Is this religious discrimination ?

Great Debates
1

From this article at the Houston Chronicle…

A biology professor Michael Dini at Texas Tech University poses the following question at his website for anyone seeking a personal recommendation from him

How do you think the human species originated?

Furthermore, he adds

If you cannot truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation for admittance to further education in the biomedical sciences.

Liberty Legal Institute, a Plano-based religious freedom organization calls this policy “open religious bigotry” and has filed a complaint on behalf of Micah Spradling, a Creationist and a former student in Dini’s class at Texas Tech.

Spradling hopes to be a physician and approached Dini for a recommendation. But says he could not “sit there and truthfully say I believe in human evolution.”

On Dini’s Web site, he writes that he has the policy because he doesn’t believe anyone should practice in a biology-related field without accepting “the most important theory in biology.” and that a scientist denying evolution is committing “malpractice regarding the method of science.”

The US Dept. of Justice is looking into it.

2

This:

told me all I really need to know. If the ACLU says the complaint is without merit, then you know something is fishy. Considering it isn’t discrimination on the basis of religion, but rather discrimination on the basis of disbelief in evolution, I don’t have much problem with it. Also, as Texas Tech says:

.

This is for a letter of recommendation, and nobody should be forced to recommend somebody they don’t agree with.

With apologies to Shakespeare: This complaint is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

3

Two things in his favor:

It’s concerning a reccomendation, not a grade.

He refers to evolution as a theory. True, it’s widely accepted, but it has not been proven. Absolute proof for creation vs evolution may never come.

One thing against him:

Seems to be a rather narrow minded view for a teacher of science. Science should strive to explain what we see, what really is, without letting ANY preconceived ideas get in the way of the search for truth, whatever that may be.

4

Gotta get that OpalCat spell checker…

5

This bothers me.

If a recommendation from a professor has any academic or professional significance, then discrimination in the granting of a recommendation is just as much a problem as discrimination in grading.

In this case, the student is not denied a recommendation because he doesn’t understand the theory of evolution, or because he is not familiar with the evidence which supports it or the (presumably limited) evidence which doesn’t.

He is refused a recommendation because he doubts it – admittedly, he doubts it on non-scientific grounds.

Surely, however, the scientific method is to doubt every assertion, and to require that the evidence for it be critically examined? The theory of evolution was developed by people who doubted the then-current views, and it has itself been developed, refined and, well, evolved by people who doubted it as originally articulated. I am sure that our understanding of human evolution is not yet complete and final, and further insights will be developed by those who find, or come to find, the present theory unsatisfactory.

One would prefer, of course, that doubt should be based on scientific evidence rather than to a literal understanding of an account of creation which supposedly comes from a definitive authority. But is that absolutely essential? Sometimes a scientist will doubt existing theories because they do not adequately explain the evidence he sees, but sometimes he will doubt them out of instinct or gut feeling, because he finds them unsatifisfactory, even if he cannot quite say why. So long as he knows what to do with doubt – develop and test new theories – the reason why he doubts is perhaps irrelevant.

Similarly, consider a student who doubts the theory of evolution because it doesn’t satisfy him because it contradicts deeply-held beliefs. I don’t share his beliefs, so I don’t share his doubts, but so what? So long as he doesn’t put forward his beliefs as a refutation of the theory of evolution, so long as he understands the theory, so long as he understands, values and can apply the scientific method, should he really be excluded from the scientific community? He may even do scientifically useful work on account of his doubts.

6

I’m a Christian (Catholic). but not a creationist. My take? It depends on a few things.

  1. Is this the only professor in his field? The only one whose opinion carries enough weight to get a student into a good graduate program, or into a good job? Or are there other professors of equal stature who could provide good recommendations?

  2. How did the student in question perform in class? What were his grades? What was the quality of his work? Did he write papers that relied on Scripture as scientific evidence?

  3. What sort of position(s) was the student hoping to get a recommendation for?

Depending on the facts of this situation, I might understand a professor’s reluctance to recommend a student. On the other hand, a blanket refusal to give a recommendation to a student based SOLELY on a refusal to give a desired answer is highly problematic. I may be misinterpreting the story above, but it APPEARS the professor didn’t know his student was a Creationist until he was approached for a recommendation. IF that’s the case, IF the student mastered the coursework, and IF he did so well in Biology class that the professor never even knew he was a non-Darwinian, then I believe the professor was out of line.

Still… I’d be VERY reluctant to take legal action against the prof, unless it’s a last resort.

I don’t believe anyone has an unalienable right to a favorable recommendation, from ANYONE. Does a conservative law professor have an obligation to write a glowing recommendation for a left-leaning student? I say no. I think the prof SHOULD do so, assuming the student worked hard in class and got good grades, but I don’t see where he has a legal obligation to give a good recommendation.

In this case, I think the professor should write or not write a recommendation letter based solely on the student’s performance in class. If he’s seen indications that the student would forsake sound medical procedure in favor of… oh, I don’t know, prayer and laying on of hands… he’s right to refuse. On the other hand, if the ONLY thing preventing him from writing a solid recommendation is the student’s religious beliefs, I think he’s being an arrogant jerk.

But again, I see no legal reason why he can’t be an arrogant jerk. To force him, legally, to endorse a student he doesn’t want to endorse, would be like legally forcing Roger Ebert to give a thumbs-up to movies he has moral objections to.

NOBODY has a legal right to my endorsement, and I’m afraid the student in question has no legal right to a glowing recommendation from this particular prof.

7

Just answered this over on the Pizza Parlor (parallel thread). Here’s what I said:

Tempest in a teapot.

First, a letter of recommendation is a gift, completely within the purview of the person being asked for it, not something one is entitled to.

Second, note the difference between the professor’s language: “think” and “a scientific answer to the question” and the allegations about belief in the parties bringing the complaint.

Quite simply, the geological record and the discipline of genetics, taken by themselves, favor a reading of creatures giving rise to other creatures which differ from themselves – “evolution” divested of all the trappings.

If one brings to the question a metaphysic that involves the creative hand of God, one can reasonably come to conclusions that differ from this – but that’s not “playing by the rules” – it’s not doing science. The dinosaurs might well have been killed off by big-game-hunter aliens in spaceships shooting them all with rayguns – but there’s no evidence that this happened, so it’s not a valid scientific theory in terms of falsifiability. Special creation of each living “kind” by immediate act of God is likewise a quite reasonable presumption to bring to the table, but is not a valid scientific theory – because how might you falsify it if it were not true?

I think the distinction between “thought” and “belief” is vital to the underlying question here. And the other aspect is, how in the world do they feel that the students’ freedom of belief exempts them from learning biology to the extent that a man would be compelled to write a letter of recommendation for a student who is unwilling to follow the logic of the scientific discipline.

I believe God created all living things in accordance with His Plan. I believe the mechanism He used is one that fits closely with evolution understood in the Darwin/DeVries/Gould-and-Eldridge paradigm. Others take a YEC or OEC or related stance, and others take a random-chance, no-God-required stance. But working strictly within the bounds of science, one cannot bring to the table one’s religious beliefs. Evolution is the mechanism supported by the data of biology and geology in the absence of outside intervention. In expecting students to know and accept the theory of evolution, they’re not being asked to deny God; they’re being asked to work within the bounds of the discipline they’re being taught. And a student who is unwilling to work within the rules of the scholarly discipline is by no means entitled to a letter of recommendation on how excellent a student he or she is supposed to be.

8

Speaking as faculty, most of us don’t issue blanket a priori statements about what kinds of people we will and won’t recommend.

Since the usual procedure is for a student to approach the professor individually, the professor is making a political statement by announcing his policy. That why he’s called a professor. The student is entitled to disagree with him, but I think the lawsuit is just a reciprocal political act with about as much meaning.

If the guy wasn’t interested in being political but wanted to make the same point, he could sit down with each student who wanted a rec and put the question to them. Then he could suggest that he would be unable to wholehearted recommend the student for a career in science any more than the student can endorse evolution. The student could ask for a less-than-wholehearted reference or shop for a different reference.

The suggestion that the prof should stick to the performance in class is a cop-out. The referral asks for a recommendation for a future career in science. I don’t think the professor should ignore significant misgivings about the student’s suitability.

9

You know, i was going to comment, but dag nabbit Polycarp took up all the good words!

Grrr…

So now I’m stuck with,

“Student wrong, teacher good.”
:smiley:

10

Seem pretty cut and dried to me. He wants a scientific answer as to where humanity comes from, i.e. something haveing to do with the classes that he has been teaching. Religious mumbo jumbo would be a fine answer , if that was what the proffessor was looking for. WTF is wrong with some people?? It would be like a law student turning in a paper on underwater basket weaving and expecting to get a glowing recomendation on his legal acumen.

11

I think the Houston Chronicle article says it all: The school chancellor wrote that “A letter of recommendation is a personal matter between a professor and student and is not subject to the university control or regulation.” Not getting a letter of recommendation is not the same as being denied admittance to a class or being given a bad grade. It sounds like you can believe in creationism, attend his classes and still get an ‘A.’ Thus no discrimination.

On the practical side, when I went to college I had probably a dozen different professors in my field. If I didn’t get a recommendation from one I could easily get one from another. Why can’t this student?

Evolution always gets a bad rap because people always link it to the “man came from apes” idea. Whether you believe in creationism, that man evolved from apes, was borne out of primordial goo, or spontaneously generated fer cryin’ out loud, evolution in the sense of the continued changing/updating/upgrading of species is not just fundamental to biology, it is reality. Species adapt to their environment or die, period. This has been more than sufficiently demonstrated in the lower orders, so why would man be different?

What I don’t get is why creationism and evolution are necessarily at odds. I’ve posed this question to numerous creationists and evolutionists (?) and have never gotten a satisfactory answer - “Is it possible that God not only created man but also created evolutionary forces that would allow man to adapt and survive?” I’d appreciate any enlightenment in this area.

12

Burner wrote:

No it wouldn’t. It would be like a law student turning in a paper advocating a different interpretation of the law than that held by his professor.

13

Actually, from the story:

Which is perfecty correct regarding the whole “evolution is a theory, not a fact” line of argument.
Shoud a chemistry professor give a recommendation to a student who doesn’t accept the “atomic theory of matter”? Should an astronomy professor give a recommendation to a student who doesn’t accept the “heliocentric model of the Solar System”?

14

This is beside the point, but…

Do professors at divinity schools give recommendations for students who profess heretical creeds? Perhaps it’s not a true “shoe on the other foot” situation, since divinity school is entirely about matters of faith, whereas in science it is possible to study the subject while holding varying or contradictory beliefs.

15

Ah, there’s the rub. There is no widely accepted alternate theory for atomic structure. There IS for origin and developement of life.

16

Actually, I think a better comparison would be if that law student turned in a paper on frontier vigilante justice, or how the legal system of ancient rome would handle a particular case, when the paper is supposed to be about a specific type of case in the current US legal system. Has all the similarities; It deals with the problem presented, but in a completely different manner outside the bounds of the class. The class in this case is a science class; If a student is going to be basing all his answers on a non-scientific basis, why would a teacher want to recommend him for a science class?

17

Creationism is not widely spread. It seems to be a US phenomenon. Also, there are other accepted theories for pretty much ever branch of science. Creationism is not scientific, therefore it should not be brought up in science class.

18

Creationism isn’t “widely accepted” as an “alternative theory” of where humans came from in biology. And the “theory of the four elements”–that all matter is made up of “earth, air, fire, and water”–is just as good (or just as bad) a scientific alternative to modern atomic theory, the periodic table, and so on, as “scientific” creationism is to evolutionary biology.

Also, the professor’s question didn’t actually mention the “origin of life”, but the origin of the human species. An inability to distinguish between questions about abiogensis and questions about hominid evolution would probably not indicate a good grasp of biology in any biology professor’s estimation.

19

Following that reasoning, how about this: Should a professor give a recommendation to a medical student who has excellent grades but believes that the common cold is caused by being chilled? How about if the same student believes that colds and other viral illnesses can be cured with antibiotics? These are both widely accepted alternatives to the standard theories, so by your reasoning the student deserves the recommendation. But I sure as heck wouldn’t want him to be my doctor.

20

Dear ME Buckner,

I never said “creationism.” I’m speaking of the people who beleive in both Science and God.

I feel you can reconcile both.

However, I think “creationism,” as put forth by many fundamentalists, is credulity and really doesn’t belong in an intellectual discussion.

If I wanted to study the workings of life (life science or biology), why should I have to discard a theory that also has validity? Or, if I was interested in anthropology, why should I be forced to discount The Bible’s or any religious book’s account of Human origin? Should I abstain from studying politics if I’m an anarchist?

As you can see, I am not a biologist. BUT, I do like to stay relatively well informed. So, take your ME Bucknerisms and stay on the original argument, religious discrimination, instead of making light of my academic inadequacies.
BTW, this is fun. I’ve never debated a mod before.