Re: [asa] Medicine and Evolution

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 9:05 AM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think you're overreacting Rich. He expressly states his special
> definition of "Darwinism": "Darwinism, *understood as the view that
> "chance and necessity" explains all biological complexity*, plays no
> role." You might critique him on this definition game -- obviously, duh,
> the study of disease resistance isn't an effort to "explain all biological
> complexity" -- but I don't see any suggestion here that we should stop
> studying who viruses mutate.

No, I'm not. If anything I am under-reacting. The context of the quote is a
reaction to the firestorm caused by his response an essay contest entitled
"Why Would I Want my Doctor to Have Studied Evolution" Egnor says it's
completely unnecessary.

In fact, I think it's safe to say that the only contribution evolution has
> made to modern medicine is to take it down the horrific road of eugenics,
> which brought forced sterilization and bodily harm to many thousands of
> Americans in the early 1900s. That's a contribution which has brought
> shame—not advance—to the medical field.
>
> So 'Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?' I wouldn't.
> Evolutionary biology isn't important to modern medicine. That answer won't
> win the 'Alliance for Science' prize. It's just the truth.
>

We are not worried about explaining biological complexity here. We are
concerned about developing a vaccine and the techniques in the paper (random
Monte Carlo simulations, phylogenetic trees) are the warp and woof of
evolutionary biology. But, because of the bugaboo that evolution *appears*
undesigned Egnor tells doctors not to study evolutionary biology. The
emboldened part of the statement above I have no problem with. No science
ever explains all of anything. But, that should be a motivation to study
evolutionary biology even more and to fill in the gaps *like the paper I
quoted does*. But, if in order to keep the ID "dream" alive future doctors
fail to learn evolutionary biology then I have a huge problem with it. It's
true he doesn't say do not study how viruses mutate but he does eliminate
important background knowledge in order for doctors to *effectively* do so.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Fri May 30 11:53:14 2008