[matthew_the_brain]

. So much physical evidence supports the evolution of humans from non-human ancestors that one can validly refer to the "fact" of human evolution, even if all of the details are not yet known

[matthew_the_brain]

Freep this clown


michael.dini@ttacs.ttu.edu

[eshu]

Astronomy Professor Refuses to Recommend Students Who Don't Believe in Solar System

[NativeNewYorker]

Would you recommend someone for the clergy if they didn't believe in G-d or Christ?

[Blood of Tyrants]

First, don't waste your time with this bozo. He is a liberal and anti-Christian.

Why is the belief in evolution necessary to be a doctor? A good doctor treats the physical, mental, and spiritual being. It has also been proven that prayer is a powerful healing agent for ill patients.

IMHO, the lack of "treatment" of the spirtual being inside every one of us is the major cause of crime in the world.

[ml/nj]

I guess this guy wouldn't like me very much.

But I have a very short argument that I present as contradiction to evolution. When I made this argument to a professor at UVa this past fall when I visited there, he was speechless (and the student who was listening sort of stood there silently with his eyes bulging out of their sockets). I really wondered if he was going to keep teaching the class the following week.

ML/NJ

[Mr. Bird]

In my opinion, the guy gets points for outlining the criteria for getting a recommendation. I would venture that there are certain graduate programs out there that would look favorably on a letter from an applicant refusing to request a recommendation from this professor, because of his exhortation to denounce what one believes.

One could also just tell the guy what he wants to hear (you can still learn evolution without believing it) and get the recommendation. Much ado about nothing....

[Alouette]

I'd like to see what happens when the good professor turns down a request for recommendation of a Muslim student.

[frodolives]

Is there any potential employer impressed with a letter of recommendation from a kid's teacher? Not me.

[Maceman]

I don't have a problem with this at all.

Remember that science is only about what is scientific, not necessarily about what is true (not that I think creationism per se is true, although I do believe that God created the universe).

All scientific theories are subject to skepticism and/or rebuttal by scientific method. But if you are not using the scientific method to attack a well-accepted theory, you are not being scientific.

Perhaps someday science will discover through scientific methodology that the theory of evolution as generally understood is wrong, though I doubt it. After all, Newton's theories later gave way to Einstein's, because Newton began with an assumption that time and space are the same everywhere, which EInstein disproved.

But if I were a biology professor and someone asked me for a recommendation after telling me that that they didn't that there is a scientifc basis for the general theory of evolution, I too would be reluctant to give that person my endorsement.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[TankerKC]

I just wouldn't ask this guy for a personal reference.

[Glock22]

From personal experience I can say that belief in evolution is irrelevant to the practice of medicine. I have had many beleiving and nonbeieving colleagues of excellent caliber.

Evolution is a theory. Therefore skepticism is not irrational, as with all theories. Insistence that skepticism about evolution is unscientific is itself contrary to the practice of science. If you can't tolerate having a theory questioned, you aren't much of a scientist.

[jjm2111]

It's just one professor. So what? Besides isn't evolution a fact? What's the big deal?

[MEGoody]

Big deal - so the prof won't give you a letter if you don't say the right phrases. So learn the phrases, spew them back, and you've got your recommendation. He can't control what someone believes, and it's not his place to try.

[stuartcr]

It's his class, and his recommendation.