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Irrelevant, for the aforementioned reasons - The recommendation is by definition private.

Then why can't a professor at a public institution say a prayer at graduation? There is no requirement from the university that says he must, he can give a prayer as a private citizen.

An excellent question! I make the distinction because graduation is a right of all (passing) students, no matter what their religious beliefs. Therefore, when the professor addresses the crowd, they have no choice but to hear, whether they want to or not - That is what is people find objectionable.

In the case of the recommendation, on the other hand, the student need never be affected by the professor's own personal biases, with respect to religion, since they are not required to ask for his recommendation.

The fact that the student is a customer of the university and the professor uses his offical title when he signs the letter indicates that this is an act related to his job as a Professor. If this man were not a Professor, his recommendation would be meaningless.

Absolutely! The act of writing the recommendation is certainly related to his position, and that position gives the recommendation more weight than if the this man was not a professor.

I really can't see a court finding that this is a private act.

Why? Being related to one's position in some way is not the same as being a duty of that position. For instance, if I ask a professor to come into a courtroom or come on the nightly news and give his opinion on some issue or other, of course I am asking him because he is Professor so-and-so, a very important man in his field, from the prestigious such-and-such University. But I am still just asking his opinion, and he is giving it freely, as a private citizen, because someone is asking for it. A recommendation is a statement of opinion, not fact, and the student is asking for a favorable opinion; we cannot dictate the opinions of others. That's why it's a personal recommendation - To state the facts of one's qualifications would not require the professor's help at all.

Besides if it is so private and not related to his job, why is his critera posted on the university web site?

We agree that it is related to his job, which is one reason for justifying it being there. With that said, there are many, many faculty, staff, and students who put personal information and opinions, both related to their field and completely unrelated, on University server space, so that it is there doesn't really imply much, either way...

Thanks for reading, and for your response!

DFS

GB,

Sincerely now, I am not at all perfect, nor do I claim to be, but I have tried to keep things reasonable. I have tried to use humor, rather than attacking your conclusions, though not always succesfully, clearly, and I have tried to be as forthcoming as possible. I've readily admitted that you have been right, and I wrong, in a number of cases, and I have attempted to apologize appropriately. I am sorry if I have offended you in any way, shape or form, and I have also tried to give you due praise for taking the time and energy to write to me. We agree on a number of points, as well, so I don't see why this needs to get unpleasant - You and I are not so different as you might think, and I really have not been trying to be condescending here!!

Now, if this debate is going to turn into a series of personal attacks, you're right, it is better that we stop, because I don't want to participate in that - It will not benefit either of us.

I'm not going to use quotes, as I usually do, because clearly I've upset you by doing this. I will summarize, hoping that you will not take offense to anything in here, because I am sincerely trying to be as reasonable as possible.

• 0.000000000000000....0000001 is, by definition, a non-zero number. A limit expression involves an asymptotic approach to a value. They are not the same; no math text will tell you otherwise.

• In order to disprove any theory, counter-evidence must be produced. Therefore, I apologize, but I cannot consider the argument that part or all of the theory of evolution is false until you explicitly state what part(s) of the theory are demonstrably false, and give evidence. I do not make a claim that such counter-evidence does not exist, but I will not take it on faith, as that would be unscientific.

• The idea that we are "presumed innocent until proven guilty" does indeed apply, because the professor is being accused of discrimination in a legal sense, and is under federal investigation.

• Science is about explaining the physical word around us. Since God existed before the physical world was created, He is not a part of it, therefore science cannot study Him - Nor can it say anything about His existence or non-existence. To do so would by definition be unscientific.

• Darwin's "Origin of the Species" is indeed relevant, not only because it is the text that "started it all", but because it shows a perspective whereby evolution and the idea of a Creator are reconciled. You have told me that evolution denies the existence of a Creator; this shows that this need not be so, regardless of the supposition of any number of modern scientists to the contrary (which, we agree, is wrong).

• Scientists are human beings, just like you and I, and as I have pointed out, the vast majority of them, here and in Europe, believe in God. Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, as well as Behe and Dimski. Therefore, I can only accept the idea that science "wanted" to dispose of the idea of a Creator if it can be supported somehow.

• You're absolutely right - You can discriminate in any way you see fit, in your private life, just as Dr. Dini can, when giving his private recommendation. I only said that it would be illegal and immoral because I thought we were talking about criteria for admission to medical school; if this is not the case, then we are in agreeement - I apologize for the misunderstanding!

• Regarding euthanasia and evolutionists, I think I have understood what you're saying - And again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I think it's this (please correct me if I'm wrong): You would not want to bring your business to a doctor who you believe would be more likely to support the idea of euthanasia or abortion, if you had a choice, and you believe that those doctors who accept the theory of evolution are more likely to give such support to ideas that you find morally reprehensible - NOT that you're afraid of them doing anything to you. To me, that makes logical sense, and fits with your previous statements regarding your right to choose a doctor. I agree with that principle, and you are correct, you're absolutely free to do so, whether I agree with your assumptions or not.

• I am not aware of any cases in the US or Denmark where someone has been euthanised against their will. I certainly hope this has not been the case - This would horrifying, and I would never want this to happen!!! But I am simply ignorant of these events - If you have any references, I'm totally willing to read them (I would say I'd be "glad" to read them, but I could not ever be glad, reading about such a thing).

• I am not going to enter into an abortion debate here - This is a very controversial topic, and a very important one, on that, we agree. I also agree that, if I had my way, no one would ever be inclined to get an abortion. As you say, however, this is a wearisome task as it is, and entering into this debate would make it a thousand times more so. In addition it is not necessary to address the issues at hand - So in that respect, again, I apologize for having caused it to be brought up.

• The fact remains that Dr. Dini is not required to give his recommendation except by his own free will - Just as you are not required to recommend a doctor whose beliefs you do not agree with, even if that eventually hurts that doctor's business. The student has no right to a recommendation; they must earn it, by earning the respect of the professor. If they have not done so, for whatever reason, that's the end of the issue; we can condemn the professor for his criteria, but we cannot force the professor to give a recommendation, or it is meaningless, nor can we justify suing him, since he has not denied them something he is required to give. In the end, the choice to give a recommendation must be the professor's alone, and that makes it a very private matter.

• That a student can get a recommendation may or may not be possible, depending on the exact situation - To say it would be impossible would be just as false as saying it would always be possible. At any rate, the number of other professors willing to give a student a recommendation should not enter into a professor's decision to give his.

• I find the assumption that his recommendation is required to get into medical school to be incorrect. I have friends in medical school, and I know how they got in; the presence or absence of a particular professor's recommendation is not a make-or-break thing, and while a good recommendation can certainly help, a lot more goes into it than that. Therefore, the rest of that argument does not follow.

I do not mean to be condescending with any of the above, and again, I am sorry if I have been in the past. I understand that you're getting frustrated - I think we both are. If we continue this, however, I need to make sure that things will remain civil, that we will not resort to calling each other names or dismissing each other's ideas as BS. I am trying very hard to ensure that this is so, though I am by no means perfect and will surely fail, given enough time. Can I count on you to do the same?

I do hope so, because I honestly would like to get somewhere on this, if possible. In addition, I would like your recommendations on specific articles to read in those links you sent me - I will be happy to read them, and share my thoughts with you, if that's helpful. My whole idea here is not to get you angry or upset or frustrated, because I would not want someone to get me angry or upset or frustrated - I would just like to discuss this, to the best of my ability. If we disagree in the end, I can accept that - That's the nature of life, and if we agreed on everything all of the time, the world would be a pretty boring place. But again, just keep in mind that I am not out to get you, even when my presentation may not be the best - I sincerely do regret those instances, because obviously if I get you upset or frustrated, it will be much harder for us to reach some sort of common ground (which I do believe exists, at least in some cases).

I hope you agree with this - But again, you are free to do as you will - I also do not want to cause you undue frustration, or waste your time, so if you decide that it's time to end it, I will respect that. Thanks for reading,

DFS

You are assuming a premise that has not been established. I DON'T know evolution not to be a religion. My experience has indicated otherwise.

Is your experience with a small number of people who accept the theory of evolution sufficient to judge everyone with the same inclination?

Like any religion, there are fanatics, true believers, faithful followers, lukewarm accepters, agnostics and athiests. The level of "faith" required to accept evolution as the "best scientific explanation" is similar to the faith of a regigious devotee.

An objective scientist, when properly applying the scientific method, accepts or rejects a theory based on the evidence he or she has. Of course, scientists are people too, and they aren't necessarily objective 100% of the time. If you're arguing that not one person has ever accepted evolution based on an objective judgement, however, that claim is unsupportable.

One of the scientists I mentioned earlier - I believe it was William Demski - has established that the probability of life as we know it occuring through evolution to be so minute that it could accurately be considered a mathematical impossibility.

LOL! He's "established" it? That's awesome! In order to make an accurate estimate of that probability in the first place, here's a sampling of just a few of the things I would first need to know:

• The chemical definition of "life" (i.e. the endpoint of a "succesful" life-creating reaction)

• A full accounting of the materials available for use in such a reaction at all times in the history of the planet, as well as their relative locations and the external conditions.

• A full accounting for every possible chemical reaction that these materials could undergo, and accurate statistics describing the products under all relevant conditions.

...and that's just for earth, not even taking into account the possibility of other planets capable of sustaining some sort of life-producing reaction(s) and a full description of the materials and conditions present on those planets. Over all time. Your faith in science is impressive indeed :)

But let's ignore the above, and assume that his estimate of an extremely small probability for the creation of life is accurate. Here's a mathematical summary of this logic:

0.0000000000....00000001 = 0

Now, I think we can all agree that this much money deposited into our bank accounts wouldn't be something to get excited about. That doesn't make the above statement true, however, and the fact that this man happens to be a scientist makes the statement no less inaccurate. Here is a more accurate statement:

Any event with a non-zero probability is sure to occur, given enough time.

If what you've said is true, then Dr. Demski has already demonstrated that the probability of evolution occurring "by chance" (Who says this assumption is accurate? Maybe a higher power set the process in motion :) is non-zero. That implies then implies that it's just a matter of time.

Except - the scientists I mention, almost all began with the assumption that evolution was true. It was through their pursuit of evidence and mathematical probabilities that they became convinced that macro-evolution could not possible be true.

Who they are or how they came to a particular conclusion is wholly irrelevant - That doesn't make the conclusion any more or less valid or supportable.

In my experience, the evolutionist begins with an assumption that creation cannot be true, so an alternate theory is required. The former follows the method of the scientist, the later the path of the true-believer.

I'm sorry you've had that experience! I must return to my initial question, however: Is your experience with a small number of people who accept the theory of evolution sufficient to judge everyone with the same inclination?

Regardless of the method used by the intelligent designer - the presence of "designer" and "design" runs contrary to the foundational premises of evolution.

What, in your view, are these foundational premises of evolution? Just so I can be clear with respect to what we're talking about here.

Such a wedding of creation and evolution - the designer used evolution to achieve the desired end - is used only to satisfy those who are uncomfortable declaring either to be untrue.

...someone, for instance, who believes in God and the Bible, and who has also looked at the scientific evidence for evolution, made an objective judgement of it, and accepted the theory? You're absolutely right :)

But they are the accomodation of one who believes first that there was a creator.

...and never the other way around? Never ever ever? Can you be completely sure? :)

This was not intended by me to prove evolution wrong, only to show the passion and commitment of mainstream evolutionists to their faith.

I agree that many scientists act with passion and commitment to the goal of helping mankind, and that they can sometimes overdo it and lose their objectivity. But science, by definition, precludes faith. Faith among scientists, therefore, is mostly restricted to the religious variety, with some admittedly unfortunate exceptions.

These discredited "proofs" continue to be used today by most jr. high and high school textbooks to bolster the theory.

When and where have they been discredited? "Even" in the scientific community, there are plenty of religious people; if it was so obvious that the theory was completely wrong, why would there be any debate at all?

This is quite different from the odd crackpot promoting false evidence. This is the evolution establishment continuing to promote false evidence as true.

Let's be clear, I'm not arguing for the _absolute_ truth of the evidence, because such a concept is alien to science - But what evidence do you find to be demonstrably false, to the best of our scientific understanding?

I refer you to these several articles by Dembski (I confess, I have not read his articles in their entirety - but I have read several excepts and synopses) http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/menus/articles.html

Thanks! But there are 38 articles here, not all of which appear to pertain to the issue at hand. Is there anything in particular that you could recommend, that best sums things up? It's not that I'm unwilling, but this becomes a rather sizeable project :)

Also you might find the following of interest - some is more "God" focused, but there are several articles and discussions of evolution and design. http://www.origins.org/menus/debates.html

Again, thanks for the links! Along the same lines as before, though, if you could recommend some that pertain specifically to the matters at hand, that would be really helpful - I'm not trying to prove or disprove the existence of God, and in fact I don't think you can do either of those things (hence faith). I just want to ensure that, between these readings and "real life", I can come back and respond in a timely fashion.

The situation of a Catholic school, established and maintained for the specific purpose of educating and training Catholic scholars is clearly different than that of of a typical university.

I agree - But that would of course depend on what one takes the role of a typical university to be. Hypothetically speaking, if a well-respect university had a very, very strong program in evolutionary biology that lots of people wanted to be part of and that had a major influence on the course of scientific debate in the field, depending on their methods, that could blur the lines a bit, don't you think?

This is a complete mischaracterization of my position - I contend that evolution is religion. Evolution and Science are NOT equivilant terms. If I have used "science" instead of "evolution" it was in error.

Thanks for clarifying - Sorry for the misunderstanding! I'm definitely glad to hear you do not characterize the whole of science in this fashion.

Now, to the idea that evolution is a religion - I think we agree (though by all means correct me if I'm wrong) that evolutionary biology, anthropolgy, etc. are parts of science - Branches, fields, whatever you like. And we clearly agree that science and religion are two different things. Therefore, since evolutionary biology or anthropology or whatever is a field of scientific inquiry (even if not everyone treats it as such), it must not be a religion. That is not to say that some people do not abuse the conclusions this or any other field of science, by proclaiming their results to be "fact" or "truth" - This, sadly, is human nature, and scientists are less susceptible to arrogance than the rest of us - But hopefully we can agree that the scientific study of evolution is not a religion. What do you think?

Training in and teaching of the theory is one thing, demanding BELIEF in the theory is another thing entirely.

I agree! Demanding unquestioning belief (i.e. faith) in any scientific theory is not science - Rather, it attempts to turn the theory into a religion, which is both unscientific and improper.

You will find that I have never objected to the teaching of the theory.

Excellent! I'm also really glad to hear that. I think we're making some progress! I at least feel like I understand where you're coming from a lot more now, which is good.

My objection is the teaching of the theory of evolution as fact and as the ONLY acceptable, scientific explanation of the origins of life.

Fair enough. What other testable and supportable scientific explanations should we include?

Whatever your answer is, if it is both scientifically testable and supportable, we will be in absolute agreement - It should be included. This is actually true not just of evolution but of a lot of other subjects, taught at many levels, sadly - Not to in any way downplay the matter at hand, which is of clear importance - But it's the state of things, I fear :(

We really need to work a lot harder, in general, on good texts from which to teach, especially when it comes to teaching children, because they are still in the process of developing critical thinking skills, and therefore they are much less able to question what is being taught to them. This means we must be really careful to make sure that what we are teaching is as good an explanation as we have. This becomes more difficult when trying to teach something controversial, of course, because the explanation may not be settled upon - To be honest, I don't know what the best way to handle this is.

Again, you mischaracterize my position.

Sorry!

The evolution establishment (if I can use that term)

:) Only if you want to hear terms like "the Creationism establishment" or "the Christian establishment" - The choice is yours. I'd like to think that it's fairer to consider that people within such a large and vague category would be subject to variances in opinion - Not all Christians think alike, for instance - But if you disagree, that's OK too.

routinely rejects the idea of intelligent design, not because of its science or lack there-of, but because of its conclusions.

Honestly, I have not seen examples of this - Though again, I am sorry you've had this experience! I am certainly open to any evidence that you may have, specifically relevant to the idea of a pervasive bias, rather than individual bias. What I am uncomfortable with, however, is the idea that the entire scientific community, within a single area of study, has uniformly and completely lost its objectivity on this issue - Especially since I think it's fair to say that the majority of the scientists involved in such work, i.e. in the US and Europe, are Christians. I'm not even saying that it's impossible - But I'll need some significant evidence before I accept the idea.

My assumption that this professor will reject such a belief on it's face, is an assumption - but I am certain that it is accurate. Given his statement and position.

Well, now, let's be scientific :) You can't really be "certain". But with that said, I have a feeling you're probably right. The point is that, until that happens, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty...

Re: "false criteria". It is false in that it is sophistry. When the debate should include all theories of origin, and they should be rejected on the basis of the evidence

Absolutely.

- certain positions are rejected by definition - "not science" - instead of by evidence. THIS, the unsupported rejection of a theory, is the use of a false criteria - not any theory in itsself.

Also true. Now, here is the problem: If we have an evolutionary biologist, and he or she evaluates what scientific evidence we have, and comes to accept the theory of evolution as reasonable, how do we know that they have done so based on an objective judgement, versus a simple dismissal of the idea as being "unscientific"?

To look at it another way: Should we ask science to endorse the idea of a Creator, when the existence of God (Christian or otherwise - We must remember that not everyone agrees on this, either) can be neither proved nor disproved? While science cannot deny things outside the scope of scientific inquiry, neither can it endorse them... Similarly, we should not look to science, Dr. Demski or no Dr. Demski, to "prove" or somehow validate the idea of Creation. It is not in the power of science to do this, nor is it all relevant to religious faith - The word itself implies that no proof or validation is needed except on the part of the believer! We must ensure that the religious do not look to science for validation of their faith (because it is not there that faith will be validated), just as we must ensure that scientists do not look to their own field as a means of addressing religious ideas.

This is another straw man argument. The concept of "micro-evolution" is not, and has not been the basis of our disagreement - it is "macro-evolution", which is at issue.

Actually, our disagreement has been over an until recently vague term we refer to as "evolution" :) I would argue that the micro/macro distinction is an artificial one, in any case, due to our necessarily human perceptions of time and space. Consider this hypothetical: The existence of beings who live to be 100 million years old and are 6 million feet tall (this is approximately how we would look to a bacterium). If these gigantic and extremely long-lived beings were observing us, how do you suppose they would make that distinction? To them, over their lifespan, the (alleged) evolution of humans would look to be just as fast, and just as insignificant, as the evolution of a single bacterium does to us.

I know that there's more to it than that, that people draw the distinction not only by size, but by the generation of new species, versus genetically heritable adaptations within a species, but again I would argue that a lot of this also stems from our perceptions - The (alleged) generation of a new species would be a much, much slower process, from our standpoint, and therefore much less obvious to us, if it were happening.

That aside, however, I'll go with your distinction. Would you be comfortable with a criterion requiring the student to accept the idea of microevolution? I think I know your answer, and it's good to be explicit and pare down the argument to its essentials, but I don't want to assume anything on your part, either.

Do you assume that a belief in creation and an acceptance of the theory of evolution are mutually exclusive?"

Yes - of course, unless you are speaking of the theory of creation by use of evolution or intelligent design using evolution as a tool...which denies the "accidental" feature of evolution which is central to the theory. Claiming that a creator used evolution to achieve his ultimate creation is denying the driving force of the evolution position.

I'm going to quote you a passage from Darwin's "Origin of the Species" (which you can all read, here):

To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretel that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection. (C. Darwin)

Now, let's talk about what you just said :)

"...and I think it would be a mistake, and an insult to doctors everywhere, and a second-guessing of the Hippocratic oath, to imply that acceptance of the theory of evolution in any way dilutes how much a doctor values human life. It seems like this is what you are saying, but I hope I am mistaken."

You are not mistaken. That is exactly what I mean, and intend to mean. It is a consideration, not an ultimate criterion.

It must be neither, or we discriminate against people based solely on their beliefs, which is not only immoral but illegal.

I believe that the majority of abortionist and euthenasiaists are "evolutionists", not "creationists".

Even if that is true (there's no way we can know), does that mean that acceptance of the theory of evolution causes euthanesia and abortion? That'd be like saying that the internet creates pedophiles...

Furthermore, I believe that I have a better chance of being "compassionately terminated" by the ministrations of an evolutionist than by those of a practicing Christian (to name a specific type of Creationist) doctor. THAT is why it is important to me, and relevant.

So you think than a doctor who accepts the theory of evolution will, all religious beliefs and the Hippocratic Oath aside, be more likely to kill you against your will?

"Maybe, maybe not - What if they take their Biology degree and go into, well, Evolutionary Biology?"

Now you are being silly. If they go into micro-biology, this is an irrelevant criterium,

On the contrary, this is quite relevant - It comes down to the seperability of the term "evolution" into macroevolution and microevolution. This is not only important because Dr. Dini is clearly mixing the two, but because, all assumptions aside, you and I have not yet reached an agreement on the nature of this separation. The "micro-" aspects, if you want to term things that way, are certainly relevant to microbiology, and that acceptance of at least that part of the theory of evolution would therefore be relevant. In other words, this is only silly if I make the same assumptions you do :)

if they go into macro-biology they will develope their understanding and belief in the theory through that course of study. It is not necessary to believe in evolution as the origin of life in order to study Evolutionary Biology.

I'm talking about an acceptance of the theory of evolution as the best current explanation, based on the evidence at hand - Not a belief in evolution. If evolutionary biology is a bad example, we can try anthropology, for instance. But let's be more general. Is the theory of evolution relevant to some field of scientific inquiry?

"...if he rejects a well-supported alternative theory, then we can bring him to task, but not before."

His very statement "chills" alternate presentations.

We agree that his presentation is not the best - And we're certainly free to dislike the man as a result - But again, we have to go with "Innocent until proven guilty". To the best of our knowledge, he has never rejected an alternate, scientific explanation for the origins of man that is both testable and supportable.

In response to your friends statements I only offer this: Is the professor acting in his capacity as a professor of a public institution when he recommends for graduate work - I submit that he is.

No. He is giving his private recommendation - Neither the public nor all of his students are granted such a recommendation automatically. If he gave no recommendations at all (some professors don't), he would still be fulfilling his obligations as a professor.

If he is acting as a private citizen, he has the luxury of using whatever criteria he chooses for whatever purposes he wants.

Exactly!

As an employee of a public institution,

Irrelevant, for the aforementioned reasons - The recommendation is by definition private.

and as a gatekeeper to further advancement, he is bound by honor and ethics, if not law, to use only relevant criteria to deny advancement.

Here we agree. But not having his recommendation does not constitute denying advancement. Giving the student a bad grade would. We cannot talk about him "depriving" a student of something he's neither willing nor obligated to give them in the first place.

Using another professor for this recommendation may not be possible. When faced with this situation, there are usually a small group of recommendors available - their selection being made much earlier in the shaping of one's course of study. It is not necessarily possible to get the recommendation of another biology professor - if most of one's study and research has been done under a single professor...this is the one who should give a recommendation. A not unlikely occurance.

All true! Should the number of other professors able to give the student a recommendation have any relevance at all, with respect to a professor's decision to give his own?

Thanks for taking the time - That was a long one!

DFS

One can treat different statements of truth consistently.

I agree! But we're back to the assumption that the Scripture was meant to be taken as the literal truth :) If, hypothetically, it were not meant to be taken in this way, all of the time, we should be careful.

That aside, though, I come back to the crucial distinction I made between science and religion, with respect to the idea of faith. That we must make such a distinction shows that we are talking about two different realms, with different standards of judgement.

Your use of the word "truth" as an absolute further emphasizes this point - As we've discussed before, there aren't any absolute truths in science, only our current, best supported theories. This is in contrast to religion, where anyone of a particular faith will believe in the truth of their religion, as they perceive it. Note the differences in both language and the implications of the language. This is why we must make distinctions.

In regards to South American, Egyptian and other civilizations, Scripture also records the Word of God in speaking of prehistoric issues, before Adam, and before the formation of the our domain. The precepts of Scripture were formed in eternity past. Far earlier than any scientific applicability.

Absolutely! The events described in the Scriptures go back to the beginning of time, hence Creation. But that's not quite the same as what you were saying previously:

Scripture has been around longer than science.

The Scriptures themselves do not predate science, even if the events described therein do (granted, "may" may be a better word, depending on when God created science, but that isn't written ;) Hope that clears up what I meant - Granted, it's an important distinction.

Thanks for reading,

DFS

A man dedicated to truth will not only attempt to understand the truth of his limited domain, but also normalize it or place it in respective context of other known truth.

Absolutely. And I agree with your prior comments as well - Certainly there's good science and, well, not so good science :) And supportable theories, and unsupportable ones. It is also very important, as you point out, for all of us to recognize the limits of any particular means of understanding the world, be it scientific inquiry, religious faith, etc. Just as the Bible cannot tell us the mass of an electron, science cannot tell us whether God exists or not. Yet science and religion are both of the utmost importance to us, and they both affect our daily lives.

Scripture has been around longer than science.

Here I must respectfully disagree. Numerous constructions around the world, like the Great Pyramids in Egypt, various Aztec and Inca structures in Latin and South America, and constructions like stonehenge (just to name a few) show that a number of pre-Christian cultures had significant knowledge of science (with respect to the precise astronomical alignment of many of these structures) and engineering (with respect to the ability to build them).

But again, "who's been around longer" doesn't really matter, anyway - If the Bible had been written yesterday, its message would be no less important.

Any professional in the sciences who refuses to consider science on a consistent fashion with Scripture lacks the wherewithal so vital to the professional.

...but how can we treat scientific inquiry and the scripture in the same fashion? Of course we should try to be as fair and objective as possible in all of our judgements, but I'm not sure how much further we can go with this parallel... As we've talked about, and I think we agree, science and religion are two different realms that tell us about two different things, so at some point we have to distinguish the two. Simply based on the idea of faith alone, which is as out of place in science as it is necessary to religion, we can see that the two should not be treated in an identical fashion... I'm not sure I see your point here...

For this reason, good ground exists to deny the professor authority in the domain of science

...you mean we should fire him? How shall we deny him authority in the domain of science? I'm not sure what this implies...

since he displays antagonism towards his fellow professionals

:) If we're going to sack anyone who antagonizes their fellow professionals, be they scientists or otherwise, we're gonna run out of professionals really fast...

and seekd to limit future professionals to only those who reject the knoeldge of others.

I agree that it would be a shame to bring up a generation of scientists who would dismiss without serious consideration any well-supported theory. And again, I think if Dr. Dini was presented with a well-supported alternative to the theory of evolution, and refused to even consider it, then we would have something to talk about... But this is not what he has done, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

I also agree, (see above), that his presentation could be better in this respect. Even though it may not seem like it, I think he is actually trying to encourage the opposite of this rejection you're talking about, by showing the necessity of objective thought.

If we are truly objective in making scientific judgements, we will never reject out of hand a well-supported theory - Whether we "like" the implications or not is irrelevant. I really believe that this is the point he is trying to make, which is actually the same point you're making! There's nothing wrong with that principle, and in fact I think we can agree that it is vital to scientific inquiry.

Thanks for reading,

DFS

...so I recently talked to another religious friend of mine about this whole issue, and I think he made a good point, that I think has changed my stance on the issue somewhat:

He agrees that Dr. Dini has the right to set his criteria however he wants, and that people can choose to go to other professors for a recommendation if they are unhappy with this.

He agrees that, as scientists, we have a responsibility to draw the most well-supported scientific conclusions, even if the implications make us uncomfortable or go against a deeply held belief, religious, scientific, or otherwise.

BUT, he thinks that the criterion involving the origins of man, as stated, is one that could conceivably alienate people who might otherwise be good scientists.

This, I can agree with, and in that respect I see problems with the criterion of maximum objectivity, in its purest form - Not because of its lack of validity, because I think it's always relevant - But because of the presentation, and the specific and (to some) controversial example chosen, in this particular case, and the likely result.

As my friend said, even if Dr. Dini wanted to do this, he should be able to make this judgement and even achieve the same results, in the end, if he were so inclined, by sitting down and talking with someone and making up his mind that way. It's not really necessary to explicitly state it in this form, 'cause you're not likely to win over anyone by doing so (and, from a self-serving standpoint, you avoid getting sued this way).

He also agreed that a federal lawsuit and the expenditure of a few million in taxpayer's money is a ridiculous response, and that our money would be much better spent elsewhere.

Comments? Thoughts?

DFS

Teacher Joan Bokaer has a column in the Ithaca Journal in which she defends the professor on "the right of professors to write references to whomever they choose."

It sounds, from your comments following this quotation, that Ms. Bokaer has taken things too far, which is not a big surprise, as you point out, considering how liberal things tend to be in Ithaca.

With that said, however, I think we do have to ask whether professors have this right or not - And if not, what do we do? Can we really force them to write recommendations they don't want to write? And how meaningful would they be?

What do you think?

DFS

OK, last one [phew] :)

Military History eh?

Yup! Compelling stuff... I must admit we didn't spend as much time on the Civil War as we might've, the series of classes I took mainly focueds on the effects of changes in technology on the nature of warfare, while following the transformation of leadership from the heroic style of Alexander the Great to the "anti-hero" (Wellington) to the nature of things today... We also looked a lot at what happened when the tactics did not keep pace with the technology... In the Civil War, of course, there was the first Gatling gun (It was Roger or Robert Gatling who invented it, I think), not to mention the widespread use of rifled small-arms (cartridges were starting to be used as well), but with the tactics of the previous generation, which resulted in just horrific casualties (same story in WWI)... Likewise, the Civil War saw the first major use of rifled artillery, in the reduction of Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah River inlet, by federal batteries on nearby Tybee Island - They had generally superior range and accuracy, and so this fort (one of Robert E. Lee's early projects, as a former engineer himself, interestingly), while well-constructed for the previous generation of warfare, was forced to surrender... You've also got the first ship sunk by a submarine (the CSS Hunley, with a spar torpedo), foreshadowing the advent of submarine warfare, and the first all-steel ships... We also studied the Russo-Japanese war and the building of the HMS Dreadnought, and how all-big-gun battleships and improved fire control basically made all other ships of the time obsolete, and then the later demise of the battleship, due to air power... Lots of other stuff as well, I really enjoyed it...

Do you get a chance to read much "alternate History"? i'm a huge fan of Harry Turtledove myself. The "How Few Remain, and "The Great War" series is quite good...As well as the alternate history of WWII called "first Contact" (Aliens from the second planet of Tau Ceti invade Earth in 1942).

Funny you should mention it :) I read the Guns of the South (AK-47 makes it back in time to the Civil War - an interesting read for sure), and I really enjoyed the First Contact series - Really a great read! My favorite was when the aliens detected an incoming "missile" on their radar and tried to shoot it down, all to no avail...then discovered that the "primitive humans" had lobbed an enormous artillery shell at them :) "Keep It Simple, Stupid" - Technology isn't everything :) I just found that highly amusing... I never read "The Great War" or "How Few Remain", but I may have to check those out - Thanks for the info!

DFS

Take your time, the threads aren't going anywhere, and i'm in no hurry.

Fair enough! Again, sorry for the delay, things have been really, really busy around here...

i'm working on other things at the moment any way. If you haven't bookmarked it, i did, so we can always call it back up.

:) Yep, I'm right there with ya...

i probably will not reply to anything tonight, because i'm between this and translating Ephesians 3 from Greek to English, preparing for Sunday school (what you find in the original will suprise you, then when you look at the English, it was there all the time!).

Wow, Greek is tough stuff - That's pretty cool! BTW, if you're looking for some good Sunday School material, I recently ran into this, and thought it might be something really accessible to children, to get them interested in the Bible and make it more visual:

http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/

Basically, someone had way too much time on their hands :) I'm not sure what this guy's motivations were, and I wouldn't blindly give the link out to children without thoroughly checking out this guys website and the links on it, but still, some interesting and potentially useful pictures, to go with the text...

DFS

Ms. Bokaer is just a leftist fruitcake.

Mmmmmm... Leftist fruitcake...

:)

DFS

You're trying to be too clever by half.

...does that mean I'm...50%...less clever...than I am? My head hurts :)

Evolution is a religion -

A small but vocal minority of people may treat it this way, but you and I and CDL and the rest of the intelligent folks here know that it really isn't.

and evolutionists are usually NOT open to other scientific explanation.

I would say only that it's dangerous to generalize - That would be like saying that "creationists" (whatever that means) are usually not open to other explanations for the origins of the universe. I think this is true again with a small but vocal minority, but I think that, as reasonable and intelligent and open-minded folks, this need not be the case with us, or indeed, with most people. We can't condemn everyone for the actions of a few, though.

I think it's also fair to say that there isn't one of us who couldn't use a little work, with respect to seriously considering the ideas of others, even when they are diametrically opposed to our own - We're all trying to do the best we can. I know that I have not always been as willing to listen as I should've been, with respect to arguments like this one - I will readily admit that - But I am trying my best, as an imperfect being, to understand how others feel about this, and maybe reach some common ground... I accept evolution as our best current scientific explanation for the origins of man, and I believe that it in no way contradicts the message of the Bible or the central tenets of Christianity, and I know numerous others who are like-minded as well. I am willing to listen to you, so I hope you will not completely give up on folks who accept the theory of evolution.

Some good scientists have proffered evidence of intelligent design...at least as much as that supporting evolution.

OK, let's talk about that. How are we defining intelligent design? I am not saying I disbelieve you here, but depending on how you talk about intelligent design, it is or is not contradictory to the theory of evolution, yes? So, just to get things straight, before I go any farther, which theory of intelligent design do you refer to?

Whichever it is, of course, we must also consider seriously all well-supported theories, and look at the evidence for each - Whether they are bsaed on intelligent design or evolution, or something else entirely.

Evolutionist have also weakened their claim to science because of the several knowlingly fraudulent claims that have been promoted as evidence (Jonathan Wells - Icons of Evolution) - the act of a devotee, not a scientist.

If you're looking for evidence that scientists are human, too, and that they err, and they can be overproud, you have it. This has no relevance on the theory of evolution - It only means that scientists are people too :) I have witnessed, in my own field, people becoming wedded to their own ideas regarding how something works. This does not change how well their ideas describe the physical world - It only changes their ability to change their mind in the presence of contradictory evidence. The existence of false observations supporting the theory evolution is not the same thing as the existence of accurate observations contradicting the theory of evolution.

So by your own definition of the distinction between science and faith, evolution is a faith - because its adherents reject the notion of an alternate view.

[See my comments on why such generalizations are not really fair, no matter who we apply them to]

Michael Behe - biochemistry, William Dembski - mathematics, Jonathan Wells - molecular and cell biology, (and several others) are all serious scientists that present an alternate theory to evolution.

I would like to know more about their theories, and the support they claim - Are they all of the same mind in this respect, or do each of them have a unique take on things? If you could provide some links or somesuch, I am certainly willing to take a look, and give what they have to say some thought...

Inasmuch as their ideas are debated on the grounds of their work, their premises, their logic, their evidence - it is honest scientific debate,

Glad to hear it! As it should be...

and a few evolutionists accept that challenge. But most reject their arguments BECAUSE OF THEIR CONCLUSION - a hallmark of faith and its intolerance of apostacy.

Well, again, I must respectfully disagree with the idea that "evolutionists" all think alike and are all extremely intolerant folks, but with that said, what have been the results when the "evolutionists" engaged in debate? Were they completely one-sided, or was it really more up in the air? I agree with you, however, that, unhappily, such close-mindedness and intolerance can indeed be a hallmark of faith, and that such an attitude will necessarily destroy our ability to have a reasoned discussion on such important issues...

The situation of a Catholic school, established and maintained for the specific purpose of educating and training Catholic scholars is clearly different than that of of a typical university.

If science is a religion, as you have repeatedly stated, wouldn't the training of scientists be an analogous process? I agree with you that, in practice, it should not be this way, I am simply trying to point out that science is not a religion.

If you want to establish a university for the education and training of evolutionary scholars, THEN we have some equivilance.

...but if the University is supposed to train biologists, and the theory of evolution is the currently accepted explanation for the existence of things biological, then how can we have a University that claims to train biologists, that lacks this equivalence?

But the professor, who was the genesis of this discussion, does not teach at a school of evolution -

That's not the school's primary role, no - But it is a role, in the context of the biology curriculum, simply because this appears to be the best scientific explanation there is, so far, and it would not make sense to talk about the origins of life, from a scientific standpoint, without talking about this theory.

This professor sets his criteria in such a way as to include ONLY evolution as an acceptable theory (creationism is not science),

Again, not exactly - He sets it up such that you have to give a scientifically supported explanation for the origins of life. If someone had given a scientifically supported explanation for the origins of life that involved intelligent design and then he had refused to write a recommendation, that would be wrong, and he would clearly be at fault - But so far as I know, that has not happened.

requires that a student accept both his false criteria

Would you say that everyone agrees that the criteria or false? Is that issue completely settled? Is that opinion or fact?

and his religion -

...Catholicism? :) Seriously, though, science isn't religion.

and he does this under the false colors of the honest pursuit of truth and fact and furthermore, his standard is immaterial to the situation. As proof of such immateriality, let me pose this question - Would you, if faced with a delicate, risky and necessary medical procedure, insist that your doctor be an evolutionist?

Depends on the procedure, and the consequences of the presence of absence of that belief - I am not willing to assume (because it would be an assumption) that it would never ever ever be relevant, especially considering the discussion on the (micro)evolution of bacteria, for instance. Perhaps I'd been treated with antibiotic A previously, and there was good reason to suspect an evolved resistance. If I had a doctor who denied that such an evolved resistance could occur, and gave me the same antibiotic, and it didn't work, I might very well be in trouble. But of course, it would need to be a specifically relevant situation - I wouldn't insist on a neurosurgeon to look at a wart, either :)

Or would you seek the most highly skilled doctor available?

Yes :) This is the more important question, though, and it's not an "either / or" thing. If acceptance of the theory of evolution makes a doctor more highly able to deal with a situation, great, that's who we should look for - I think there are some situations where this could reasonably be the case, but admittedly there are not too many. If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, and we shouldn't care either way.

Do you assume that such skill and a belief in creation are mutually exclusive?

Absolutely not! That would be silly. Do you assume that a belief in creation and an acceptance of the theory of evolution are mutually exclusive?

I can answer that those issues would come to my mind - because I would not knowingly place my life in the hands of a person who believed that life in general was merely a happenstance and of little significance. I would want my doctor to have a firm belief in and commitment to life as sacred and purposeful generally and mine in particular.

...and I think it would be a mistake, and an insult to doctors everywhere, and a second-guessing of the Hippocratic oath, to imply that acceptance of the theory of evolution in any way dilutes how much a doctor values human life. It seems like this is what you are saying, but I hope I am mistaken.

Before, we were talking about going out of our way to look for a doctor who accepted the theory of evolution. We agree that, in and of itself, this is silly, and that what is really important is the ability of the doctor to make the best medical judgement in a specific case - If that depends on evolutionary theory, we should find one who accepts it - If not, we need not do so.

What you seem to be telling me now, though I hope I am reading this wrong, is that you support active discrimination against doctors who do accept the theory of evolution, because you feel they will not value life as much as those who reject the theory of evolution in favor of one involving intelligent design or Biblical Creation.

Is this really what you mean? If so, how can you reconcile this with your previous arguments against discrimination?

The professor's criteria has absolutely no bearing on a student's fitness for consideration for an advanced degree -

Maybe, maybe not - What if they take their Biology degree and go into, well, Evolutionary Biology?

it is placed there soley as forced obesience to his faith and nothing more.

Science isn't faith; if he rejects a well-supported alternative theory, then we can bring him to task, but not before.

As such, it is grossly out of place and an offense to science itself.

Here we absolutely agree - It is always an offense to science when we cannot be uniformly skeptical of those things we believe to be true, for the purposes of being objective in our conclusions.

Thanks for reading,

DFS

The operative word in my statement was exhasusively. God does and has explained His workings, that is not in dispute. None of those workings can be exhaustively explained.

Excellent - So we agree that the explanations we have of God's works are necessarily incomplete.

What we do not have liscense to do is attempt to explain away something based on questionable literary techniques,

Metaphor is a questionable literary technique? :)

when we are by definition, the ones who are limited!

Again, we agree. Man is limited, and imperfect - And since it is man's interpretation of the Word of God that we see in the Bible, as men were its authors, the ones who put pen (quill?) to paper and recorded and edited the message, we must consider the end results carefully, keeping this in mind.

Let me ease your mind on this point, and reduce the scope of the argument at the same time. It has always been bad logic to attempt to prove a negative (i.e., that God does not exist). That is the reason that our Judicial system (as opposed to the Napolenic system) places burdon of proof on the accuser.

It's not even bad logic - It can't be done :) Likewise, we can't prove a positive either, scientifically speaking, we can only say that we have yet to find a test to challenge a particular theory.

We agree here, I just want to put everyone else's minds at ease that scientific inquiry cannot disprove the existence of God, and therefore we need not feel threatened by it, because even if some scientist argues that they've done so, we know that they're full of it :) I say this because I do think that some folks find the directions sciences sometimes takes, and the implications, relevant to religious dogma (which is distinct from religious faith, that being unassailable), threatening, and I just want to make the point that it need not be so, that science is not "out to get" religion, just as religion is not "out to get" science.

You have, inadvertently, confirmed the itiliacised portion of my comments above.

Interesting... Let's see:

Forgive me, but i find your statement to be contradictory. Let us examine it in detail.

we have only accounts written and edited by men to understand it by,

The statment implies (by use of the words "only accounts") that God's revelation is either partial, erronious, within "added" material, made up out of whole cloth, or complete and accurate as written.

Not exactly. It implies that our only understanding of God's revelations comes through the written words of mortal men (i.e. not from God himself putting it directly on the page; for this he chose a vehicle, it was man, and man is imperfect). I'm questioning the perfection of man's account of the revelation, not the revelation itself.

It's like playing the telephone game, if you ever played that when you were a kid - Where one person says something to another, and another, and another, and by the time you get from the original message to the final one, you end up with something that is very different from the original. This implies no judgement, vis-a-vis the original, only that the end result isn't the original message. Thankfully, this effect may be somewhat less extreme than that in real life, but we ignore it at our peril.

if we find that our interpretation of those accounts does not jibe with scientific inquiry, that hardly means that we need doubt God's special revelation to us - That is not what's unreliable.

Based on the account given above, it is in fact, a possibility to be considered! We are lead to the possibility that either scientific inquiry is incorrect, our interpretation is incorrect, or the record of scripture is incorrect.

Right. To expand on those possibilities:

• ...observations of things like the earth being round, the earth orbiting the sun, there not being large bodies of water in the heavens above, etc. must be incorrect... (scientific inquiry)

• ...our interpretation of a book based on the revelations of God and written by the hands of man, must be incorrect... (interpretation)

• ...the physical representation of the above has been altered to stray from the original revelations of God, as written by the hands of man. (record of the scripture)

So we agree that it is possible that one or more of the above statements is true - No problem.

This is a contradiction of your premise that we need not doubt God's special revelation.

Not really :) God's message was, by definition, perfect. The men it was given to were, by definition, imperfect. I'm simply arguing for a recognition that we cannot expect a perfect product from such a process. The original message is not in doubt - But that's not what we're getting. What we're getting is man's best attempts to write down and edit and make understandable that message, which, as we agreed previously, is anyway necessarily incomplete, in human terms. Hopefully this clears things up.

In other words, you eliminate the possibility that scientific inquiry might be erronious!, it becomes "transmission of special revelation", or our interpretive process. It seems that you are actually begging the question here, as well as offering a limited alternative falacy.

I'm sorry if it seems that way - It was never my intention to do so, as we both know that the results of scientific inquiry, like all of man's creations, are necessarily imperfect - It's a good thing, too, or I'd be out of a job :)

It's certainly possible that the first of my hyphenated statements is true. I will not deny that - It is possible that, as indicated in a literal reading of the Bible, the earth is flat and has four corners and the sun goes around it, and the heavens above are full of water, held back by floodgates, etc., etc., and that all evidence to the contrary is false.

Is that our most reasonable explanation?

Thanks for writing!

DFS

Wow, back again :) Lemme see now...

Come now sir, consider your statement. The Potolemiac model of the universe was admitedly, flawed. However, it did make predictions that were accurate enough for man's use. Merchant sailors were able to navigate by stellar "motion". In that it was a model in which useful predications could be made, and useful data could be obtained. The science was wrong, as was the Copernician model, but it was hardly necessary to refer to allegory in the scriptures in either case. In point of fact, a flawed hermenutic was used by the church to support a flawed "scientific" model!

...though they couldn't necessarily explain why it was that the first thing they saw was the _top_ of an approaching ship :) Agreed, approximations can be made, that's always been the case in science, especially physics - It's where they fail that you're in trouble. BUT, that doesn't mean we toss the whole theory. If you want to say whether a theory is an accurate predictor of physical reality, you need a specific test. Depending on that test, then, our pre-relativistic notions of motion are either accurate or inaccurate - So again, as I said, it all depends on what you mean by "adequately", "longer before", and "for our purposes".

It should be observed that many of those inconsistencies are erronious science, not a flawed biblical hermenutic.

I wouldn't necessarily call it erroneous science that no one noticed relativity in the time of Galileo or Newton... It's erroneous science if they had evidence and ignored it, due to some personal bias, religious or otherwise, but if they either lacked the evidence or simply said "we're not sure", that's just being honest, reasoning logically, and doing the best you can with limited evidence - We can expect no more. We've made a lot of progress since then in our ability to gather information about the physical world, and it's not only likely but basically ensured that we will eventually run into some evidence that contradicts our currently held scientific ideas. When that happens, we will do what we've always done - Modify our theories to explain the new observations, thereby improving them. The new theory will explain all of the things the old theory correctly explained, and will in addition include an explanation of the newest observations the old theory could not cope with.

An example of this would be the phenomena that produced the Gould/Eldridge "punctuated equilibria" theory of evolution. This had nothing to do with creationism or the bible, yet the Darwinian evolutionists are just as vehemently opposed to Gould as they are to Henry Morris or Duane Gish!

And good that this is so! We need debate in the sciences, so that, from the debate, we arrive a little bit closer to an accurate description of the universe in which we live. That a theory, or some aspect of a theory, is controversial, tells us nothing of whether it is accurate, completely flawed, or somewhere in between. That judgement can only be made based on tests of the theory.

Take the theory that the Bible is meant to be read completely literally, for instance - If we find even one example in the Bible where we cannot read it completely literally (such examples exist, I've given some), we have disproved this theory. We must then say that, at most, some parts of the Bible should be taken literally, while others should not.

i am happy that you acknowlege that not everyone will agree with you, it should frighten you if they did, because it would demonstrate that some people are not thinking!

i get very worried when i have no opposition.

I'm absolutely with you on that point. Life would be really depressing if we were all the same...

...Living a life does complicate things, doesn't it?

:) Indeed - Again, sorry for the delay here!!

Thanks for reading,

DFS

CDL - Not a problem, I got a little dizzy writing it :) EE, very cool! I'm materials science / chemistry, myself, but with minor concentrations in creative writing and military history (always a good combination :) I vaguely remember LaPlace Transforms, but I was never much good at 'em... Vacuum energy, haven't looked at that in a while either :) And yeah, VSL cosmologies are interesting critters, for sure - It'll be neat to see if they're supportable... Now, with that said, even if they are that doesn't necessarily lead directly to God (do not pass Go, do not collect $200, etc., etc. :) There's no way to prove or disprove that He exists, after all, hence faith. But on the other hand, it'll add a really interesting twist to our current understanding of the universe, and I just find the pursuit of such knowledge to be very cool :) I'm always interested in good (i.e. reasonable, supportable) theories that challenge us to think in new and different ways. If we had it all figured out, it'd take all the fun out of science!

DFS

Oh, what the hell :) This'll be a shorter one.

If God wanted to explain the origins of the universe to people living thousands of years before us, and if those origins were consistent with our current scientific theories, he still would not do so using the language of 20th century scientific inquiry, or he would confuse the hell out of everyone. He would make basically the same description, then, whether or not what science currently tells us is truly the case. This means that we cannot conclude which of these two situations took place, from the description in the Bible,

First, if God had used 21st Century Scientific inquiry language, it would be confusing and inadequate. There is still far too much that science cannot explain, i doubt that anyone has seriously disputed that, having learned their lesson the year before Einstein published his paper on the theory of General Relativity.

My point exactly! So we agree - It would not make sense for Him to do so. So even if the explanation was vastly more complicated, in essence what we are saying is the same thing: His language was tuned to his audience, as a full explanation would've been impossible.

If the descriptions are the same (and the grammar structure is such that they are simple declarative statements), then there is no reason to resort to a metaphorical interpretation...

...except for what we just agreed upon, i.e. that any explanation of excessively complex phenomenon would've have to have been greatly simplified, my some means or other. Since we can't get what really happened anywhere, as Creation must've been indescribable, we have to describe what we can, using human language, limited as it is. Clearly, then, metaphor, analogy, simile, and symbolism would be logical techniques to use in order to do this, since the literal fails our imperfect (human) language.

By "these two situations" i assume that you mean evolution or special creation, yes?

Actually, no - Sorry to be unclear. What I meant to say was this:

- The wording of the description given in the Bible was meant to be understandable by folks living a couple thousand years ago.

- We can agree that Creation would be indescribable, in our language - It's simply too complicated. - Therefore (I posit), we would not be able to tell the difference between a description of Creation where it was literally "let there be light," and one where the process by which light was created was so complex and difficult to understand that, in order for folks living a couple of thousand years ago to get the message, it was simply written as "let there be light."

Again, sorry about the lack of clarity - I was having trouble finding the most succinct way to put this. This is what led to my next statement:

See what I mean? In short, we cannot assume that the Bible was meant to be taken literally.

Regarding all the stuff about assumptions, I think that relates to our misunderstanding, so I'll let that go for now.

With regard to the matter of interpretation, we agree that all literature is interpretable; therefore, we cannot dismiss Biblical interpretation.

The problem with defining the Bible as a historical narrative is that it assumes that it is a historical narrative :) In the literal sense, that is. That doesn't mean I am disputing that what it describes happened - But it is a far cry from a history textbook, or even Homer. In addition, since you mentioned it, we know better than to believe that Scylla and Charybdis really existed, if that comparison is to be made. Only if we read The Odyssey as the literal truth would it be nonsense, by our standards. The Metamorphasis is a story about alienation, not about a giant cockroach. See what I mean? We can read it literally, but we'll miss the point.

In terms of specific examples, though, again I refer folks to this link:

http://users.pipeline.com.au/groucho/Documents/The_biblical_flat_earth.PDF

Those are examples of passages where, if we read them completely literally, we would conclude that the sky has water above it, that the earth rests on pillars, is flat, and has four corners, and that the sun rotates around it. Those are demonstrably false. How shall we interpret this?

Thanks for reading,

DFS

Back to the practical matter at hand, I like the solution proposed here:

http://pla.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_pla_archive.html#88396751

Quoting excerpts in italics / bold:

Dr. Dini refused to write a letter of recommendation for his student, because Mr. Spradling, although wanting further education and a career in biological sciences, could not “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question of the origins of the human species. Mr. Spradling, apparently, does not believe in evolution.

Mr. Spradling responded to the refusal to write the letter by suing both Dr. Dini and the school, Texas Tech.

We think that Dr. Dini should settle the suit by writing the letter for Mr. Spradling.

Our perspective is not that of an academic, an ethicist, a philospher, a scientist or a cleric. We view this from the perspective of a litigator.

Litigating over an issue as trivial as a letter of recommendation is absurd. The money spent by Texas Tech paying lawyers to defend Dr. Dini’s letter of recommendation policy would be better spent improving the biology department of Texas Tech. The money Dr. Dini does not spend on litigation could fund a trip to the Galapogos Islands to study the length of bird beaks.

The letter might read something like this:

Dear Sir or Madam:

I understand that Micah Spradling has applied to your fine institution in an effort to further his training in the biological sciences. I have been asked to write this letter by Mr. Spradling.

I know Mr. Spadling fairly well as he has taken lower level and upper level courses from me. I have also met with him in my office to discuss matters of biology.

In our meetings, the issue of the origin of the human species arose. Despite four years of training in the biological sciences, Mr. Spradling was unable to truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer to that question.

As a result of that inability, I declined to write a letter of recommendation for Mr. Spradling. When I declined, Mr. Spradling sued me as well as Texas Tech.

This letter is written under the terms of the settlement of that suit and you should regard it as such.

If you seek litigious students who, after four years of training in biology, are unable to state a scientific basis for the origin of the human species, then Mr. Spradling would be a fine addition to your program.

Sincerely Yours

We cannot expect professors to do more than provide truthful letters that contain an honest assessment of a student. The above letter is both.

Comments on our overly litigious society welcome :)

DFS

I'm baaaaacck :)

What a week. On not one night this week did I get home from the lab before 10 pm, and since I didn't get a chance to work on the thesis then, it'll need some attention this weekend...[sigh]

With that said, thanks for your patience - I can't promise I'll get to everyone today, but I'll do my best.

CDL, first things first - And beware, this is REALLY long, it was the only way to properly consider what you sent, and I wanted to be thorough here, and as fair as possible.

I did some research (using SciFinder Scholar, a _great_ indexing service for scientific literature), and I found a bunch of references on the VSL cosmology as they call it (VSL = Variable Speed of Light). It's clearly a serious postulate, it's been written up in some very good journals, and there's a lot of scholarly debate surrounding it, mainly from the last five or ten years, so this is a recent thing. You're correct also in that it typically involves a non-linear change in the speed of light over time.

There are some scientists who argues its advantages, and claim that it solves the "horizon" and "flatness" problems of the current model, i.e. that it could explain certain topological features that our universe apparently has.

There are other scientists who say that the model has serious limitations, mainly having to do with violations with the second lay of thermodynamics.

I will freely admit that I don't have all of the necessary backgound to understand everything these people are doing, so I am happy to provide references, if anyone is interested. It seems to me, from looking at this, that from a theoretical point of view, allowing for the variation of the speed of light is one of a number of possible ways of accounting for some of the difficulties with the current standard model. The reason the debate continues, in the community, is that no one so far seems to have published a paper that definitively proves that the speed of light is varying.

Davies' work, referred to in the links you sent, is excellent stuff, and he's a VSL cosmology proponent - But that is only one of a number of interpretations of his data, which shows a variation in the fine structure constant, not the speed of light. The fine structure constant (alpha), which is the ratio of the speed of an electron in a hydrogen atom to the speed of light, is defined as follows:

alpha = e^2 / [(2)(epsilon-naught)(h)(c)]

...where e is the charge of an electron, epsilon-naught is the dielectric permittivity of free space, h is Planck's constant, and c is the speed of light. The value of alpha is about 1/137, FYI.

There seems to be a lot of debate in the community as well, as to which value(s) could be changing, and what the consequences would be. Some people say varying the speed of light makes the most sense, others say it makes more sense to vary permittivity, for instance, or the electron charge - No one has presented the perfect postulate yet, though, as there seem to be problems with each of them (a lot of them are busy poking holes in each other's theories, basically :)

Two final points, with respect to VSL cosmologies: The magnitude of the measured variation in the fine structure constant seems to be very, very small, and none of the VSL cosmologies seem to make predications boiling down to an explicit c(t) = (something) type expression.

Therefore, the most we can say right now, based on this work, is that, if we believe the data, the fine structure constant is changing very, very slightly, which _could_ mean that the speed of light is changing, which _might_ be consistent with one of a number of VSL cosmologies. I saw one or two papers proposing interesting means of testing variations in the speed of light directly - Hopefully someone will perform one of these tests and see for sure, because right now, based on Davies' work alone we can't say whether the speed of light is changing or not.

I should also say that it appears (and I didn't know this - so this is cool, I learned something!) that the speed of light may be subject to variation by other means. There are postulates that imply that temperature extremes, very strong magnetic fields, and even _direction_ may change the speed of light (the last has to do with the assumption of isotropy in the universe - there might be very slight anisotropy, it seems). Wavelength is another one - If photons are massless, there should be no wavelength dependence, but if they have some exceedingly small but finite mass (this may even be below the Planck mass, making measuring it impossible, at least so far as we know currently), their speed may then be very weakly wavelength dependent - While the previous variations I don't yet understand, that makes more sense to me, having seen de Broglie's equation. Keep this in mind whenever you see the speed of light measured - There are a number of factors, then, not including the uncertainty principle, that may account for very small variations.

FYI the Internet Physics FAQ you linked to (marked as "hermes" in your original post, the one I posted the update link to) may need to be updated in light of Davies' work, as it says that "to the best of our current ability to observe, the fundamental constants really are constant" :)

All of this brings me to your first link, the one where Montgomery and Dolphin do a statistical analysis of 120 measurements of the speed of light, and conclude that it's decreasing with time. The paper is interesting, and the statistical methods they use are generally accepted - No problems there. They did a least-squares regression, but they don't give the fit-type - I can only assume it's linear, because we're presuming (approximate) linearity over the time frame we look at.

With that said, and as I'm sure you are aware (Cvengr can back me up on this as well, I'm betting, it sounds like he's got the background for it), the famous Twain quote regarding "lies, damned lies, and statistics", while a humorous if somewhat cynical exaggeration, has a grain of truth to it. If you set up your analysis properly, you can get a variety of results, not all of which will agree. This is usually not due to improper application of statistics or bias on the intent of the researcher so much as the fact that statistical analysis is necessarily limited, being based on probability, and can never be said to be said to be 100% correct and accurate. Montgomery and Dolphin analyzed _selected_ data, which they admit is the weakest point of their study. If we define the proper selection procedures, we can come up with a variety of results. In addition, while they show a lot of statistics on their data, they did not show the statistics (i.e. the predicatble statistical error) on their statistics :) This is very important.

Here's a good example of what I mean. I typed the 120 data points [phew!] they had into MicroCal Origin 6.1 (Excel won't do regressions) and took a look myself (if you want the file, I'll be happy to send it along). The mean value of c I found is identical to the one they report, so I don't think I made any typos, BTW. Here's what I found:

A linear regression, fitting to c(t) = A + B(year), gives me A = 311968.66461 and B = -6.3209. Well, fine, you say, it's going down, right? Not so fast :) The adjusted R-squared value for these coefficients is 0.31926(!) And worse yet, while the t-value for A is quite high (194.88342), the one for B is dismal (-7.53716).

I direct anyone unfamiliar with these measures to this good, brief explanation of R-squared and t-values, here:

http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/pks4/files/teaching/handouts/r2_tstat_explained.pdf

The statistical implications are clear - We can't be at all sure of the B coefficient, which is what defines the trend, therefore we can't be sure of the trend. We're a little more sure of relevance of A, however - The R-squared is poor, but the t-test value for A is quite high. This makes sense, as it's (roughly) the speed of light, as we know it.

In addition, when I tell Origin to perform the regression using error weighting, based on the error in each measurement as reported by Montgomery and Dolphin, I get a horizontal line, with A = 299792.48738 (i.e. nearly dead-on the accepted value; t-value = 2.54298 MILLION here). The R-squared value is horrendously low, for obvious reasons - The line fails to pass anywhere near a few early measurements - But the reported error in those measurements is so large compared to the more recent ones that the error weighted fit comes out this way. In this case, B = -0.0000144815, +/- 0.0000595668 (yes, the error is larger than the value :) The t-value is -0.24311 here, though in this you don't need the negative t-value to judge that this doesn't mean much, with the error as large as it is.

Now, we can get into more complicated data fits (exponential, polynomial, power law) and do the same thing, but in those cases it will be the trend itself that disproves the fit, since the equation we will get will predict much larger variations in the speed of light in just the past 500 years than we can reasonably accept, even based on current VSL cosmologies. I'm happy to show you any sort of fit Origin is capable of, however, if you're so inclined - Just let me know what you want.

In summary: Montgomery and Dolphin did a smart thing, and I don't think they (intentionally) biased the data by their selection criteria. However, the statistics of a linear least-squares regression analysis of the data show that any trends we get from that data set cannot be trusted, and an error-weighted analysis indicates that the idea of a constant value of c, over the time-period studied, is much more reasonable. I invite you to try this and see what you think - You should get the same numbers.

With that said, I should also mention that I am very curious as to where the error values reported in Montgomery and Dolphin's table come from. As I'm sure everyone here can agree, scientists are often tempted to overstate the accuracy of their numbers, and in any case, error values are often simple "best estimates", or based solely on statistical error, (i.e. not including experimental error). Therefore I suspect that the error values used are likely a bit too low - Though admittedly I cannot prove this :)

In any case, nothing is truly proved here - It's possible that there are variations in the speed of light with time, I've simply shown that that conclusion cannot be drawn from this data set. In fact, the simplest explanation that explains this data is that c is constant.

So we're back to square one :)

VSL cosmologies are taken seriously, and have been for the last ten years, so while the scientific community may have been skeptical or dismissive of the idea before, they should not be now. Clearly this is not some wacky, off-the-wall idea - This really could be what's going on! But we need to show it, and so far, the scientific evidence is not quite there.

Anyway, this was cool 'cause I learned something - Besides refreshing my statistics, I also found out about a number of different environmentally induced variations in c that have been postulated, and I have you to thank for inspiring me to look up the VSL theories in the first place - I wasn't aware they were as popular or as much talked about as they are these days! Hopefully you folks found this informative as well...

Wow, I'm beat. I'm gonna save additional responses for another time. In the meantime, I hope we can agree on the above - That this is important, that it might be happening, but that no one has shown it yet.

Thanks for reading, DFS

Hi folks,

Sorry for my recent unresponsiveness!

I have been reading your posts carefully (CDL, in your case I've also had a chance to read through most of the text of the articles you sent as well - Interesting stuff, I think I actually read something about the Davies paper a while back, that work sounds familiar), and I want to make sure I give an equal amount of time and consideration to writing my responses.

The weekend is over, though, and things are hectic at work right now - I'm sure you folks have stuff to do as well, so I appreciate you taking the time anyway, and I promise I'll get back to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, thanks for your patience!

PS - This'll allow someone else to get a word in edgewise, I kind of feel like I've said more than my share here... Hopefully no one was put off by this...

DFS

Affirmation of a belief is, by definition, acceptance of that belief. Affirmation of a "scientific answer" is professing belief in such an answer.

...but here is the difference:

If it is religion, the belief is unshakeable, and we need no evidence - That's why it's called faith.

If it is science, you only accept a theory as being the best possible scientific explanation, so long as you have physical evidence. When presented with a better theory and sufficient evidence, you accept that one instead, even if it contradicts the previous one.

We cannot argue that faith, of the religious sort, and acceptance of a scientific theory, based on evidence, are the same thing.

Since there is no scientific answer to the question, the professor sets an impossible standard

Based on your assumption, this is absolutely correct. However, that's one heck of an assumption :) Can you show me that there is no scientific explanation for the origin of man, despite evidence to the contrary? If you can, we'll be in agreement.

- forcing a student to accept his religion of evolution in order to receive his recommendation.

Again, it's not a religion - We must make a distinction between belief in a religious sense and in a scientific sense, because they are not the same. This is why I generally choose to say that I "accept" a theory, because "believe" is too loaded a word for some, and I want to be clear about my meaning.

Akin to a professor of theology demanding that students affirm the truth of the teachings of the Catholic Church in order to be recommended for a doctorate. Acceptable in a Catholic school, certainly. Especially one intended to produce Catholic scholars. But not acceptable from, say the Princeton School of Divinity.

So that sort of belief-based standard is acceptable, so long as it's properly related to the training? I guess we don't need to argue after all :)

A reasonable presumption, when a person is persuing a degree in medicine, is their belief in the efficacy of medical science - hence my dismissal of your "faith healing" doctor premise.

...but if a Christian Scientist wants to go to medical school to study the relationship between prayer and healing, should we deny him / her that chance? Wouldn't that be discrimination based on religious beliefs?

Any belief about the origins of life is religious in nature,

Why? Does that mean that athiests who accept evolution are actually religious? :)

since faith is required as a foundation of belief.

Faith is not required as a foundation for the acceptance of any scientific theory - And in fact, it must be discouraged, for science to remain skeptical, as it must remain.

So any belief that meets the criteria will suffice - such belief being a religion of sorts.

...OK, so, then, the "religion of science," as you call it, would suffice? Or is that not really a religion? :)

I don't doubt that you mean well, or that you believe strongly in what you say - But your logic seems to be inconsistent:

You're telling us that any belief in the origins of life is by definition religious in nature, and that any religious belief that meets your previously stated criteria regarding the origins of life will suffice.

At the same time, you're decrying Dr. Dini's (alleged) treatment of evolution as a form of religion. Well, by your logic, it is a form of religion, since it deals with the origins of life, and as a "religion of sorts", it passes your test! So where's the problem? :)

DFS

Who wrote and edited the Bible?

God.

John 1:1

:) OK, I should've known it would come down to this. As usual we're dealing with a matter of interpretation.

Why is it then, that in church we always talk about reading a passage from the "Gospel according to Mark," for instance? Shouldn't it just be the "Gospel according to God"? Why bother naming numerous sections in the Bible after their various human authors, if they didn't actually write them? There were something like 40 (human) authors and 66 books written over a period of ~1500 years.

"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,"

Hebrews 1:1

"for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"

2 Timothy 3:16

All Scripture was inspired by God, yes. But that inspiration was recorded through men, and, like all men, they were imperfect - Even if they were prophets, and even if they were inspired. God did not sit down at his desk one day and write the Bible.

In addition, we have lost the original texts (in archaic Greek and Hebrew). We rely on the work of numerous men before us in properly translating and recording the texts and assembling what we have now. Anyone who's ever tried to translate anything knows that it's hard to do a good translation, and again we rely on fallible men to have done so and done so correctly.

Finally, there are numerous different versions of the Bible out there. How is this possible, if the Bible is the Word of God, by definition perfect and therefore in need of no changing? Is there one version that's better than all of the others?

DFS