When I got my BA in biology and environmental studies back in'73, I had some really great teachers that shared their enthusiasm and love of learning. A small school that provided a top notch education... good enough that it wasn't that hard to score top grades when I took my Graduate Entrance Exams. I wasn't planning on graduate school, but it never hurts to keep your options open.

The oil embargo and poor job market saw me back in school in '75 in the SUNY system - State University of New York. It was in SUNY-Fredonia that I first encountered watered down science... it was a graduate level course in Evolution. The textbook was a joke, but the real eye opener was during one class where we were to do short presentations on some aspect of the subject and follow up with a Q & A. I did mine on the role of random factors - mainly because the text glossed over so much.

So there I am going on about population genetics and gene distribution with the Professor constantly interjecting strange comments. I thought he was acting as a "devil's advocate", though why he didn't have the courtesy of waiting until the Q & A was eluding me. Call me dim, but after the caliber of teachers I had as an undergrad, I just wasn't expecting that a graduate level course in Evolution would be taught by a believer in Divine Intervention.

It turned out that he had recently survived colon cancer surgery, regarded that as a miracle and had found god. And lost his scientific objectivity.