Professor's Snub of Creationists Prompts U.S. Inquiry

New York Times ^ | 2/02/03 | NICK MADIGAN

[kattracks]

UBBOCK, Tex., Feb. 2 — A biology professor who insists that his students accept the tenets of human evolution has found himself the subject of Justice Department scrutiny.

Prompted by a complaint from the Liberty Legal Institute, a group of Christian lawyers, the department is investigating whether Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University here, discriminated against students on the basis of religion when he posted a demand on his Web site that students wanting a letter of recommendation for postgraduate studies "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question of how the human species originated.

"The central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution," Dr. Dini wrote. "How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?"

That was enough for the lawyers' group, based in Plano, a Dallas suburb, to file a complaint on behalf of a 22-year-old Texas Tech student, Micah Spradling.

Mr. Spradling said he sat in on two sessions of Dr. Dini's introductory biology class and shortly afterward noticed the guidelines on the professor's Web site (www2.tltc.ttu.edu/dini/Personal/letters.htm).

Mr. Spradling said that given the professor's position, there was "no way" he would have enrolled in Dr. Dini's class or asked him for a recommendation to medical school.

"That would be denying my faith as a Christian," said Mr. Spradling, a junior raised in Lubbock who plans to study prosthetics and orthotics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "They've taken prayer out of schools and the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms, so I thought I had an opportunity to make a difference."

In an interview in his office, Dr. Dini pointed to a computer screen full of e-mail messages and said he felt besieged.

"The policy is not meant in any way to be discriminatory toward anyone's beliefs, but instead to ensure that people who I recommend to a medical school or a professional school or a graduate school in the biomedical sciences are scientists," he said. "I think science and religion address very different types of questions, and they shouldn't overlap."

Dr. Dini, who said he had no intention of changing his policy, declined to address the question of his own faith. But university officials and several students who support him say he is a religious man.

"He's a devout Catholic," said Greg Rogers, 36, a pre-med student from Lubbock. "He's mentioned it in discussion groups."

Mr. Rogers, who returned to college for a second degree and who said his beliefs aligned with Dr. Dini's, added: "I believe in God and evolution. I believe that evolution was the tool that brought us about. To deny the theory of evolution is, to me, like denying the law of gravity. In science, a theory is about as close to a fact as you can get."

Another student, Brent Lawlis, 21, from Midland, Tex., said he hoped to become an orthopedic surgeon and had had no trouble obtaining a letter of recommendation from Dr. Dini. "I'm a Christian, but there's too much biological evidence to throw out evolution," he said.

But other students waiting to enter classes Friday morning said they felt that Dr. Dini had stepped over the line. "Just because someone believes in creationism doesn't mean he shouldn't give them a recommendation," said Lindsay Otoski, 20, a sophomore from Albuquerque who is studying nursing. "It's not fair."

On Jan. 21, Jeremiah Glassman, chief of the Department of Justice's civil rights division, told the university's general counsel, Dale Pat Campbell, that his office was looking into the complaint, and asked for copies of the university's policies on letters of recommendation.

David R. Smith, the Texas Tech chancellor, said on Friday afternoon that the university, a state institution with almost 30,000 students and an operating budget of $845 million, had no such policy and preferred to leave such matters to professors.

In a letter released by his office, Dr. Smith noted that there were 38 other faculty members who could have issued Mr. Spradling a letter of recommendation, had he taken their classes. "I suspect there are a number of them who can and do provide letters of recommendation to students regardless of their ability to articulate a scientific answer to the origin of the human species," Dr. Smith wrote.

Members of the Liberty Legal Institute, who specialize in litigating what they call religious freedom cases, said their complaint was a matter of principle.

"There's no problem with Dr. Dini saying you have to understand evolution and you have to be able to describe it in detail," said Kelly Shackelford, the group's chief counsel, "but you can't tell students that they have to hold the same personal belief that you do."

Mr. Shackelford said that he would await the outcome of the Justice Department investigation but that the next step would probably be to file a suit against the university.

[Dinsdale]

"Scientists by definition hold the human mind above question."

Do you understand the definition of 'scientific method'. If there is anything we hold above question that would be it.

We do question it as it is unprovable (how do you prove a method). We continue to use it because it works ('by their fruits shall you judge them' I can quote scripture too).

People who argue about theory vs fact of evolution clearly don't understand scientific method. EVERYTHING is a theory and is subject to question. When you hold your views above question you are not (or no longer) a scientist. This somethimes happens to scientists when they get old or too successfull.

That being said high school science teaches things as laws just as they teach simplified versions of everything else (history etc).

[HiTech RedNeck]

Do you understand the definition of 'scientific method'. If there is anything we hold above question that would be it.

"PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN (the human mind) BEHIND THE CURTAIN!"

[Terriergal]

A biology professor who insists that his students accept the tenets of human evolution has found himself the subject of Justice Department scrutiny.

It's about time. Evolution is philosophy, not science.

[HiTech RedNeck]

DU is the biggest source of HATESPEECH on the internet today

If so, evolutionists on FR are the second biggest.

[Dinsdale]

Define Nature. These * exists examples are tiresome.

'I exist' would be a better example. Questioning that leads to philosophical navel gazing.

My point was never that matter, energy, nature etc are fictions. My point is that nothing is above question.

Scientists do have axioms which are accepted sans proof. They are not beyond question. They are used because they work.

[general_re]

He has shown his bigotry, is my point.

For rather trivial definitions of "bigotry", perhaps. Along with considering evolution to be a critical part of the study of biology and medicine, I suspect that he also considers literacy to be critical to such studies, and therefore might engage in the "bigotry" of denying letters to illiterates. I suspect that seminaries engage in much the same sort of "bigotry" by denying admission to atheists, on the grounds that atheists lack belief in a critical part of the study of theology.

He scorns on "first principles" how well a non-evolutionist can do in the scientific part of the practice of medicine.

No, he objects on both practical and philosophical grounds. To wit:

Good medicine, like good biology, is based on the collection and evaluation of physical evidence. So much physical evidence supports the evolution of humans from non-human ancestors that one can validly refer to the "fact" of human evolution, even if all of the details are not yet known. One can deny this evidence only at the risk of calling into question one’s understanding of science and of the method of science. Such an individual has committed malpractice regarding the method of science, for good scientists would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs. This is the situation of those who deny the evolution of humans; such a one is throwing out information because it seems to contradict his/her cherished beliefs. Can a physician ignore data that s/he does not like and remain a physician for long? No. If modern medicine is based on the method of science, then how can someone who denies the theory of evolution -- the very pinnacle of modern biological science -- ask to be recommended into a scientific profession by a professional scientist?

...the belief in evolutionary origins of species is uncannily orthogonal to that of all other biological scientific issues. If the doctrine of evolutionary origins is a pinnacle of biology, it is a pinnacle in the imaginary plane.

This opinion is not widely shared among professional biologists.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Uncanny that your post showed up as 666.

Anyhow, your hero Dini has not brought forth any concrete proof that his innuendo is validly applied. Which makes it baldfaced bigotry as far as any thinking person is concerned. And as for

This opinion is not widely shared among professional biologists.

Weren't you the one just a few posts back objecting vigorously to the assertion I made that scientists hold that consensus is truth?

[HiTech RedNeck]

"Weren't you the one just a few posts back objecting vigorously to the assertion I made that scientists hold that consensus is truth?"

Oh sorry. That was more Dinsdale. Who is being very careful to not let the man behind that curtain (the human mind) be revealed as the actual primary player.

[HiTech RedNeck]

My point was never that matter, energy, nature etc are fictions. My point is that nothing is above question.

But you will not grant the bible to be in a "list of things" not held to be fictions. Believers DO question the Bible, but they also do not lightly flip off answers.

[general_re]

Uncanny that your post showed up as 666

Not at all. If you say my name three times, I appear in a puff of smoke as well ;)

Anyhow, your hero Dini has not brought forth any concrete proof that his innuendo is validly applied.

And the seminaries stubbornly refuse to provide any concrete proof that atheists make bad pastors and priests. Mere innuendo, which, as I heard somewhere recently, makes it baldfaced bigotry as far as any thinking person is concerned.

Weren't you the one just a few posts back objecting vigorously to the assertion I made that scientists hold that consensus is truth?

I don't recall posting to that effect, but I may have. Would you like me to?

[Terriergal]

Well they're not nearly that bad! Some of them are downright nice. :-)

[HiTech RedNeck]

My point is that nothing is above question.

Not even the point that nothing is above question?

[Terriergal]

Uncanny that your post showed up as 666

Not at all. If you say my name three times, I appear in a puff of smoke as well ;)

Don't forget you have to tap your heels together three times. ;-)

[HiTech RedNeck]

And the seminaries stubbornly refuse to provide any concrete proof that atheists make bad pastors and priests

They don't have to. The news will tell us that.

[Terriergal]

I said: Well they're not nearly that bad! Some of them are downright nice. :-)

general_re here, for example.

[Terriergal]

And the seminaries stubbornly refuse to provide any concrete proof that atheists make bad pastors and priests

LOL aside from the fact that they'd be continually lying? I know... you're just being silly now.

[Terriergal]

There ARE no absolutes!

or as Jean-Luc Picard said so eloquently:

"There can be no justice as long as there are absolutes!"

[Terriergal]

That was a facetious post I made there, btw... :-) I'm just in a silly mood.

[general_re]

Some of them are downright nice. :-)

I have been cleverly faking niceness. Mighty deceptive of me, eh? ;)

And the clicking of heels doesn't work nearly as well as wiggling your nose...