You're Asian, you must be smart, right?

My math teacher went off today about the gamma function in mathematics. Basically his problem is the fact that Gamma(alpha) is equal to (alpha-1) factorial. He felt that was a stupid problem that could have been easily fixed by redefining alpha within the equation, and I think he might be partially right on that.
The funny thing however is that he became quite upset about this in class. The way he was going off about it you would think that he was talking about saving the lives of children in Sudan or something. I don't think I've quite ever seen anyone get so worked up about a mathematical equation.