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Ben, My experience with creationists is that they usually accept viral and bacterial evolution because it is absolutely irrefutable, but do not accept the understanding of human lineage. So a creationist could, in theory, be perfectly capable in alomst any medicaly-related field. But I understand your point. I applaud what Dr. Dini's intentions, but not his method. Andrea On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Ben Waggoner wrote: > Dr. Chris Baldwin wrote: > > > This being said we do have to be a tad more sophisticated than the > > opposition - particularly in these times and (at least for me here in > > the south) in these places. To adopt the sort of stridency and direct > > approach of poor Dr. Dini is to invite all sorts of time consuming > > problems. No matter how much I agree with Dini I think that the more > > indirect approach of Roger Kaesler will have the greatest effect. > > Got to agree here. Tactically, it's best to give students as > few opportunities for public martyrdom as possible. In my non- > majors classes, my first statement on evolution is "Look, I get > paid exactly the same amount of dough whether you guys warmly > embrace Darwinism or reject it completely; I genuinely do not > CARE what any of you believe; that's not the issue." Gives 'em > less of an excuse to feel persecuted. Mind you, some do anyway. > > As for Andrea's comment that ". . . the professor should have > based his recommendation letter on whether or not the student > was a promising candidate for whatever he was applying" -- that > may be, but there are a number of ways in which evolution > affects medicine. I'm thinking of the evolution of antibiotic > resistance in bacteria and other pathogens; the application of > phylogenetics and coevolution theory to pathogen-host relationships; > the whole field of bioinformatics, which has a big phylogenetic > component to it. . . heck, there's a growing field of "Darwinian > medicine" out there. And does anyone remember that Florida dentist > who was accused of infecting several patients with HIV? The same > phylogenetic methods that were used to assess the dentist's degree > of guilt are the ones used to support the notion that we're all > basically lobe-finned fish with an attitude. > > Not all of this is going to be relevant to your average general > practitioner or internist or general surgeon -- but if a student > has had a decent exposure to evolutionary biology, and still > flat-out rejects the whole thing, I suggest that makes him or > her less of a promising candidate for many "hot" medical fields. > > -- > Ben > >
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