I would phrase it as evolution and common descent being an invaluable tool in explaining the similarities and differences between the genomes of different species and the genomes within a species. ID nor separate creation has been able to explain the observations geneticists are making. For example, why do non-CpG transitions outnumber transversions when comparing different genomes? Why do we often see genetic equidistance? Why are there more similarities shared between homologous exons than introns? Why do we see a phylogenetic signal? Evolution easily explains all of these observations, but ID/creationism simply doesn’t.
If evolution were true, how would it change the day to day work of a YEC family doc?
I’m curious what was the hope to prove here? Is believing in God necessary to be a good doctor? It’s really a useless question. You could worship Satan , Thor, or a fart monster and still know how to operate on a human body.
However, the better you understand science, then the better you are at finding real scientific solutions from pseudoscience hacks. Since evolution is true, and since it’s directly related to anatomy and physiology , any doctor who understands evolution would be better equipped to be a doctor. Same as for anyone in a scientific field such as botany.
Nope. I never mentioned God or Christianity in the OP. Why would you bring them into an evolution question?
I read through the article, and it sounds more like apologetics than science.
an understanding of the general principles of evolutionary medicine would assist in gaining a fuller understanding and appreciation of why human diseases arise—that is, the ultimate causes.
It’s not. It’s a study that links several other studies which in return links other studies which are studies peer reviewed by experts in their fields who writes multiple studies based on all the available data.
Again evolution is not a belief system. It’s science. Not pseudoscience. If you’re thinking of pseudoscience by amateurs making statements based off of ignorance and personal beliefs you would be thinking of creationism.
Science graduates (esp those in the field of biology) seem to have this over-inflated idea that no one can understand or practise biology or medicine unless one accepts the theory-cum-fact that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Some scientists on this site claim that the theory-cum-fact of common descent is essential for understanding genetics.
I’m glad you’ve discovered evolutionnews.org - it’s my favourite anti-Darwinism, non-YEC site. It’s arguments are based purely on scientific evidence and not on any interpretation of the Bible.
What do you mean by “evolution” exactly? The OP is not referring to the biological definition of “evolution”, but the theory that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor.
No theory per se ever treated a disease - however, an application of a theory is a different matter entirely.
The OP is concerned with practical applications of the theory that all life evolved from a common ancestor. In the fields of biology and medicine, many a fancy evolutionary explanation/theory based on common ancestry has no practical application at all - they just stories.
Speaking of pseudo-science, a lot of neo-Darwinian theories about what happened millions of years ago are untestable, which in opinion qualifies them as pseudo-science. For example, the theory that birds evolved from a reptile via neo-Darwinian processes is a theory that cannot be tested, and is therefore pseudo-science.
“It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test.” (Dr. Collin Patterson, paleontologist, Natural History Museum of London, in a letter to Sunderland)
As for “the better you understand science”, no understanding can be gained from untestable theories that are really just useless stories.
You appear to be conflating a theory with a fact. It seems to me that very little of the theory that all life evolved from a common ancestor can actually be proven to be factual.
Do you agree that the fossil record begins with simple forms of life, and that as time goes on, more complex forms of life appear?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Not at all. It’s a rational fact. Axiomatic. You know what that means don’t you? It is a self evident truth, an inescapable conclusion, an absolute certainty with greater corollaries than you can possibly imagine.
Unless you have a dialectically superior antithesis to the rational synthesis? I.e. an alternative theory. And no, it’s not that.
It’s just a detective story of a four billion year stream we can’t actually walk up. What fascinates me is the origin of angiosperms.
We still need the theory before we can make an application.
Evolutionary explanation have been called theories but in fact they are not theories in the scientific sense. A theory is the result of finding evidence and establishing facts. The evolutionary theory itself, in my opinion, is not a theory. It is only a hypothesis. The whole lot rests on “we see different species arise at different times” and “we see more complex organisms later in the geological layers”. So what? :That doesn’t say that one evolved from the other.
I don’t see any evolutionary stories have any bearing on medicine. And in some cases there is dire consequences trying to see things “in the light of evolution”. Look at the cancer clonal evolutionary theory. They are claiming the cancer cells that are different, which they call clones have arisen from random mutations and natural selection, i.e., evolved. And they give treatments, chemotherapy for instance, to kill the cancer. What they have found is that the cancer often comes back with a vengeance and is, in their terminology “chemo resistant”.
And this is done in the face of knowing for the last 20 years or more that there are cancer stem cells that are produced by the body. Without the cancer stem cells there is no cancer. Nothing to do with evolution. But despite the huge volume of evidence for the cancer stem cells they are still calling it a hypothesis. This is where the problem lies.
And that is true. If you think I am wrong, then please try to scientifically explain why homologous exons shared between species have fewer differences than homologous introns, just as one example.
That’s completely false. There is mountains of genetic evidence that you are ignoring, and it makes up the bulk of evidence for evolution. Fossils are just the icing on the cake.
That has been confirmed in multiple scientific studies:
What makes those stem cells cancerous is mutations.
I agree with @SkovandOfMitaze that for something to be true, it doesn’t have to be practically applicable in all disciplines. I have lots of colleagues who are YEC and have no trouble with conscious cognitive dissonance with how they work from day to day. However, as you get more into research and really look at what even primary care are doing, common descent and evolution become more and more evident. Also, as time goes on, evolution just makes way more sense to me as I’m aware of the science of what I read about in my work.
In another discipline, Glenn Morton trained as YEC and had to drop it as he learned more of his work in searching for petroleum. He had to admit there was nothing that helped him from a YEC perspective in his work, whereas all the evidence fit an old, old earth.
Evolutionary theory is based on general principles which explain life in the natural world, and is definitely scientific. But at least you are not using theory in the sense of tentative, so that is good.
YEC cannot be is not predictive of anything in past geology, other than the earth not being created to take billions of years to become Eden. It was created as Eden, fully clothed with a living biosphere. This is not for this thread though.
I’ve never heard of a “rational fact” - what is it? However, I have heard of a “fact”, which is something that can be empirically demonstrated to be true.
You cannot empirically demonstrate that birds evolved from a reptile by means of any neo-Darwinian process, for example, so it is not a fact. It might be “axiomatic” to you, but it isn’t to everyone.
Agreed - although not all scientific applications need a theory.
I agree, but try telling that to all those evolutionary scientists out there who publish articles, papers and even books filled with untestable theories about what might have happend millions/billions of years ago! They seem to think they’re talking science, but it seems to me they’re just telling pseudo-scientific stories. This is one reason I am wary of the so-called science of evolution - a lot of it doesn’t even qualify as science, but it gets passed of as such.
As I said previously, very little of what evolutionists claim about what happened millions of years ago can be demonstrated to be factual. Plenty of theories and stories, but facts are rather thin on the ground.
I been quizzing science professionals (including biologists and doctors) about this matter for years, and you’d be surprised how many of these otherwise highly intelligent people mistakenly think that an evolutionary explanation (often untestable) for how something came to exist must be useful. But most of the time, these Darwinian stories are completely irrelevant to applied science and amount to just blowing smoke.
That’s incorrect. The fossil record is evidence of biological/ Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution is the best scientific explanation for the fossil record - but that doesn’t mean it’s the truth.
I’m not claiming that it did. I’m saying the fossil evidence reveals distinct and profound changes in life-forms over a long period of time, beginning with relatively simple organisms, after which appear more complex organisms - a pattern that could loosely be described as a pattern of “evolution”. I don’t know what process was responsible for that pattern of “evolution” and I don’t think anyone can ever know, but I don’t believe the fossil record is the result of a process of contiguous biological evolution, as claimed by Darwinists.
I believe the fossil record is a result of divine miracles, in which case scientific explanations are a waste of time, not to mention, bound to be erroneous.
Oh, and don’t forget parsimonious facts. They are as opposed to prodigal facts.