Twenty years later, Micah Spradling, a pre-med student at Texas Tech University, applied for entrance to Southwestern University’s medical school. In order to complete his application, he needed a letter of recommendation from a specific faculty member, Michael Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech. Dini required that in order to receive a letter of recommendation with his signature, a student was required to meet a three part criteria. The first two criteria were standard academic requirements. The third criteria, however, is one Spradling was not prepared to fulfill. Dini asked that Spradling “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question: “How do you think the human species originated?” Spradling was denied a recommendation based entirely on the fact that he did not accepted Darwinism as a fact.
Ping for later reading - despite grammar and spelling errors
I agree with the evolutionists that ID is not science. However, I also believe that evolution is not science. Good science is testable. Macroevolution is not.
These are terribly sad and unfair situations. These anecdotes are just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, too.
There are at least two books for those interested in the radical notion that science should continually consider challenges to the status quo, rather than perpetuate a suffocating chorus of uniformity.
One is "Ideas in Conflict" by Theodore J. Gordon, 1966. In it, he recounts multiple case histories of visionaries whose ideas were correct, but were severely derided by their scientist buddies. One case history was about the guy who insisted that Venus was a planet, not a comet as dictated by the astronomers of the time. I think some of the right thinkers died before their ideas came to be known as scientific and then popular truths.
Another really excellent book on the changes in who controlled science over history is "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn. Make sure you get the 3rd edition (1996) because the older ones are extremely difficult to read. This is more of a scholarly style book than Gordon's.
The tyranny of statistics did not begin until 1820 in the Western world. Statistics, like polls, are used and abused by scientists to advance their agendas.
Having read the article, I must disagree with Joe Manzari's assessment that the "Ivory Towers" are trying to "protect Darwin, or else." In fact, by my reading professor Shipman's point of view is that the situation is much the reverse. It is science which is under assault.
From Shipman's article:
The main premise of ID is that the living organisms on Earth are so complex and so intricately constructed that they cannot plausibly have arisen through the unguided action of natural selection, so there must be an "intelligent designer." (This entity is usually identified as God, but in a deposition taken January 3, 2005, Dover Superintendent Nilsen suggested that the "master intellect" described in an ID textbook might also be an alien.)
In rhetoric, the line of reasoning used by ID advocates is known as an argument by incredulity. Because what is entirely plausible to one person is ludicrously unlikely to another, arguments by incredulity are inherently weak. ID is not a scientific theory amenable to testing, but an opinion, a philosophical preference, a belief. That fact made it easy for me to dismiss the ID movement as scientifically unimportant.
I might have settled back into complacency had I not learned that students in the public high school in my town—a town dominated by a major university—can "opt out" of learning about evolution if their parents send a letter to the school. Allowing students to "opt out" of learning the basic facts and theories of biology is about as wise as allowing them to "opt out" of algebra or English: It constitutes malfeasance.
Do not mistake my objection. If my neighbors and their children wish to believe in Intelligent Design as a matter of faith that is fine with me. What I object to most strenuously is the presentation of a religious belief as a scientific theory in a science class.
I have to agree with the professor on this one. The student was specifically asked for the scientific answer. Even if he believed in creationism or ID, the student should be fully cognizant that those concepts, at a college level, are not science. Based on that alone, I would asses that this science student does not have a sufficient grasp of science to warrant a bachelor's degree in any science, let alone a letter of recommendation.
ping
Joe Manzari is a dishonest research assistant. I knew that quote wasn't real. White's condition was that things be scientific! Here's his letter.
October 4, 2005
Letter to the University of Idaho Faculty, Staff and Students:
Because of recent national media attention to the issue, I write to articulate the University of Idaho’s position with respect to evolution: This is the only curriculum that is appropriate to be taught in our bio-physical sciences. As an academic scientific community and a research extensive land-grant institution, we affirm scientific principles that are testable and anchored in evidence.
At the University of Idaho, teaching of views that differ from evolution may occur in faculty-approved curricula in religion, sociology, philosophy, political science or similar courses. However, teaching of such views is inappropriate in our life, earth, and physical science courses or curricula.
The University respects the rights of individuals to their personal religious and philosophical beliefs, including those persons who may hold and advocate a faith-based view that differs from evolution.
The University of Idaho’s position is consistent with views articulated by the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and more than 60 other scientific and educational societies.
Timothy P. White, Ph.D.
President, University of Idaho
tolerance ping
tolerance ping
ping for later read