> The biology professor, Michael L. Dini, had a strict policy. He would
write
> recommendations only for students who could "truthfully and forthrightly
> affirm a scientific answer" to this question: "How do you think the human
> species originated?" Spradling, who believes in creationism, believed that
> made him ineligible.... Last month, the Justice Department launched an
investigation into whether
> Dini's insistence that his students affirm a belief in human evolution
> illegally discriminates against students' religious beliefs.
>
>From what it says here, he is asking of the student to describe a
"scientific answer" to the question of the origination of the human species,
not necessarily 'evolution'.
The question is, should someone, whos answer to the question of the origination of species is non-scientific, get a scientific-reccomendation?
This is not a question of science vs. belief, but of someone who is demanding credentials from within one paradigm while refusing to accept the boundaries which define the very paradigm.
Two phytopathologists may argue over whether it is the humidity or the heat which is the main factor in the spread of some fungal disease of the chickpea, but if one of them were to say that it is demons of the netherworld which cast spells upon crops to blame and that it is not worth actually trying to prove it, it is just simply the way it is...then he would have no right to be a phytopathologist, as he refuses to even use the methodological and theoretical tools of the field/paradigm itself.
So, according to the article at least, the Justice department investigation is off base...unless Prof. Dini was caught rejecting a student who put forth a non-evolutionary yet scientifically justifiable proof of human origins.