[Right Wing Professor]

One frequently reads here on FR that evolution is of no practical use in the health-related professions. This editorial rebuts that assertion

[Right Wing Professor]

Ping-a-ling!

[mlc9852]

Are you saying doctors don't know about this stuff?

[fr_freak]

From now on, in these evolution threads, I'm only going to say this:

There is no theory of evolution. There is only a list of plants and animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.

[From many - one.]

check back to see how thread evolves

[Logophile]

One frequently reads here on FR that evolution is of no practical use in the health-related professions. This editorial rebuts that assertion.

I accept evolution, but I believe it to be of minor importance to practicing physicians and scientists (except for evolutionary biologists). Far from rebutting that belief, the editorial confirms it. Consider:

Biochemistry courses cover bilirubin metabolism, but an evolutionary explanation for why bilirubin is synthesized at all is new: It is an efficient free-radical scavenger.

Evolutionary theory may explain the purpose of bilirubin synthesis; but biochemists were able to discover the pathway for bilirubin metabolism without explicit reference to evolutionary theory. That is pretty much true of all of biochemistry: the chemistry came first, the evolutionary explanation came along later.

Pharmacology emphasizes individual variation in genes encoding cytochrome P450s, but their evolutionary origins in processing dietary toxins are just being fully appreciated.

In other words, the pharmacology came first; the evolutionary explanation came later (after the real work has been done).

In physiology, fetal nutritional stress appears to flip an evolved switch that sets the body into a state that protects against starvation. When these individuals encounter modern diets, they respond with the deadly metabolic syndrome of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

Was metabolic syndrome predicted by evolutionary biology, then observed in individual patients? Or did it happen the other way around?

Evolution is more explanatory than predictive when it comes to biochemistry, molecular biology, and related fields.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[JCEccles]

I thought from reading the headline this was about "evolving" better medicines. You know, you could do it the darwinist way: throw various inert elements together in a heap and give it few billion years to chaotically and mindlessly percolate itself into a new super high blood pressure medication.

Or you could fund a private or commercial laboratory to do the job.

The latter, of course, would be intelligent design--the only way grand new formulations can ever come about in a short period of time.

I find outrageously funny all the supposedly bright and well-educated people who cling to the idea of a dead, mindless, pointless state of squat entropy-tending darwinian existence as the pinnacle of human mental achievement.

To find so much pleasure and meaning in abject, cruel, impersonal meaninglessness is truly a great talent. The materialist chumps don't even begin to sense the incongruity of materialist darwinism relative to their feelings and beliefs about it, which makes their intellectual pratfalls and unintentionally comical prattle all the funnier.

[Boiler Plate]

One frequently reads here on FR that evolution is of no practical use in the health-related professions. This editorial rebuts that assertion.

OK then, I guess your work here is done.

[CodeToad]

"editorial"

Yeah, and editorial, so I wouldn't use it as as "proof".

[connectthedots]

These and other examples make a strong case for recognizing evolution as a basic science for medicine. What actions would bring the full power of evolutionary biology to bear on human disease? We suggest three. First, include questions about evolution in medical licensing examinations; this will motivate curriculum committees to incorporate relevant basic science education.

Seems pretty clear that a vast majority of licensing boards believe the ToE has no value in medicine.

That being the case, it is pretty obvious that the ToE has no importance in the practice of medicine.

[Creationist]

Evolution is useless to medicine.

A variation of a disease is no different than a variation of a chicken.