As many readers suspected, Jasper Rine, the biology professor whose pilfered laptop was the buzz of the blogosphere last week, “exaggerated” in an effort to scare the thief into returning his stolen computer. Says Rine:

Although I have unlimited respect for facts, and delight in their discovery and appreciation, I have come to the obvious yet almost blasphemous view that, with respect to teaching, the facts just aren’t that important.

Maybe he’s in the wrong line of work.

Update: Reader Roland passes along the following clarification of the Rine quote cited above:

The quote in your note was taken out of context in the article you link to. It implies that Dr Rine does not care whether what he teaches is accurate or not. In truth he was complaining that there are too many new facts being published to be able to teach all the facts. The article you cite on the computer theft links to a third place where the quote is given in full, published in 1997.