Asymmetrical Information

Perhaps the most wise letter would have gone along these lines:

"This student has attended ny class and successfully completed my course.

We have a discussion underway about his interpretation of the classical Darwinian viewpoint. In a word, he does not accept my viewpoint and prefers the creationist interpretation. We agree to disagree in a civil manner.

With the understanding that I disagree with his views and think them incorrect, I report that he has satisfactorily completed the course with the grade of X.

I do not wish to harm the carear of this student, but feel I must clarify my own position."

Perhaps? Is there an honorable way to give credit where due, but object to his beliefs?

My wife and I had the same thought as Charles. The simplest solution is to include the disputed issue in the recommendation letter, and let the recipient make the call.

Another observation is that this would not--could not--be a matter for the courts if the University were entirely independent of the state. No one would suggest that a professor of a private college receiving no government aid should not be legally permitted to form his own student recommendation policy, whether capricious or not.

Charles' solution has the flaw in that it puts a scientific and anti-scientific viewpoint on the same level, thus disguising the epistemological consequences of this belief. (There! I finally got to insert "epistemological" into a comment! I hope I spelled it correctly!)

To believe in creationism requires a certain degree of intellectual self-deception. In its simplest form, it involves avoiding evidence that conflict with one's preconceived ideas. More involved forms usually involve some pseudo-scientific rationalisation as to why one rejects evolution. The worst form adds an active attempt to mislead others. All of these indicate an unwillingness to let evidence lead one to a conclusion.

Does this make one unworthy to study medicine? That is a matter of opinion... in this case, the professor's opinion.

Looking at Volokh's summary at http://volokh.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_volokh_archive.html#90255074, I can see a couple of problems with his "Against Dini" arguments. Eugene suggests that asking a religious question violates equal treatment - but Dini was asking a scientific rather than a religious question. Later, he suggests that good scientists can believe in things which are unscientific (such as the virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) but all the examples he provides are where there is no direct scientific evidence to contradict them. This is not the case for evolution. If he had used the Turin Shroud as an example, it would be closer.

My understanding is that Dini believes you can't be a good MD if you reject the validity of the Theory of Evolution. I find that hard to believe, and I've read several recent comments from practicing docs who also disagree with Dini's claim.

However, if Dini is sincere in his belief, I can't see that he's being either dogmatic or unethical in his position. Factually wrong, most likely, but not unethical.

As for the idea that Dini's position reflects an overall scientific dogmatism about evolution, you can slant it that way, but I think it's BS. I personally know scientists (even biologists) who believe in God and the creation. So there's no dogmatic admissions requirement. (Of course, I realize the author was using a bit of hyperbole to make a point.)

The important issue is that evolution is a scientific theory, creationism is not. That doesn't mean creationism is automatically wrong, just that it's based on faith, not science. If you accept the premise of an omnipotent God, then obviously He could create the universe in 6 days, populate Earth with all extant species, and yet make it appear that the universe is actually billions of years old and that species evolved from other species. God is omnipotent; QED.

Science, on the other hand, takes God out of the equation, looks at observable facts and phenomena, and asks what (non-miraculous) explanations can best account for them. The theory of evolution is by far the best scientific explanation to account for the observable diversity and inter-relatedness of life.

Obviously, not every aspect of evolution is understood. Some elements of the theory will likely get revised over time. But on the whole, it's very hard to imagine a competing scientific theory that would fit our observations better than evolution.

If one ever does come along, it will ultimately be accepted and adopted, just as relativity was accepted over classical physics. Anyone who has a contrary scientific opinion on the origins of human life is more than welcome to show why their version makes more sense than evolution.

Proponents of teaching creationism *want* people to believe that it's a valid scientific alternative to evolution. So obviously, if it's not being taught, it's because scientists are blackballing them. But fundamentalist Christian creationism is NOT a valid *scientific* theory. It's a valid faith. So is every other creation story in every other religion and culture. They're just not science, and they shouldn't be taught in science classes.

Not believing in evolution is a bit like not believing in gravity.

Evolution happens. This is an indisputable fact. It has been observed that populations change over time to adapt themselves to better survive in their environment.

Natural selection is a theory that attempts to explain these observed facts (and it does a pretty good job of it, too).

It's a bit like gravity: gravity exists, and the existence of gravity is a widely observed phenomenon. Einstein's theory of general relativity attempts to explain these observed phenomena (and, like natural selection, it does a pretty good job of it).

The question is not evolution. Evolution happens. The question is how evolution happens, and that's why natural selection is a theory.

In any event, the guy who's suing isn't eligible for a letter of recommendation; the professor clearly states that the student must have had an "A" in his class to qualify, which the student in question didn't have (seeing as he dropped out of the class).

There is also a consensus in the scientific community that Newtonian physics does not accurately describe motion under a gravitational force. Anyone who insisted otherwise would be roundly rejected as insufficiently knowledgable about physics.

Does that mean that the current consensus regarding general relativity is simply an artificial construct because dissenters have all been blackballed?

BTW, I imagine that anti-creationist sentiment (if not policies) in the biological community is pretty close to 100%

Even if the university in question receives public funds, is this not a case of students requesting a personal recommendation from the professor?

The grades he assigned his students appear on their transcripts. The students are asking him to go beyond affirming that they learned his course content well. They want an extra endorsement -- of themselves as individuals from the professor as an individual -- of their special competence to study and practice medicine.

Is he not permitted to apply his own personal standards when asked for a personal recommendation of this sort?

A correction on one point: Neither gravity nor "the existence of gravity" is an observed phenomenon. Weight is observed; falling is observed; planetary motion is observed; gravity has never been observed, nor has its existence. Gravity is an inference, not an observation.

Frankenstein: I'm not a creationist, but like to argue with dogmatism where-ever I see it: Darwinian evolution has not been shown to happen. It *has* been show that there are different specifies of animals existing at different times, but it has not been conclusively shown that each "evolves" from the last. You admit as much when you say the mechanism has not yet been identified.

Remember, evolution is not just one type of creature changing into another. Its defined as happened by random chance over millions of years. It is this specific contention, as I understand it, that creations take issue with.

But like I said, I'm not a creationist, so I may be misrepresenting their position.

At Wash U, a friend of mine was taking a biology class. The professor announced that anyone even *asking* any creationist-sounding questions would receive and instant "F" in the course.

I'm no expert on these matters, but the guy sounded pretty insecure to me. If his position was so unassailable, why use the heavy-handed tactics?

What I find highly ironic is that it is the professor here who is letting his personal prejudices guide his beliefs. He has formed the hypothesis that fundamentalists cannot be good doctors, but does he have any actual data to support his hypothesis? Can he point to a single study that demonstrates that Texas Tech students who are not fundamentalist Christians make better doctors than those who are? I highly doubt any such study has been conducted. A good scientist should not regard any hypothesis as confirmed in the absence of data.

Furthermore, in contrast to evolution, which is only very tangentially related to medicine, evaluating students and handing out recommendations is a core part of being a professor. If he expects his students to have an open, questioning, "let me see what the data tells me" attitude about something only tangentially related to their jobs, one would expect him to take a much more scientific approach towards a core part of his own job.

I've got no use for creationism, but I think that professor (the "instant F" guy) is out of line--bullying students like that just makes his case look weaker than it actually is. If it was me teaching the course (I'm not versed in the biological sciences, but the principle could be extended to other disciplines where a religiously influenced outlook would be at odds with conventional wisdom), I'd say up front, "Look, I know some of you might think this stuff is bunk, but this is the science as we understand it. If you'd like to argue your viewpoint, set up a forum where you can do it, or you can come by during office hours and we can talk about it there--I'm always up for a good argument, if you can provide one. For now, this is the stuff I'm going to be teaching and the stuff you're going to need to know to pass this course. Next question."

Tim, that does seem rather harsh. On the other hand, most people would consider it rude to go into a church and start telling those inside about why their faith is wrong. Keep it up, and you'd probably be asked to leave. I doubt it's as much insecurity as it is a wish to avoid classroom proseltyizing. That said, he's got a lot more in common with the religious zealots he dislikes than he probably realizes.

One problem with Dini's position is that it gives support to the claim that the scientific community is dogmatic on the question of evolution

Only in the sense that astronomers are dogmatic in their theories that the Earth is basically spherical and revolves around the sun.

People should be under the impression that biologists view the theory "humans evolved from earlier lifeforms" is as close to "universally accepted fact" as anything in science can be. There is no rival scientific theory ascribed to by any biologist I'm aware of. It's just that some people opt to reject science in favor of religious belief.

I think Dini's response is the correct one. If someone is willing to let faith override objective science in the case of evolution, how can we be assured that they won't also end up recommending prayer instead of antibiotics, or "trust in God's will" instead of surgery? When people exhibit a willingness to let what they wish were true utterly override what actually is true, how can you trust them to make informed decisions on your behalf?

Let's skip straight to Godwin's law -- would a professor be within his rights to deny a potential Civil War history Ph.D candidate a letter of recommendation if he knew that the person believed that the Holocaust never happened? After all, the Holocaust has nothing to do with the Civil War. But shouldn't there be an unwritten assumption that people who are incapable of thinking rationally about major areas of their chosen subject should not be recommended in that subject?

At Wash U, a friend of mine was taking a biology class. The professor announced that anyone even *asking* any creationist-sounding questions would receive and instant "F" in the course.

I'm no expert on these matters, but the guy sounded pretty insecure to me. If his position was so unassailable, why use the heavy-handed tactics?

This is because those professors get extremely tired of "creationist hijack week" every semester. Maybe this doesn't happen outside the South, but in Oklahoma it was practically an institution for a significant percentage of the class to advocate nonsensical creationist objections, declare the professor was part of a conspiracy, blah blah blah to the point of seriously interfering with learning.

I think this is a set-up, sorry.

The prof was asked for a recommendation, which I would define as a favor. If a recommendation is to become merely an acknowledgement of a student having achieved a passing grade, it will be meaningless. As I understand it, the prof's "specification" was the ability to explain and use evolutionary theory, not ncessarily ruling out a belief in Creation (but possibility the subsection called Creationism) any more than re-incarnation.

Can one believe in Creation by a Supreme Being and still accept evolution as a tool useable in the present world? It is my impression that the answer is yes, that a number of researchers are in this position.

Is it possible to believe that evolution is not a useful tool and be adequate in the biological sciences? My impression is no: the humblest MD may at any time come across an organism not defined in his cookbook. It may have existed unnoiced previously, or it may have mutated from a known organism. If he discards either possibility without investigation he is not serving society.

Is mutation (a known occurence) proof of evolution? No, certainly at least not until the mutated version completely displaces its predecessor. But note that combining Mendel and Darwin we get tools, however imperfect, to help us deal with - even cause, in a determinate manner - mutations.

But then, I distinguish between those who believe in a Creation and those who are Creationists, as I distinguish between Baptists and the subsect thereof that handles snakes. Or between the secular Moslem states (Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt) and the Wahhabi-Islamist hegemony. Heck, I even distinguish between Iran's theocracy and Saudi Arabia's religion-is-the-whip-of-the-state autocracy.

Hmm. . . is it wrong to believe the Holocaust never happened? Not if you think you have evidence. Similarly, I don't see any reason that believing that God created the world 6,000 years ago, fossils and all, is a bar to being a good doctor, since I can't imagine that anyone is capable of proving or disproving it. I don't think it has any place in a classroom, either, but what right does Dini have to question students applying to Med school about their private beliefs? Doctors are allowed to believe all manner of stupid things and continue practicing medicine -- how come I can't require that they endorse the neoclassical model of economics, since they're probably going to open their ignorant traps about the economics of health care provision and get dumb laws passed?

I understand the objections, but I think there is a real danger here: what does that 100% mean? If what it means is that they've blackballed anyone who doesn't endorse the theory, it's not proof that the theory is good, only that its proponents are powerful. (Sounds pretty good to me, but I'm not a biologist).

Finally, I'm seeing some dogmatism here from the science folks. For starters, natural selection has been observed; evolution has not. Creationists do not deny natural selection, whatever you've heard; they only deny that it created all the organisms alive today. For another thing, most of us don't understand evolutionary theory or the law of gravity well enough to comment on their veracity; we are taking the word of other people on it, and the reason we are taking that word is a socially constructed belief in the accuracy of science, created mostly out of our appreciation of engineers, not scientists. (I don't say that these things cannot be reliably reasoned to; only that most of us haven't. We've accepted evolution because teacher says so, not because we've attempted to learn enough about the fossil record to independantly verify it as least hypothesis.) So calling other people dogmatic is silly; all they're doing is taking their beliefs from a different authority. We can say we prefer ours because they use the scienfific method; they can say they prefer theirs because, hey, He invented the scientific method, also science and method.

As it happens, I know some creationists. Most are highly intelligent and well-educated.

They point out -- quite correctly -- that we know that evolution in the small sense happens, but the overall Darwinian theory that all life forms evolved into the many species we see is scientifically unproven, and is merely the most widely accepted theory.

This does not make all other theories equal. Yet intellectual honesty demands that scientists admit that there are problems with the theory that all life evolved via evolution, and that this theory, however well supported, still cannot rightly be regarded as an established fact. It is a strong theory, a very strong theory, a grand theory, but still a theory.

It has long struck me as extraordinarily paranoid and defensive when people react so harshly against the creationists. Very fearful, in fact.

Remember, evolution is not just one type of creature changing into another. Its defined as happened by random chance over millions of years.

This is a common misconception, but not quite correct. "Random chance" implies that any and all mutations are equally likely. Natural selection, as the name implies, can only work with material that's already there; it isn't random.

As an astronomer, I can say with confidence that anti-creationism runs about 100% throughout the sciences, not just in biology. The reason: creationism is not a science. It assumes fundamental truths that will not be abandoned in the face of any evidence and it is not falsifiable. It was fine (IMO) when creationism explicitly presented itself as a religious position. When the courts ruled that creationism is a religion and cannot be taught in schools, however, creationists changed their tack and began to present "Intelligent Design" and other ideas as scientific, and began to attack the theory of evolution on what they claimed were scientific grounds. This is false, and worse, it is profoundly dishonest. ID advocates and other creationists still hold beliefs that determine how they interpret data, and those beliefs cannot be challenged or disproven. Therefore, they are bad science. Moreover, their attacks on evolution take advantage of the fact that the scientific method is antagonistic (theories are never proven, they can only be disproven) to try to fool people into believing that evolution is a shaky theory. They also deal with observational data in much the same way that other anti-establishment types (believers in the Loch Ness monster, Holocaust deniers) do: they play up evidence in their favor, and ignore or deny the validity of data that doesn't support their position. That is why this scientist, at least, dislikes modern creationism: they are dishonest in their presentation of their work as a science.

Everything is just a theory, so that objection is simply a smokescreen. There are mountains of evidence in favor of evolution from all sorts of varied and diverse fields. People who don't want to believe it are simply engaging in special pleading, demanding a much higher standard of proof in this one case than they do in every other aspect of science. (I'd say evolution is much better supported by evidence than the theory of continental drift, for example.)

If you're interested in seeing an outline of the evidence, which comes from every single field of biology and geology, do a search for the talk.origins FAQ, and look for a file named "29 evidences in favor of evolution," or something like that.

As for the specific professor, I think he's perfectly within his rights to do this. A recommendation is a specific personal evaluation and recommendation of a candidate. I'd also have trouble giving a positive recommendation is a scientific field to someone who has shown the ability to ignore scientific evidence when they find it convenient and comfortable to do so.

Maybe he's being misguided here, as doctors are much closer to technicians than to scientists in terms of the skills required. And unlike actual biologists, the theory of evolution is unlikely to directly impact their work. But if you accept critical thinking as a valid grounds of evaluation, the professor isn't out of line at all.

Not to nitpick, this doesn’t have a lot to do with Jane’s original point, just a pet peeve of mine that I can’t let pass. Dean said,

“…this theory [evolution], however well supported, still cannot rightly be regarded as an established fact. It is a strong theory, a very strong theory, a grand theory, but still a theory.

Dean, I regularly visit your weblog and have the utmost respect for you and your opinions, but this is simply a misunderstanding of the scientific method.

Let me state it as clearly as I can: Theories do not change into law or fact as evidence accumulates to support them. In other words, THEORY NEVER BECOMES FACT.

General relativity, the explanation for why gravity happens has correctly predicted a number of observed phenomena. Nevertheless it is still “just” a theory and always will be. There is no Olympic ruling committee that comes out and says, “OK, it’s a fact now, not just a theory.

Sorry to digress, but I am on a mission to abolish the phrase, “It’s just a theory” from common usage.

Can one believe in Creation by a Supreme Being and still accept evolution as a tool useable in the present world? It is my impression that the answer is yes, that a number of researchers are in this position.

John's made the most compelling point, I think: it's silly to divide the question into an either/or, as if the culmination of Man is either the dice-roll espoused by Darwin or a week of God playing Erector Set.

I'd also be inclined to agree with Frankenstein on the irrefutability of evolution. Unless one is prepared to explain away carbon-dating and all the insurmountable geological evidence suggesting that Earth is not 6,000 years old but instead around 4.5 billion, we have a primary method of understanding our origin. Where one can actively debate is whether everything is a happy accident or else the result of intelligence setting events in motion, with the expressed purpose of evolution settling on, say, bi-lateral vertebraes and ultimately bipedal, tailless mammals with binocular vision.

My own take, inherited from my father's chaplain at Syracuse circa 1970:

What is the more likely action of a supreme being to take?

a) Walk into the forest, find a tree, cut it down, clean it, drag it into a mill and cut it down to size, carve individual pieces, assemble a surface and legs to make a table, sand the table and varnish it.

b) Command the tree to slowly, seamlessly turn itself into a table.

Sci-fi nerd solution: Anybody involved with planetary phase wobble and/or NASA propulsion development? Let's get ourselves to an M-Class planet and compare notes; scientists should be able to find a pattern if one so exists.

As to the dispute - if the student is willing to readily apply his knowledge of evolution to his work, regardless of his personal opinions or religious sect, what Charles has suggested is the best course of action.

I, too, have seen professors head off Creationist Hijack Week with more polite (but no less serious) warnings. I think Prof. Dini is entirely within his rights in his actions; after all, creationism just isn't science.

As for the relation to the MD, it's a point of principle: for a lot of people in rural areas of this country, an MD is revered as The Voice of Science and Reason, and is often treated with a tremendous amount of intellectual deference. If Dr. Dini feels that he is doing a disservice by recommending someone who will go out and suggest creationism over evolution while wearing the mantle of Science, then he's trying to prevent the dilution of the intellectual accomplishments of science in general.

The "ignoring evidence when it conflicts with belief" consideration is also part of it. I've never met a theistic scientist who let belief rule over evidence; they just have a different idea about how things kick off. After all, consider it from Dr. Dini's view: you have someone in front of you, otherwise intelligent, who insists than an invisible being of whom he has no evidence (other than a book that claims that being exists) is responsible for guiding the steps of every single person and thing on this planet, and for creating it in the first place. In all likelihood, this person also buys into the American folk version of Christianity, in which we all have (once again, invisible) guardian angels flying around us all the time, watching our every move. Doesn't that seem just a little bit nutty? Wouldn't you, too, apply Occam's Razor, and conclude that while the out-of-thin-not-air-because-there-wasn't-any appearance of our universe is staggeringly improbable in its own right, and our presence in it ever more so, it is still more unlikely that a being so complex and powerful as to be able to call it into existence with a word would simply pop into existence?

It doesn't hurt to keep in mind what the student was asking for. As others have pointed out, he wanted more than a reflection of his grades. If the instructor has qualms about recommending any student, that's a pretty strong starting point for not providing a recommendation. Dini was not asked to make a recommendation as a doctor. He teaches science, so if I were to receive a recommendation he had written, I would assume he is making that recommendation as a science teacher. If his student's preference for non-scientific explanations bothers Dini, and if he is consistent in declining to recommend on that basis (also rejecting, for instance, those who wear magnetic bracelets to enhance this or that biological function in the absence of supporting research), that seems pretty consistent. The guy needs some standard. We may not like his, but if it is consistently applied and in some way reflects his place in the scheme of cranking out scholars, who are we to object?

Think I understand the "F guy". Some years after the Falklands war, I nearly lost control of a class because an Argentine student insisted, vehemently, that we refer to that piece of real estate by the name the losers use. I saw a similar problem, also over the Malvinas, involving a different student in another instructor's class. Once burned, keep it out of my classroom.

Anonymous Coward - The scientific method was developed by (primarily) by men who believed in a supreme being. They understood that this belief could hinder their inquiry into the natural world so they adopted what they thought was a false premise: that what they observed in the natural world was NOT the result of the actions of deity. Else, how could they make an inquiry into why a volcano erupted without always resorting to "Because God willed it to" as the explanation. (Which is why creationism is NOT science. If your explanation for something includes "God made it happen", it violates this premise and it is not science.)

This did not mean that these men had to give up their faith in order to engage in scientific inquiry -- they just had to "suspend" their faith for the moment. Thus, faith in a god, which you call "nutty", and reliance on science are not incompatible. Like a DA who might not personally favor a particular law but is expected to enforce it anyway, a person of science may also be a person of faith -- he or she just has to keep the two sources of knowledge separate.

What I find nutty is the insistence that science is the only source of knowledge. You have taken what was once assumed to be a false, but necessary, premise and elevated it to a proven fact. Science has not and cannot (by design) prove or disprove the existence of God nor can it prove or disprove whether deity was involved with the beginnings of life on this earth. So, requiring a student to give up his or her belief in god (based on the "overwhelming evidence") is bigotry and it not very scientific.

No professor should have to write a recommendation he doesn't want to write.

That being said, the larger point has been put forth by Anne, above - is there any evidence that "non-affirmers" are more likely to be incompetent doctors than "affirmers"? Airy speculation about what they might do, based on what somebody thinks they believe, is not much of an argument. My reaction to Dini's page (and I am a rabid Darwinian) involves two questions:

1) Is what he implies about the "non-affirmers'" beliefs true? (I'd say his claim that creationist doctors are the real cause of the crisis in antibiotic resistance is a load of bunk.)

2) Does the average student heading into medical school really know or understand enough about evolutionary theory to be in position to affirm it 100%, anyway?

(Small plug - I and a guest blogger have discussed this issue chez moi, if anyone's interested.)

Why on earth do people think that observing that something "can't be disproved" is relevant to debates like this? We can all concoct dozens of arbitrary propositions that couldn't be confirmed or falsified, and we would still consider someone quite mad for therefore believing or disbelieving one as whimsy struck them. If you tell me that you think we're surrounded at all times by invisible, intangible monkey butlers, I will decide you're a bit off, despite the fact that the way it's set up prevents me from refuting the claim.

It is funny how many people are making this into a debate about creationism vs evolution. Why? Because, quite simply, its a public university. If it was a private university (and accepted no government funds with strings), then there would be no question that it's the professor's right to speak freely.

But no, it's public. And on public property there is an inherent conflict between rights, because no matter what policy you take, you are endorsing one side or another in a debate. Can you teach creationism? Must you? Can you racially discriminate in student selection? Must you? Can you teach about sex? What do you teach about history: was the American Civil War about slavery or not? Was Vietnam justified? Can students be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance? Must they not recite it? Can you force students to pee as you watch?

No matter what you decide on as policy, you cannot please everyone - except on things so uncontroversial that there is no difference of opinion. So you adopt sloppy, unsatisfying rules in order to make decisions. And you still end up in court a lot, fighting continually.

It's important to understand that such fighting (writ larger) is the reason why the idea of religious tolerance was invented to begin with. And it's still a good idea now. Let the state separate from schooling, and there would be nothing to debate here.

what right does Dini have to question students applying to Med school about their private beliefs?

Because they're asking him to recommend them, personally, as candidates for further education in biomedical sciences. They are asking for him to render his personal judgement of their ability as students of biology. Doesn't he have the right to know if you can distinguish fantasy from reality before he decides you'll make a good doctor?

David -

I'm not sure that this will be of any particular use, but...

Your analogy of the DA is meaningless. District attorneys are hired to enforce laws - even the ones they don't like. Are you suggesting that science professors have a duty to advocate creationism, even if they believe it to be unscientific and wrong?

What I find nutty is the insistence that science is the only source of knowledge. You have taken what was once assumed to be a false, but necessary, premise and elevated it to a proven fact.

No, I don't pretend it's a proven fact. It's just a simpler explanation than the one given by a theist. As I noted, why is it considered impossible for the universe to pop into existence on its own, but absolutely perfectly okay for an invisible being capable of creating that universe with a word to pop into being? Without delving into philosophy too deeply, why is God a better uncaused cause than the Big Bang?

He didn't refuse to write recommendations for theistic students; he refused to write them for creationist students. That said, it's not bigotry to tell somebody that they're wrong to believe in God (it's a disagreement), nor is it unscientific to do so (after all, the theist is the one who persists, without evidence, in believing things that are more complex than the available data require).

As a matter of practice, I'm not opposed at all to religion; most people in the world aren't really psychically stable enough to deal with the idea that this life has no deeper meaning and that it's over when you die. The types who are capable of handling such thoughts, and choose to believe anyway, are responsible for maintaining the intellectual strength of the movement. I may be a scientist, but I'm a pragmatist - and I like a functional civil society.

What I find nutty is the insistence that science is the only source of knowledge

Science basically means "if your beliefs don't match observed reality, change your beliefs".

It's not the only source of knowledge, but it's the only source of verifiable knowledge. A person can can "know" the Earth is only five minutes old (it's as consistent with the evidence as the 6000-year theory, after all). But they'll have a deuce of a time objectively demonstrating that their belief is probably true.

I think Phillip K Dick said it best: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." :)

The question is not whether the student "can distinguish fantasy from reality"; that's rather perjorative for holding a non-falsifiable belief. I believe that human beings have an intrinsic worth that exceeds their economic utility, or their ability to breathe and locomote; the belief is non-falsifiable, but that doesn't make it a fantasy.

I have no quarrel with teachers who want to keep creationist students from hijacking the class; creationism is non-falsifiable, and thus doesn't have much place in a science class. But presuming that the student has learned the material, why ask this question? Is he going to ask them whether they hold other, non-Christian religious beliefs that contradict the basic theoretical constructs of biology? Is he going to quiz them to find out what other non-falsifiable beliefs they may hold, or what practices they undertake despite the lack of scientific evidence, such as wearing magnets or refusing to live close to power lines? If not, then it seems to me that this is more an example of his particular dislike of one brand of people than of his fidelity to scientific principles.

It's a fine line, and I don't have any neat answers about what he should do. Does he have a legal right to choose not to write these recommendations? I don't know, but the question of whether he should deny people recommendations based on probing into private opinions that were not offered is not the same as whether it's legal. I think about recommendations at business school -- would I demand that a professor write a recommendation for a marxist? Probably not. On the other hand, would I appreciate the professor probing the student's mind for hints of marxist belief? Probably not. And what if the professor not only wouldn't write a recommendation for a student to grad school in economics, but also to political science, a field about which he knows no more than he gleans from occasional faculty mixers, on the grounds that he thinks a student has to embrace the [insert economic model here] model in order to be a good political scientist, and also that it would be dangerous to let a marxist loose in the field -- well, that strikes me as a load of self-gratifying nonsense. Dini is not helping his case by demonizing creationists as a bunch of stupid, ignorant, evil know-nothings. I think they're fairly wrong-headed about the whole thing, but I also don't think it's that important to being a doctor, and neither do any of the doctors I've chatted with about it. As one of them said "When I take out a ruptured appendix, it doesn't really [expletive deleted] matter whether or not it's a remnant of evolution or a little joke from God."

The antibiotic resistance thing is just nonsense. It's a huge problem in New York, and the vast majority of the doctors, as far as I can tell, are not only not fundamentalists, but not of Christian descent.

I believe that human beings have an intrinsic worth that exceeds their economic utility, or their ability to breathe and locomote; the belief is non-falsifiable, but that doesn't make it a fantasy.

Interesting that you mention that, since a bunch of fellas in Philly once called them "truths" and held them to be "self-evident," which have resulted in the tacit understandings upon which free nations levitate.

And what if the professor not only wouldn't write a recommendation for a student to grad school in economics, but also to political science, a field about which he knows no more than he gleans from occasional faculty mixers, on the grounds that he thinks a student has to embrace the [insert economic model here] model in order to be a good political scientist, and also that it would be dangerous to let a marxist loose in the field -- well, that strikes me as a load of self-gratifying nonsense.

I still think Charles nailed it straight off.

Jane, I'd be happy if any aspiring political science grad student was familiar with any economic theory; as it is, we're lucky to get ones who can add...

That being said, I think Dini's being a bit of an idiot, but IMHO he's well within his rights.

Jane, I'd be happy if any aspiring political science grad student was familiar with any economic theory; as it is, we're lucky to get ones who can add...

That being said, I think Dini's being a bit of an idiot, but IMHO he's well within his rights.

Jane -

But presuming that the student has learned the material, why ask this question?

Because it's not unlike studying chemistry for four years and coming away with the idea that atoms don't exist. If biology is the study of life, the question of that life's origins are pretty much the most overarching, important question that can be sought. If you find yourself unable to agree with the consensus answer to that problem, and cannot come up with a scientific one that is different, but instead turn to a several-thousand-year-old book for the answer, you have a serious problem as a scientist. You are unable to remove beliefs from your mind in the face of extensive (if circumstantial) evidence.

This is not a fine line; that evolution occurred is not a debate in the scientific community (although the pace at which it occurs is). It's a basic tenet of biology.

And my point about loosing one in the field is very different from a business school; after all, a truly Marxist executive isn't likely to have a lot of success out there, and an academic is just that - an academic. It's the idea of people with significant influence in their communities representing as science that which is most assuredly not, in any way, science. Marxism might be wrong, but it is economics. Creationism might be right - but it isn't biology. (Personally, I don't care what my doctor believes, but Dr. Dini obviously sees it differently.)

Let me try this from a different approach. One of my English professors came into class and threw a cup of multicolored pasta of various shapes onto the floor. Our assignment: Write a two - three page explanation of how the pasta came to be on the floor WITHOUT saying anyone put it there. (He was trying to teach us to ignore what the author intended when looking for Truth in a piece of literature.) Of course we all knew how the pasta got there, we had to ignore that fact in writing our papers. Some of us came up with some very interesting explanations -- none of them true, but interesting nonetheless.

I've often thought that this experience serves as a good analogy to a scientist trying to explain the origin of life. Even if the scientist were there at the beginning (and assuming a divine creation for the sake of the analogy), the scientist could not include god in the explanation for the origin of life or the explanation would not be science. None of this is intended to say there is a divine origin to life. It's just that science, by design, can never answer such a question. Indeed, to be science, it must be silent on any topic touching on the divine.

There are those who jeer that people of faith are short a few IQ points or are too weak of mind to deal with the "truth" that life has no meaning. People making such claims cannot appeal to science for support. Science is a perfect agnostic, neither believing nor caring whether god exists.

Not all political scientists stay in the academy; a lot of them make policy. You may not be worried about letting a Marxist form our national policy, but I sure as hell am. Nonetheless, I don't think it's appropriate for me to try to keep him out if he has otherwise demonstrated an ability to reason and use the procedures of the field, especially if I use as justification the fact that everyone in the field disagrees with him, when that may be partly due to the fact that we exclude from the field everyone who doesn't.

I find it interesting that people proclaiming their interest in objective science is dismissing the fact that the doctors seem to be saying that evolution is irrelevant to the practice of medicine, and instead relying on the word of a gentleman who has never practiced it. And I'm really not compelled by the notion that we can't let creationists be doctors because the proles might be led to believe in creationism. Doctors do much worse things than believe that God created the universe, and he isn't policing the students to see if they're potential criminals or non-religious wackos.

For the record:

I am not a creationist.

I do not think that evolution is "Just a theory".

I don't think he ought to be forced to write recs for people he doesn't respect.

I do, however, think that he seems more than a little dogmatic about evolution, he seems more than a little bigoted about creationists, and he seems determined to enforce his ideas about people who believe in creationism in fields where it is irrelevent. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that it is necessary to believe that humans are descended from apes in order to be a good pediatrician, even though I myself believe just that. I also think he's doing his cause a lot more harm than good.

"I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that it is necessary to believe that humans are descended from apes in order to be a good pediatrician, even though I myself believe just that."

Jane, now you are just trolling. Evolutionary theory does not hold that humans are descended from apes, as you know perfectly well.

Doctors do much worse things than believe that God created the universe

W-wait! There's that all-or-nothing bent again. We can rest our beliefs on milestones in between, most certainly. I, for example, believe that the Judeo-Christian God created the universe according to a scientifically brilliant design: one of holistic evolution. From nothingness, to gaseous energy, to stars and solar systems, to planets, to water-borne simple life, to complex life, vertebraes, and finally sentient beings (the entropic quality of existence is even more awe-inspiring, but that's for another day). I don't believe in Deism, either. So I think it's safe to say that we can believe that a spiritually-active God created the universe - only not in less than 200 hours.

Evolutionary theory does not hold that humans are descended from apes, as you know perfectly well. - Orbitron

Hairsplitter. :-) We're using a general term. If it's big and hairy and not John Travolta, it's an "ape."

Here is an example of evolution at work. It's in the current Scientific American, which is available in any library above the size of a log cabin. Still think the professor is being dogmatic, Jane?

A recommendation is supposed to give the admissions committee insight into the applicant that they wouldn't have been able to get on their own. Therefore "This student disrupts my class pushing his religious beliefs in an aggressive and disrespectful manner," legitimately belongs in an recommendation. However, "If you ask this student, he freely admits to being a fundamentalist" does not belong in a recommendation, because if the admissions committee cares, they can ask the student themselves.

If it's big and hairy and not John Travolta, it's an "ape."

Unless it's Ed Asner... actually, never mind. :-)

What I find nutty is the insistence that science is the only source of knowledge.

Well, what knowledge has religion produced? Ethics, I guess?

But Jane, Dini clearly states that he DOES think evolution is relevant to being a good MD. Like you, I generally disagree with that belief. But if that's really his honest belief, and not a smokescreen for some deeper emotional antagonism towards literal creationists, then I don't see how you can fault his intent.

Jason - There are many sources of knowledge besides science. I have found better insight into the human condition reading Shakespeare than many social science texts, for example. Or, how does science explain this? Years ago, one of my scouts was injured at scout camp (he tried walking to the latrine in the middle of the night without his shoes and stepped on a sharp object). I called his mother to confirm we had her permission to get treatment at the local hospital. The mother had been sitting by the phone waiting for my phone call having awakened in the middle of the night sensing something was wrong with her son.

Art, intuition, and, yes, even religion, all sometimes inform us in ways science cannot. It's a little nutty to pretend otherwise.

A couple of relevant points:

First, Dini isn't an irreligious bigot: as he states on his website,

My education has taken place almost entirely in Roman Catholic schools. I attended De La Salle High School in Concord, California from 1968-1972 with the intention of becoming a physician. Though accepted to UCLA, I instead chose to enter a Roman Catholic order of teaching brothers (the Brothers of the Christian Schools, known in the U.S. simply as the Christian Brothers). As a young brother, I majored in biology and minored in religious studies at St. Mary's College, Moraga, California. I graduated magna cum laude in 1977 and was assigned by my religious superiors to teach at La Salle High School in Pasadena, California, where I remained for 4 years, teaching various courses in biology and religion and earning a California Secondary Teaching Credential. In 1981, I was assigned to Justin-Siena High School in Napa, California, where I again taught various courses in biology and religion.

My second point is in the next post.

Second, there have been recorded cases of medical doctors doing entirely the wrong thing because of their Creationist beliefs; an excellent example is here, where the case of Baby Fae is discussed:

Human donors are hard to find, especially for infants, so a daring surgeon convinced the parents to let him implant a baboon's heart. A hopeful world held its breath, while skeptical biologists scratched their heads (a baboon's heart?), but everyone hoped for the best. Sadly, Baby Fae died after a few weeks....

Bailey [the surgeon who proposed and did the transplant] says exactly that the concept of homology did not play a role in the selection process of donor species, but it was a case of availability and size. HLA testing was done, and the closest match was used. However, baboons have type A blood, while Baby Fae was type O. The blood antigens caused a severe rejection of not only the heart graft, but also damage to liver and other organs. The doctors thought that blood type immune response would not be sufficiently developed in a neonate to make a difference. Bailey says he's a fundamentalist, he can buy microevolution, but that millions of years of separation of species boggles his mind. Homology of this kind did not count at all!

As the linked author states, "all modern life science centers around the knowledge of the evolutionary genesis and relationships of living things", and the overt denial of this by Creationists suggests to me that they may well have problems administering scientific knowledge based on principles they explicitly disbelieve in.

There is also a consensus in the scientific community that Newtonian physics does not accurately describe motion under a gravitational force. Anyone who insisted otherwise would be roundly rejected as insufficiently knowledgable about physics.

I wonder what would have happened to the science of physics had its adherents had insisted that Newtonian observations had been confirmed enough times to be considered indisputable, and the went about slandering ANYone who suggested otherwise by lumping them into a category that was populated with people willing to accept metaphysical epxlanations. Newton's claims did survive three hundred years, after all.

I think it's very interesting that one tends to find far fewer atheists in the physics lab than in the biology wing (which is NOT to claim that it is populated heavily by creationists, simply fewer atheists).

Then again, physics has suffered more paradigm shake-ups in the past fifty years than perhaps any other mainstream scientific discipline, so perhaps the physics community has learned to be much more humble about the finiteness of human observations -- as well as the models created to explain them, which then frees the mind to explore and consider realms beyond purist naturalism.

*sigh*...Troy, your argument/citation of Baby Fae is weak to gross excess. The article itself admits that we really don't know if the homology issue would have made a difference, but insinuates the doctor was somehow at fault for not resorting to it, which given that this was experimental last-resort surgery, sounds a lot like winging an ideological horse 'puck.'

The afternote then adds that the clear problem was blood type discrepancy -- an issue known to the doctors, but grossly underestimated in consequent effects. This is still spun to make the doctor an antievolution nuthatch, but realistically it proves exactly nothing.

Emphasis: Baby Fae was destined to die anyway, which is the only reason why this experiment was performed. As it was, Baby Fae suffered the same fate she was destined for, but science learned something new in the process, which may in turn be able to apply at a future date if this sort of surgery is attempted again. Specifically, blood type antigen discrepancies CAN react to sufficient degree to cause fatality.

Funny how quickly creationist nonsense quotes are signled out for destruction with rapidity, yet the opposed view is apparently getting very poor at self-policing.

I agree, Troy -- that's spin. Not on your part, but on the journalist's. You don't need to be an evolutionist to agree that baboons and humans are different, or even similar, nor to correctly estimate the effect of blood type. I really don't see how a doctor who believed in evolution would have been statistically likely to have a better outcome: would evolution have improved his knowlege of blood types, or the differences/similarities between people and baboons?

Qetzal: Dini may well believe that. But why should I be any more required to respect his unsubstantiated belief than he does those of his students?

Check out the latest SciAm for "unsubstantiated
beliefs'and what they can lead to, Jane.

I'd just like to point out that Jane's remarks about the exclusion of non-orthodox economics from the academy are not in any way hypotheticals; the economics faculties of the USA have been far more assiduous in screening out Austrians, Marxists, Institutionalists, and indeed anyone outside a very narrow neoclassical consensus, than the biology departments have been at screening out creationists. But that just shows what horrendous people economists are, I suppose.

If anyone feels really passionate for academic freedom today, I suspect that the gutting of the Notre Dame economics department is a far more worthy cause than one lone student:

http://blogorrhoea.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_blogorrhoea_archive.html#88214462

Jane, no-one (including Dini) says you have to accept his unsubstantiated belief that literal creationists make bad doctors. That's not the point. Dini is the one being asked to provide letters of recommendation. Such letters require Dini's judgement and subjective assessment of the candidates. And in his judgement, people who do not accept evolution as the best available explantion for human origins are poor candidates for med school.

Once again, I disagree with Dini's judgement. I absolutely do not believe that creationism vs. evolution should be a litmus test, or even a factor, in this situation. But if Dini's being called on to make a subjective judgement, why shouldn't it be up to him to decide what to factor in to that judgement?

Jane, why do you think his belief is unsubstantiated? You might disagree with his evidence, but he almost certainly has some.

You also missed my point about Marxism; I probably should have made it clearer. A Marxist may do tremendous damage (and is thus highly unlikely to go anywhere in the greater world), but s/he is doing economics. It's a terrible model - but it really is economics. Creationism may very well be correct - but it is not, and cannot be, science. The equivalent to Marxism might be something like spontaneous generation - the old "rotting meat produces flies" idea. It's based on observation and theory - it's bad science, but it is science. It's hardly dogmatism to say that you have to be scientific.

Anony-mouse: I'm certainly not suggesting that a specific description of evolution is unassailable, or even that evolution itself is. I'm just saying that the standard of proof for that is pretty damned high; not unlike the level of proof needed to disprove the geocentric theory of the universe. (At the time, it was a great theory, and did a lot better job than Galileo's proposals of describing how the universe was set up. I believe that heliocentricity didn't become better until elliptical orbits were thought up, but I may be wrong on that.) When you come up with something better than evolution, I'd be delighted to see it.

David -
I based my comments about not being able to handle the thought of a meaningless life on my personal experience. I have met more than a few intelligent, well-educated people who, upon learning that I was atheist, asked why I hadn't just killed myself already, because my life had no meaning. In no way did I say that was true of all believers; in fact, I specifically noted that it was not.

And feel free to rely upon religious texts for ethics or understanding the human condition; there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But don't pretend it's a scientific treatise. By the way, if you'll go back and read my comment, I never said that faith was nutty (though I do think, as I said, that adding God just removes the question of how it all began to one step further back - why is it more reasonable that God just is, than that the universe just is?). I said that believing that there is a God out there who poofed the world into being about 6000 years ago, even though observation suggests otherwise, and that that God watches and guides our every move on this planet, is. It requires us to assume that God has intentionally tricked us with fossils, background radiation of the universe, and radioactive decay of elements. It requires that he created the universe with photons already streaming toward Earth from faraway stars. It suggests that there are invisible beings around us who somehow don't leave any traces in our universe, but still manage to affect it. It's not completely impossible, but I'd hardly call it the best explanation.

Well the Prof. is right. There is only one SCIENTIFIC explanation as to the origins of mankind, and that explanation is the THEORY of evolution.

Frankenstein: I'm not a creationist, but like to argue with dogmatism where-ever I see it: Darwinian evolution has not been shown to happen. It *has* been show that there are different specifies of animals existing at different times, but it has not been conclusively shown that each "evolves" from the last. You admit as much when you say the mechanism has not yet been identified.

Classic junk reasoning. Evolution is a fact. We have observed it. We have observed changes in the frequency of alleles. We have observed mutations.

Now the THEORY of evolution explains what we observe. That is where you can make arguments, but to claim that evolution does not exist/happen is like saying people don't exist. If you insist on this, you are probably a woo-woo kook.

By the way, has anybody read any of the references Dini has on his website?

AnonyCoward, I've spent this thread talking up the side topic of evolution and creationism, with the occasional comment on the Dini rejection. One point made earlier that resonates is ever-so-slightly reproduced in your posts; the utter revulsion and near hatred with which the scientific community at large regards religion.

I never said that faith was nutty...I said that believing that...God watches and guides our every move on this planet, is.

You've gone a bit far here, and along with the earlier comment about "guardian angels," perhaps tipped your hand. Both comments reveal an extremely limited - and erroneous - understanding of Christian faith. One aspect I find common in discussions with nonbelievers is their argumentative preoccupation with the more obscure and ancillary topics drawn from faith - topics that can easily be made up into straw men. It's not enough to pass these misconceptions off as "American folk," either because, whatever that may be, it's a misconception as well. The Bible is quite mute on the "how" aspect of spiritual existence, instead concerned about the "why." For the handful of explicative references to beings known as "angels" there are thousands upon thousands of passages that implore people to respect a Creator and treat their neighbors justly. You'll find that serious Christians could care less about the nitty-gritty of the spiritual realm and more about their behavior.

I'd be curious to see what share of Christian sects officially claim literalist interpretations of Genesis. Or, in that case, what percentage of, say, Catholics, agree with the Church's doctrine.

>I don't see any reason that believing that God created the world 6,000 years ago, fossils and all, is a bar to being a good doctor, since I can't imagine that anyone is capable of proving or disproving it.

1) The 6,000 year old earth was disconfirmed (math does proof, not science) by about 1820 - this is generally known as the founding of modern geology.

2) Dini is being asked to recommend candidates to medical school as a science professor, it apparently being the belief of some medical schools that science and medicine are related. Anyone who denies common descent of humans and other mammals (which is all that Dini asks - not first cause metaphysics) either doesn't understand or rejects science. If you think that such a person would make a good doctor your complaint is with the medical schools, not Dini - he is merely asked to provide feedback on the candidates scientific qualifications

Art, intuition, and, yes, even religion, all sometimes inform us in ways science cannot.

You gave a perfectly reasonable answer for art, but art isn't religion. Other than ethics, what knowledge has religion given us?

Jason, even looking at religion from a strictly athiestic point of view, it still gives us "knowledge" in the same way that art, literature or philosophy would. Whether it gives any useful information beyond that is really a matter of faith.

I personally don't believe that the Bible should be used as a scientific textbook but, like Michael, I don't have any problems reconciling God and evolution. The concepts do not have to be mutually exclusive.

I would tend to agree that anyone who categorically rejects natural selection has no business calling himself a scientist. Dini seems to go beyond that though, and would lump anyone who sees the hand of God anywhere in the process into the same category. His right, I suppose, but it does look like anti-religious bigotry to me. (I'm basing my interpretation strictly on the information on Volokh's site, so I could be mistaken).

Troy, the fact that he apparently considered himself to be a religious person 20+ years ago does not necessarily mean he has no animosity towards religion today.

Michael: I'm quite aware of the differences between American folk religion and official doctrinal Christianity; that's why I made the distinction explicit. In my experience, the types of college students who are explicit Creationists are typically also folk-religionists. You may disagree, but I'm not making a blanket statement about the faithful, just about one group. Folk-religionists may completely misunderstand Christianity, but there are a lot of those "Angels are watching over me" bumper stickers out there. Who do you think buys them?

I was raised Christian and attended a Presbyterian school that used Beka books (explicitly Christian; I learned to diagram sentences with things like "God does wonderful things for us every day."). We took around two and a half hours of Bible studies every week. In college, I was one of the few who actually understood Biblical references in texts. I am not ignorant of the subject, nor do I have a limited understanding of it. I appreciate that Christianity, like most religions, is a chaotic, syncretic thing. You will note that I explicitly endorsed religion as a component of civil society. I don't hate it; the worst that religion has ever done to me is bore me terribly. I'm sorry if I gave the mistaken impression that I was trying to set up a straw man with this; I just stated what I thought was a specific belief held by a goodly number of explicit Creationists that would, by itself, beautifully illustrate the reason that they would be considered inappropriate for scientific fields.

Incidentally, I'll bite on the matter of straw men. If you want to discuss serious questions of faith, take the one I've posed several times already in this thread. Why is it that people are happy to believe that there is a God that came from nowhere and created the universe (through whatever method), but find it implausible that the universe itself would simply come from nowhere? If you don't find this implausible, why are you religious?

Finally, although this isn't my particular view, I think I can pretty clearly express why most science types despise religion. They are tired of having their life's harangued and lambasted because it disagrees with somebody's faith. They are tired of dealing with people who tell them that human cloning, even if it were perfectly safe and had zero risk of producing a genetically-damaged child, is wrong because it's playing God, while avoiding our preordained time to shuffle off this mortal coil with antibiotics and vaccines or subverting the Lord's desire that we be childless with fertility treatments are not.

Is it bitter? Often. Is is productive? No, which is the major reason I don't get too worked up about it.

There is one criticism I share: the idea that nonreligious people are somehow defective or immoral. It's a fairly common one, and the reason this entire discussion is posted by me as an Anonymous Coward (rather than as one of my more traceable Internet personas). There would be rather significant social consequences if I were outed as an atheist to the wrong people.

Why is it that people are happy to believe that there is a God that came from nowhere and created the universe (through whatever method), but find it implausible that the universe itself would simply come from nowhere?

Both are implausible in purely rational terms, since a metaphysical entity like God is inaccessible to conventional modes of observation. OTOH given a choice between a supernatural entity who has the power to generate something from nothing, and something that literally arises from nothing, which one bends the mental faculties farther?

Then again, I happen to believe that humans have a spiritual component that is also involved in demanding an answer to that dillemma, which in turn biases my perspective.

Classic junk reasoning. Evolution is a fact. We have observed it. We have observed changes in the frequency of alleles. We have observed mutations.

And from them, we have deduced a complex system that seems to make sense of the evidence, but has not been observed at the macro level (nor can it be, given the theoretical time requirements).

The only thing that gives you and Richard Dawkins et al the ability to call evolution "fact" is that microevolution (as it is now commonly called -- it refers to variation) is readily and highly observable. We can break out a male/female pair of fruit flies and demonstrate it conclusively right now. No amount of microevolution, however, leads to macroevolution; no matter what microevolution experiment we propose, it always runs into limits that cannot be transcended.

Which brings us to mutations and other changes at the genetic level. We observe mutations. They are, almost without exception, deleterious to the organism that suffers them. We posit that a beneficial mutation could alter an organism in such a way that it could transcend the boundaries of microevolution, and resume its mode of life at this new stage. We can even posit that given enough time, a process along these lines could fundamentally alter the phenotype until successive generations are completely removed from the point at which they started.

Problem: We cannot emprirically demonstrate this; we are basically starting with some suggestive obesrvations and constructing a reasonable model. However, by 'reasonable' we are assuming a priori that no entity such as God could exist (or have influence on this realm if He does), and thus this wonderfully all-inclusive naturalistic model is the only one that could possibly exist.

So, we define variation (readily and immediately demonstrable) and macroscopic alteration (not observable for many practical reasons) as two parts of the same process, link them using genetic mutation (plausible, but readily observable mainly in the delterious sense), call the entire construct evolution, and subsequently leave no hope of falsification?

I would really like this kind of construct if I were a naturalist; not only would it uphold my worldview, it would nicely kill off anyone else's ability to raise effective dissent by automatically consigning them to the lowest depths of the fruits and nuts bin. Even if they really wanted to discuss evidence and not merely bandy about philosphical dogma, and yes, in spite of Henry Morris' infamous comments about the Gospel of Evolution According to Satan, there ARE Creationists who would like to approach the debate at this level.

As an afterthought, I believe the respective Popper and Kuhn spoke very clearly to such things...

Jason, even looking at religion from a strictly athiestic point of view, it still gives us "knowledge" in the same way that art, literature or philosophy would. Whether it gives any useful information beyond that is really a matter of faith.

Fair enough, but this is pretty far from the layman's definition of knowledge. I know religion didn't make my microwave.

Why is it that people are happy to believe that there is a God that came from nowhere and created the universe (through whatever method), but find it implausible that the universe itself would simply come from nowhere?

Easy answer: one can't. I totally, sternly, eagerly disagree with creationism. But scientific wisdom doesn't hold that the universe came from "nowhere," rather that its maturation to our point in time was a far more extensive chronology than a creationist would believe. The real question is whether the universe we know came to be by chance or by design.

As for the universe, I'll posit the answer I use if the (ancillary) question bugs me for more than a few minutes...theory time. I go by habit and mix layman science-logic with the idea of a constant and figure that this universe came from the last one, which exploded into our Big Bang when it collapsed into a critical cynosure. This one will do the same. Many existences, one center.

But really, to any serious Christian this stuff ought to be academic and not worth more than a moment's pondering. I wish less controversy were made of it by way of less attention paid.

I don't hate it; the worst that religion has ever done to me is bore me terribly.

I mean no offense, but from a spiritual upbringing as rote and antiseptic as what you've described, I'm not at all surprised. I recently recommitted to faith precisely because the particular community and denomination are light on frills and solid on conduct, morals and faith. The religion in which I grew up couldn't be further away in its priorities or ability to foster anything but apathy.

You will note that I explicitly endorsed religion as a component of civil society.

Judeo-Christian values are the American moral constellation, yes. Then you should be less surprised when people do speak up for their ethical values and engage in spirited debates on topics such as cloning! :-)

There would be rather significant social consequences if I were outed as an atheist to the wrong people.

For goodness' sake, that's grim. And wrong, I'd hope, even unknowing of your personal situation. You shouldn't fear an honest statement about yourself. What persons worth your time or care would ostracize you?

If he grew up in a Southern Baptist, Muslim, or Mormon community, possibly everyone right up to -- and including -- his immediate family.

I meant that rhetorically, A-mouse. I've seen secular estrangement but it's no less poisonous. My heart goes out.

anony-mouse is, in fact, partially correct; at the first hint that I might not be explicitly Christian, my mother was deeply, deeply disturbed (not surprising, really; if you truly believe that nonbelievers go to hell, you'd be insane not to care). She proceeded to discuss the matter with a number of members of her church, and ended up sending me tracts (not Jack Chick, but along the same lines).

My in-laws would have explicitly forbidden me to marry my wife if it were known. (She has similar feelings to mine, which are likewise concealed. We will soon have to start attending some church.)

I simply meant professionally; it could severely damage my career (by driving away clients). Probably it wouldn't - but this is a part of the world where Christian fish are quite commonly included in advertisements (the Yellow Pages are a common spot) so that the more strongly-involved elements of the faithful can restrict themselves to purchasing goods and services from those of a similar mind, and I'm not going to take the chance.

Michael - I don't care if people want to debate the ethics of cloning, I just want them to have an ethical (rather than gut-feeling) reason for doing so. "I don't want fetuses aborted" is a good, ethical reason for opposing cloning in practice - but not a good, ethical reason for opposing it in theory (assuming it truly would all go perfectly).

By the way, your church sounds like it has learned some of the wisest lessons of the post-70's fundamental-evangelical movement. Good for it.

I'm not sure what you mean by antiseptic, as you seem not to be in a high church tradition; as for rote, there was a large corpus of rote knowledge in the elementary school, but my church's confirmation classes were a very nice presentation of its doctrinal precepts, complete with a fair amount of discussion with the pastor. I've had plenty of opportunity to see a variety of churches and styles of worship. I've found them all, at root, terribly boring, in that even those that interested me were not something I would ever want to do more than once or twice a year. I'm not vexed with spiritual questions that are going unanswered (as a lot of people seem to be, at least the ones that come up in sociological treatments of fundamental-evangelical Christianity).

anony-mouse,
OTOH given a choice between a supernatural entity who has the power to generate something from nothing, and something that literally arises from nothing, which one bends the mental faculties farther?

Like I asked, where did that God come from? This, fundamentally, is the question that turned me atheist; at some point, something must come from nothing, and I concluded that God was a lot less likely than the universe.

From a purely rationalist perspective, one answer is as good as the other. That, IMO, is one of the key reasons why the Bible mainly uses the rational to lead into the spiritual, because if He exists, God cannot be accessed otherwise.

Of course, for a person who does not feel the spiritual to be worth pursuing, God will never appear be anything more than an abstraction clung to by persons with a psycological need for His existence.

I personally believe that He can be much more, but be that as it may, my apologies to you for any active mistreatment, or realistically possible mistreatment you may have suffered/may yet suffer at the hands of the Christian community (potential for ostracism etc.) I don't believe a certain Jewish carpenter ran His business that way, yet some of his followers (regrettably) aspire to less.

I'm not sure what you mean by antiseptic, as you seem not to be in a high church tradition

I'm very ecumenical. :-) I suppose I've always been suspect of faith communities where tradition supplants dogma or doctrine; those that concentrate on form and poise and memorization (status) rather than down-to-earth teaching that will actually translate into Christian living (execution). I love conceptual topics but with religion, I'm rather utilitarian; my first denomination failed utterly to teach me more than Bible basics, so that may be a factor as well. But certainly, the bit Christ taught about identifying oneself as a Christian through conduct (rather than explicitly by declaration) I take very seriously. A man can be current with his religion and yet not proficient.

Like I asked, where did that God come from? This, fundamentally, is the question that turned me atheist; at some point, something must come from nothing, and I concluded that God was a lot less likely than the universe.

The conclusion each of us chooses to reach may simply boil down to a preference for either faith or reason. I think intuitively, so faith is a very natural state of mind for me; I may contemplate the "begotten" nature of God or my corny universe theories but I ultimately see those as distractions. "The peace that transcends understanding," for lack of a better description. Genesis 1 to me ought to be annotated:

LOOK, I KNEW I'D GET MAIL DAILY ASKING ABOUT ALL THIS HEADY CREATION STUFF IF I LEFT IT OUT, SO THIS SHOULD SUM UP THE WHOLE SHEBANG. IT'S CONDENSED; DON'T TAKE IT ALL THAT SERIOUSLY UNTIL YOU UNRAVEL ANSWERS FOR YOURSELVES. PAY MORE ATTENTION TO WHAT MY KID SAYS LATER ON IN THE BOOK. -ED

I agree with the author.

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