I think you’ve got things wrong here. Evolution, at least the basic elements of it, are central to biology in a way the the Big Bang isn’t. Well, actually that’s not quite true either, since the Big Bang is extremely central - far more so than you suggest. That the nature of the Big Bang doesn’t predict planetary orbits in our solar system is no more revealing than the fact that evolution doesn’t predict the eye colour of your family.
Evolution is probably the most confirmed theory in all of science, ahead of relativity and quantum mechanics. With it, biology is a coherent mass of knowledge than hangs together and explains with extraordinary power why things are the way they are, and how they work. Without it, biology is merely a litany of disconnected facts which describe but do not explain.
Simply put, if you don’t understand evolution, you don’t understand biology. And this matters for doctors, too. A big problem in medicine these days are so-called superbugs. How can a doctor understand what these things are, how they came to exist, how to prevent more from coming into existence, and how to treat them, if he or she doesn’t understand evolution, and understand it well?
This doesn’t mean a doctor can’t be a devout conservative Christian, it just means that a doctor can’t use the Bible as if it’s a scientific treatise. Which ought to be fine, since it isn’t. Some people apparently have a hard time accepting that, though.
The original analogies comparing Creationism with a Ptolemaic view in astronomy or an Aristotelian view in physics are exactly on target.
I don’t suppose a doctor needs to know biology at all, then, does he? He needs to know anatomy–“The heart is the one that goes lub-dub-dub up here, and the liver is this big one down here, and the thigh bone’s connected to the leg bone, and all these complicated tubes and ducts have Latin names”. He doesn’t need to know chemistry, either–what does a doctor care about atoms and molecules and little invisible things whizzing around and whatnot? If the patient displays such-and-such set of symptoms, then this medicine, which comes in pills of this shape and size and color and have this name on the bottle, will be effective. Who cares how the pills work? Maybe they inhibit some specific metabolic pathway of the bacterium that causes the disease. Maybe each one of those capsules is personally blessed by the Pope, so as to make them effective at driving out the Strep Demons.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to go to a doctor who had been trained that way, though.
Yes, I’m exaggerating. So long as they aren’t called on to do any original research (grasping concepts like natural selection and the evolution of resistance to drugs is actually very important in developing new medicines) a young Earth creationist–so long as they haven’t gone so far off the deep end as to deny the “germ theory of disease” in favor of demonic possession–probably could thump you in the right place and make you say “Ah!” and prescribe the right medicine, or even cut you open and snip out the right part. Maybe doctors shouldn’t have to take real biology courses. I think it makes better doctors if they’re taught to be more than just technicians–“I do this, and the problem goes away, I dunno why”–but IANAD. At any rate, it’s not the biology professor’s job to set the curriculum. The curriculum says doctors have to take biology, and the biology professor has a right to see to it that people who have taken biology have actually learned biology. If someone thinks doctors shouldn’t have to take biology, then that should be taken up with whoever devises the curriculum for medical schools.
(As to your planetary scientist, disbelieves in the Big Bang in favor of what? A planetologist who doesn’t grasp that the planets of the Solar System were formed from clouds of interstellar dust and gas which in turn were expelled from giant stars in supernova explosions isn’t going to get anywhere in figuring the nitty-gritty of how the moons of Saturn came to be the way they are. I suppose a “steady stater” could still accept the synthesis of heavy elements in massive stars, but at some point cosmology and astrophysics do impinge on planetary sciences and geology.)
The prof makes it clear how important he feels the theory of evolution is to biology. It would be unethical of him to give a recommendation to a student who, on blind faith, denies it. If the student can produce a scientifically testable and plausible under current evidence alternative to evolution then maybe the prof will write a book with him.
I think having read the page now, the prof makes an excellent point. A Creationist, somebody who has willfully denied a scientific theory because he doesn’t like the consequences of holding that theory, because it clashes with his personal beliefs, would not make a good scientist. A scientist must be prepared to accept the truth and act on it. A doctor above all must be prepared to simply do what is necessary, according to medical technology and medical ethics, and can’t let his own personal beliefs get in the way.
In other words, a creationist has shown the desire to ignore a theory that has loads of evidence behind it, for personal or asthetic reasons. A doctor cannot ignore medical theories just because he doesn’t like what those theories imply about personally held beliefs. If he rejects the theory and declines to treat the patient in accord with the theory, he ought to have a very strong explanation for that action founded in his own scientific understanding of the human body. In short, he must be a person who tends towards scientific thinking, cause and effect, study, observation, validation, empirical testing. Creationists are miracle-thinkers, and so would be perhaps unsuited to the profession.
At the very least, the argument can be made, and one could withhold his recommendation of someone if he thought that person would be poorly suited for the position. Give too many recommendations of candidates who turn out to be garbage and you’ll quickly lose your own reputation, giving a recommendation is sticking your neck out.
I think the right legal analogy would be for a student in any standard US law school course (not located in Louisiana) to refuse to recognize any US law based on English common law and claim it was OK to base his personal interpretation of the legal system on Napoleonic law.
No connection with observed reality, no utility in his profession should he get a law degree.
There is no such thing as ‘scientific creationism’. There are people who pretend to practice what they call ‘creation science’. I believe it to be a mere tactic of politics and argument as opposed to an honest position.
People who believe in the literal truth of the bible on this point are not content to have faith in god, but feel they must deny the evidence of their own senses to the contrary of what their book says.
I think that may be what’s so troubling to me and others about the idea of a strict creationist doctor. How far is it between denying evolution and assuming the patients symptoms are the retribution of a vengeful deity?
“You have syphillis because you violated the sanctity of the marriage bed! I could treat you, but I believe it would be wrong!”
The student in question does, in fact, want to go to medical school. Here’s a quote, from the version of this thread at the Pizza Parlor:
He’s probably right–someone could get through med school just fine and be a fine doctor without believing totally in evolution. I know there were some people in my med school class who were avowed creationists.
However, I still think this is a great policy. For one thing, these students presumably had this professor for a class, and this was presumably a big part of the subject matter, whether it was BIO 101 or a more directed evolution class. If a student can’t articulate something that he learned in your class, then I can completely understand not wanting to write him a recommendation.
For another thing, there is so much bad science out there attempting to debunk evolution. I would, at the very least, want a student I was recommending to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, science-wise. If he understood and accepted the evidence but said that his faith kept him looking for other answers, that would be one thing; if he started spouting ACR/Kent Hovind bushwa, he’d be out on his ass.
First, did you read the paragraph you quoted, in which I attempt to debunk “Scientific Creationism” as any kind of honest science? Did you notice the quotes around the term itself? It’s customary, when using a term coined or used by someone else that you feel is improper description, to set it off in quotes as meaning “this is what they call it, not what I would” – as in the news services’ reports of “students” in some third-world countries whose major seems to be Anti-Americanism, with a minor in Mob Violence.
However, you are as flat-out wrong in the last sentence in that quote as is the extreme rightist who maintained to me not a week ago that there is no such thing as a liberal with moral values – all they are out to do is systematically try to tear down America. There are people who put their certitude in the Bible rather than in empirical knowledge and inductive reasoning, and in consequence consider that if any portion of what is discovered or concluded about the world we live in contradicts a literal reading of the Bible, it must therefore be erroneous – the work of the devil or of human fallibility. This is a sincere belief, not “a mere tactic of politics and argument.” I hypothecate that it derives from a need for certitude combined with a strong faith in God that therefore considers the Bible as His infallible Word by extension.
However, I think I would in general agree with your analysis as applied to the (supposedly degree-holding) men who make their living off organizations promoting “Creation Science” – I’m convinced that virtually every one of them is a demagogue out to play games with the heads of the sincere and devout fundamentalists and related Christians for the money it brings them in, in donations.
I don’t see discrimination here. The professor asked a question with a factual answer. If a student cannot correctly answer such a question, then how can a prof be expected to recommend him? If a mathematics professor asked a student to solve an equation and the student said that he did not believe in the existence of zeroes, the prof could not in good consience recommend this kid for a career in nuclear physics. Religion has nothing to do with it. I do not believe the prof would have had a problem with a student who expressed a belief in theistic evolution.
Damn. I wanted to add to this discussion, but almost every point I made elsewhere has been made earlier, and better, here. Mostly by Polycarp and MEBuckner.
I did look into Texas Tech’s Bio dept, and the student in question had 39 professors to select from, so Dini’s position on recommendations cannot by itself be construed as denying the student access to further education.
Also, the MSNBC story states that the student spent a semester at a Christian college where he was able to obtain a recommendation he was presumably happy with.
I do think that a belief in strict creationism is a definite problem for a practicing physician. How would a creationist react to MRSA? Or even HIV/AIDS? Was God hiding those bugs for the last 9,980 years? Or did he create them specially for us to punish the wicked? Either way, that’s not some-one I want as my infectious disease specialist.
The problem here is his demand for a scientific affirmation. It’s not quite clear what he means by this.
As an educator giving recommendations, he is quite legitimate in demanding that anyone getting a recommendation be able to understand the theory of evolution and how it relates to biology (it’s hard to understand much of modern biology with out it), and know how to use it in his work.
But it’s not at all legitimate that he demand a personal affirmation. I think that betrays the spirit an domain of scientific inquiry: it makes things personal, where science is supposed to be about the ideas and the evidence, not the people of their beliefs.
If all he means by “scientific affirmation” is that someone can say “this is what the best evidence and science concludes about the origins of life” that’s one thing. But if he means “it’s not acceptable that you simply agree that evolution is good science… you must also personally affirm a belief in evolution” then I think he’s out of line. In either case, I think he should be more clear about this distinction (it’s presently not clear whether he even agrees that there is such a distinction, let alone whether it is legitimate.)
I agree. I would also like to add that their definately are other theories out there (not scientific mind you), such as Zacharia Sitchin’s preposterous assertion (IMO) that we came from aliens… http://www.sitchin.com/ http://www.crystalinks.com/sitchen.html
I am sure that if the students creationist argument could refute evolution with anything more that “God says so” then the prof would accept it. Saying that man has been here since the dawn of the world does a pretty shoddy job of explaining dinosaurs and pre christian cultures.
I’ll second the notion that someone who believes in creationism rather than evolution could make a fine doctor. I would totally disagree with him/her, but beliefs on that issue count for nothing in the day-to-day practice of medicine. (Side note to MEBuckner - some knowledge of chemistry and even physics is important in a number of areas of medicine, though my entirely forgetting the Krebs cycle has not had any noticeable impact on my life).
The prof in question is, in my opinion, perfectly justified in not recommending someone who rejects evolutionary theory for creationism. He would not be justified in sabotaging the person’s course grade, but that isn’t the issue at hand.
Interestingly, predjudice can run both ways. As a college freshman I had a tutorial assignment to write a paper on the topic “Is A Scientist Religious” - the professor in question being a devout and apparently fundamentalist Christian. I’ve always thought my negative response to the proposition contributed to a mediocre grade on the paper (though my good final course grade was, of course deserved :D).
While I was reading this thread for the first time, CNN had an interview with the student in question, his lawyer, and I believe a chancellor from the college.
I found it interesting that this student didn’t even meet the professor’s first criteria.
From the interview it appeared that the student did not get an “A” and apparently (if I understood correctly) actually dropped the class.
The student was asked if he could have approached some of the other professors for a recommendation and he said that he could. But he wanted a recommendation from this particular professor because he is well known and respected in his field.
This is the basis for a lawsuit? I don’t think so.
There is no such thing as ‘scientific creationism’. There are people who pretend to practice what they call ‘creation science’. I believe it to be a mere tactic of politics and argument as opposed to an honest position.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest you thought it was scientific.
I’ve never seen it called ‘scientific creationism’ before. I think they prefer to call it ‘creation science’ because it sounds more like a plausible branch of science that way.
I was referring to the “creation science” arguments. Not the belief itself, which I respect. Rather the tactic of running to ‘creation science’ when their book is contradicted and they don’t want to admit that the contradiction is what causes them to reject evolution, as you seem to agree below.
I have a more cynical view: I think they have along-term agenda to get fundamentalist belief taught in public schools in the US. I think they get paid by fundamentalist “think” tanks to spout their hogwash in the hopes that if they call it science, people will defend it as equivalent of real science and demand it be taught alongside real science.
I think there was an article summarizing all this in the Skeptical Inquirer not too long ago.
I agree that they also effectively play games with the sincere and devout. If you’re faithful, you don’t need proof. That’s the whole point of faith, as I understand it. By trying to ‘prove’ creation they therefore attempt to deny the need for faith.
IF this is accurate, then the student has absolutely no case.
Personally, I would never dream of seeking a recommendation from ANY professor in whose class I hadn’t done well.
My earlier (limited) sympathy for the student was based entirely on the supposition that he had done well in class, and that the professor’s refusal to write a recommendation was based ENTIRELY on the student’s beliefs. If, as RSA states, the student didn’t even complete the professor’s course, he has a lot of gall to seek a recommendation at all.
If RSA is right, the religious angle is unimportant- the kid just doesn’t deserve the recommendation, on the merits.
:rolleyes: Oh, so he’s saying he feels entitled to demand a recommendation from one of the faculty’s Big Guns? Geez… I never cease to be amazed at the sheer ballpower of some people.
I gotta try it sometime…
“Yes, there are a number of females who would gladly get it on with me. But it’s Tyra Banks who should put out for me because I wanna nail a supermodel.”
