMV.

Natural Selection may be a central fact of biology, but it doesn't do the Evolutionist any good. Natural Selection is an essentially "conservative" force, not an "evolutionary" one.

If I have 50 red marbles made of glass and 50 blue marbles made of ice, and I put them all on a tray and let them sit in the hot sun for a few hours... at the end of the day the higher melting-point of the red marbles will result in their continuation as marbles, whereas the blue marbles will just have been selected out, eliminated. And, the demographic complexion of the marble population will have changed from "overall purple" to "overall red" due to this form of "natural selection".

But while the overall complexion of the population has indeed changed, no "evolution" has occurred. You still have the same red marbles with which you started... Natural Selection has conserved the "most fit" of what you had to start with, but you haven't anything new -- nothing "evolved".

Ah, then, "Random Mutations" you say? Well, now we're suddenly talking about a very different matter than testable, repeatable, well-proven Natural Selection. We're talking about the undocumented, unproven, and statistically-dubious (not to say ludicrous) idea of relatively-common "positive" germline mutations.

Insisting that a student exercise a blind faith in the "power of positive mutation" is a little bit different than expecting him to affirm the simple, proven Facts of Natural Selection.

If you believe basic biology is not central to "diagnostic and therapeutic prinicples", I can offer you no satisfactory explanation.

If you believe Evolutionism is of any utility value whatsoever in the actual practice of Medicine, I submit that we ask some actual Practicing Doctors, mmm?

Doc? Polycarp? Have either of you ever needed to call in Richard Dawkins or Steven Jay Gould to consult on a medical case?

[the_devils_advocate_666]

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace,
but a sword. -- Jesus, Matthew 10:34

[freedomcrusader]

Ok then, how is a belief in evolution necessary to the treatment of hypertension? Diabetes? Coronary artery disease?

Everything there is to know about hypertension includes thousands of basic biologic principles, but not a single one of them is evolution. Same for diabetes, coronary artery disease, insert name of disease here...

I can't think of a single diagnostic or therapeutic principle where evolution is a factor.

The flaw in your reasoning is that evolution is a RELEVANT basic biologic principle to the practice of medicine. It isn't. In any way.

[MattAMiller]

Given that creationists don't really understand biology I don't see why a biology professor ought to write them a letter of recomendation.

[the_doc]

Gould is dead. Dawkins is, too.

Think about that.

[ChemistCat]

HEY!

You guys want the Federal Government to force someone to write a letter of recommendation for someone he doesn't want to recommend? If this prof didn't want to recommend a student because that student wouldn't put guano on his head and dance nude around a Bunsen burner, that's his RIGHT! This is like your right not to hire an ugly cross-dresser with BO to be cashier in your small business! We HAVE to retain the right to free association and free speech, and that means the government can't force us to hang out with or write letters for people whose personal philosophies or behaviors offend us. Isn't it enough that we must sell houses and food, etc, to people we don't like? I think that's as far as the government ought to go in impinging on our Constitutional rights!

It's HIS freakin' speech and his right to recommend or not recommend someone, and I applaud him for making his criteria available up front. Want him to do a favor for you? Here's what you have to do before you will. Can't do what he wants? Find a professor with different criteria! Forcing him to recommend someone to something is WRONG! And far more wrong if it's the GOVERNMENT doing it!

Hang on and THINK about what you're doing before you FReep this guy.

I don't want the Feds imposing on First Amendment rights in this way!!!! This is NOT Constitutional!

--maybe descended from an ape and maybe not, but by GOSH I'm gonna use my bigger brain regardless!

[Right Wing Professor]

P.S. He states the case for the "evolution" of bacteria to become anti-biotic resistant. This evolution has been proven to be untrue. Specific bacteria strains have ALWAYS been resistant to antibiotics

Let me contradict you from direct experience. In an undergraduate biology lab I took 30 years ago, we exposed Bacillus subtilis ( I think) to a mutagen. We then plated it out on a penicillin agar. Colonies of penicllin-resistant bacteria grew on the agar. Without the mutagen, no colonies developed. So why did the strains of resistant bacteria only appear when they were mutated?

[applemac_g4]

"but it is easy to imagine how physicians who ignore or neglect the Darwinian aspects of medicine or the evolutionary origin of humans can make bad clinical decisions. The current crisis in antibiotic resistance is the result of such decisions."

This is absolute garbage. The antibiotic resistant bacteria predate the widespread commercial use of antibiotics. It's not that bacteria are developing a resistance to antibiotics - it's that the antibiotics are wiping out populations that don't have resistance which allow the resistant populations to thrive. Furthermore, the clinical decisions that lead to antibiotic resistance have nothing to do with either bacterial or human origins and have everything to do with antibiotic use in livestock and overprescribing them for use in the human population. In fact, nothing in clinical medicine is even remotely related to Darwin's theory.

Looks like another case of a ideological liberal bigot using his power to screw up the careers of those who might disagree with him.

Sounds like ttu.edu is a lousy place for pre-med freepers to go to school.

[Dimensio]

And I don't trust a doctor that doesn't believe that humans are the unique creation of a loving God.

Why, and do you require them to also believe in any specific attributes of this "God"?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

You guys want the Federal Government to force someone to write a letter of recommendation for someone he doesn't want to recommend?

Absolutely not.

If this prof didn't want to recommend a student because that student wouldn't put guano on his head and dance nude around a Bunsen burner, that's his RIGHT!

Absolutely so.

However, his right to be an Idiot, does not restrict my right to observe: he's an Idiot.