A recent page-one story in the New York Times (NYT), "Believing Scripture but Playing by Science's Rules" (Feb. 12), caught my attention because it evoked similarities, in my mind at least, with the current process of admissions to doctoral programs in theology and Bible at Catholic universities.

The NYT article focuses on Marcus Ross, a former doctoral student in the field of paleontology at the University of Rhode Island, who completed his dissertation in December. The fact that he received a doctorate has raised serious concerns for some faculty members at URI and elsewhere around the country.

Dr. Ross happens to be a deeply committed evangelical Protestant who has a firm religious belief in creationism, and specifically that the universe is at most only 10,000 years old.

On the other hand, his 197-page dissertation acknowledges that a particular type of marine reptile, the mosasaur, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era --- about 65 million years ago!

The student's dissertation director regards the scientific scholarship behind the dissertation as "impeccable," and he has assured skeptical colleagues that his student had worked "within a strictly scientific framework," indeed a "conventional" one.

In an interview with the NYT, Dr. Ross characterized the methods and theories of paleontology as one "paradigm" for studying the past, while Scripture offers another. In the paleontological paradigm, he said, the dates in his dissertation are entirely appropriate. But he admitted that, as a young earth creationist, he has a different view. It is a matter of "separating the different paradigms."

He compared his situation at the University of Rhode Island to a socialist studying economics in a department with a supply-side orientation. Students, he said, hold "all sorts of opinions different from the department in which they graduate. What's that to anybody else?"

What seems telling about this story and others like it, not only in the geosciences but also in theology and biblical studies, is that this individual is now teaching earth science at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, an institution founded and led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell.

Dr. Ross reports that he is using a "conventional scientific text" for his course, but that he doesn't impose its content on his students, "anymore than I was required" to accept the evolutionist views of his teachers in Rhode Island.

According to the NYT, Dr. Ross has written and spoken on scientific subjects "with a creationist bent." He also appeared on a DVD while still a graduate student, arguing that "intelligent design" (a re-configured form of creationism) offered a better explanation of the development of animal life than evolution.

Online information about the DVD identified Mr. Ross as "pursuing a Ph.D. in geosciences" at the University of Rhode Island. "It is this use of a secular credential to support creationist views that worries many scientists," the New York Times reports.

There was a similar case in which another creationist, Kurt Wise, who declined to be interviewed, received a doctorate at Harvard in 1989 under the direction of the late paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould. Since then, according to one observer, Dr. Wise, who teaches at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, has been "lionized" by the creationist/intelligent design community because he has a degree from Harvard.

Some scientists are now arguing that applicants who believe, as a matter of religious faith, that creationism alone can explain the origins of the universe should not be admitted to doctoral programs in the natural sciences, no matter how high their scores on their graduate records exams (GREs).

Such students, they insist, are unlikely to consider the content of their classes with a genuinely open mind. Moreover, their real motive for applying to prestigious university programs may be to gain academic credibility for their creationist views in their later writings, lectures and media appearances.

Although I am aware of no study of a parallel situation at Catholic universities, I have had some measure of experience reading applications from a relatively small number of candidates who had received their undergraduate and/or Masters degrees from Protestant fundamentalist/evangelical institutions or like-minded Catholic schools, and who have also registered high scores on their GREs.

The same questions arise that scientists have raised in the NYT article. Will these applicants be truly open to learning at a mainline Catholic university? Will they avoid taking courses from specific professors? Do they want the doctorate from a major Catholic university primarily for credibility's sake? Will they subsequently apply to teach at mainline institutions, or will they gravitate to schools which share their essentially static views of theology and biblical interpretation?

In fairness to everyone involved, someone should do such a study.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.