Re: [asa] Education, Medicine, and Evolution

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Collin Brendemuehl <collinb@brendemuehl.net>
wrote:

> To say that Rich's point is a "straw man" is an understatement.
> But there is something even worse at work.
>
> There are certain ones who think every doctor ought to be an evolutionist
> or lose his job.
> And the same think that one who, even though he/she may have an appropriate
> level of
> understanding of genetics and related biology, must be an evolutionist in
> order to teach
> HS biology. Or they should be fired. And even that they should be hunted
> down and fired.
> These are radicals.
>

I didn't say that. I said doctors should study evolution because regardless
of other areas of application evolution happens for microbes. Undoubtedly,
David O. thought I was exaggerating imputing the denial of evolution to
areas that are patently obvious and in his reasonable way giving you all the
benefit of the doubt. You all have made my point magnificently.

So, even though there is a huge amount of evidence for evolutionary biology
we need to teach the controversy even by those who are deliberately ignorant
of it? If you are going to critique something you need to know the topic
even better than those you are critiquing. Egnor's biggest critics should be
from his fellow ID proponents but they are not. One criticism of ID is that
it is an argument from ignorance but Egnor takes it to an all-time high.

Since you are reading ScienceBlogs you undoubtably are aware of the debate
going on between those who say that being religious and being ignorant are
not the same and those like those you quoted who do. Some of us are trying
to help out the former group but we are losing largely because of people
like Michael Egnor.

My existence shows you do not need to be a specialist to understand this.
Nor do you need to be a professional scientist or engineer as David O's
existence proves. You do have to apply some effort, though and those of us
who are non-specialists are to give the specialists due deference. Peer
review means peers in the specialization. That's why we don't accept papers
such as Meyers because the paper was off topic for the journal or the
climate paper recently mentioned in a journal for surgeons. Non-peers often
miss errors but if the journal is peer reviewed non-peers can be confident
of the results and take advantage of the expertise not only of the authors
but also of the referees who have an important but thankless job.

I've gotten good at reading scientific papers. It does not mean that I could
go off and do original research in those areas. There really is not anything
particularly special about me and you can do the same. Join the AAAS or
subscribe to Nature. These journals are not only premier but also they are
geared towards describing the science -- and not just evolution -- to those
who are not specialists. Maybe the papers in the back are a little too dense
but the review articles in the front of the journal often do a good job of
explaining things. It can be done.

So, if you are an evangelical lay person there is no need to wring your
hands and say woe is me. You can find out what is going on if you go to the
right sources and apply enough effort. We live in an age where the
information is freely available to anyone. What you will also find is that
the professionals and specialists will respect you for what you are doing
and will help you if you are struggling. Being deliberately ignorant and
then attacking those same specialists only brings, well, contempt.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

>

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Received on Fri May 30 18:29:46 2008