In article <1185065892.54554.0@despina.uk.clara.net>,
"brique" <briquenoir@freeuk.c0m> wrote:

But the variation still crops up in every generation, it tends
not to survive, is all.

Some variation survives, especially in species that exploit a wide
niche, like Homer the sap. Many variants are neutral, some give
advantages in certain circumstances. For example, some give resistance
to some diseases at the cost of venerability to others. Even color
blindness can be an advantage, it give the person increased ability to
detect camouflage. "Now old Elmer is not so good in the hunt, but he can
chip flint like no one else in the tribe, so he keeps an honored place
in the tribe and stays in camp with the women while the men hunt." In
fact I have heard of a tribe that keeps having albinos in their mix even
though they never marry. It turns out that they stay home with the women
and put their strength into the women's work, which turns out to be
advantageous for the tribe.

On Jul 14, 9:09 am, "Mark K. Bilbo" <gm...@com.mkbilbo> wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 23:17:53 -0700,Lorentzwrote:

On Jul 13, 6:11 pm, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailcan.com>
wrote:

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/06/darwinism-and-popular-

cult...

Thursday, June 28, 2007

So, interestingly enough, after hearing all the nagging from all my
nurse relatives (and they are legion) about my smoking (which isn't
good and I should quit, etc.) then way things have shaken out is *I'm*
the healthy one.

That's right. I'm the one who, over the years of being all "Darwinist"
about my health, has the stronger immune system and hasn't run a high
enough fever to need a doctor and anti-biotics in about three years
now.

There is nothing in Darwin's theory that would promote smoking.

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/06/darwinism-and-popular-cult...

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Darwinism and popular culture: Darwinism becoming the West's myth,
doctor says

My friend and colleague Deborah Gyapong reports on a recent talk by
Dr. John Patrick, Ottawa pediatrician and retired professor of
medicine, noting that

the "Darwinian myth" is becoming the "ordering myth" for the West,
replacing the Christian story, with potentially disastrous
consequences.

"Who would you rationally trust when we legalize doctor-assisted
suicide?" he asked. "A Darwinist physician or a doctor who believes in
judgment after death?"

Darwin's theories of natural selection, survival of the fittest and of
evolutionary progress are making an impact on health care, even though
Patrick describes the art of medicine as "very anti-Darwinist" in its
care for the sick and the vulnerable. But that is changing as society
becomes "profoundly incoherent," he said.

Patrick was speaking at a conference of Christian medical doctors,
June 3-9 at St. Augustine College in Ottawa. Unfortunately, other
speakers attempted to soothe the audience with tales of some kind of
accommodation with Darwinism, as long as the Darwinists would just
remember that Darwinism is not supposed to be the ordering myth of the
West. Yeah really.

The most interesting aspect of the current aggressive promotion of
evolutionary medicine (Darwinism in medicine and veterinaray
practice ) is its sheer clinical uselessness.

The proclamations are grand, to be sure:

"Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution," is
the oft-quoted title of a 1973 article for biology teachers by the
great evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. In it, he writes,
"Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually
the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it
becomes a pile of sundry facts some of them interesting or curious but
making no meaningful picture as a whole."

Evolution's role is equally central in the subset of biology
addressing human health and disease. The co-evolution of humans and
our pathogens, the rapidly shifting resistance of those pathogens to
our antibiotics, and our persistent vulnerability to chronic disease
all gain significance when viewed in the context of continuing
evolution. These subjects form the core of "Darwinian medicine," also
known as "evolutionary medicine."

But how exactly do these ills "gain significance when viewed in the
context of continuing evolution"? For the purpose of counselling and
treatment of the patient in the present day, it hardly matters when
they appeared or who - besides immediate ancestors and sibs, and
people who live nearby - has them.

Consider, for example, an illness for which there is apparently a
genetic predisposition: alcoholism. Fundamentally, the patient has
decisions to make (Will I drink or not? Will I get drunk or not?) What
if Alley Oop had the same problem? What if he didn't?

For that matter, what if there is really no genetic predisposition to
alcoholism? It makes no difference to the patient in the end. He
either drinks or he doesn't, and accepts the consequences.

One could say the same thing about obesity, that other scourge of the
family practitioner's office in prosperous countries everywhere. If
the Willendorf Venus was fat, so what? What if she had been thin? I
doubt that most Stone Age women were as certain of their next meal as
she must have been. But in the end, today's woman decides whether she
wants obesity, along with its problems, or not. And she's the only one
who can really do something about it.

Similarly, with antibiotic resistance (an often-cited passage in the
Gospel According to Darwin), I have it on good authority that the main
cause of the resistance is overprescription (and other overuse) of
antibiotics. We helped the bugs get where they are. We could stop
helping them. But that doesn't mean telling the old, old story of
Darwinism over and over again; it means getting patients to accept
alternative treatments. They will only do that if they can be
persuaded that other approaches work.

I suspect that Darwinian medicine will just go the way of evolutionary
psychology. I wonder how much harm it will do first.

Darwinism and popular culture: Darwinism becoming the West's myth,
doctor says

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/06/darwinism-and-popular-culture-darwinism.html



Thursday, June 28, 2007

Darwinism and popular culture: Darwinism becoming the West's myth,
doctor says


My friend and colleague Deborah Gyapong reports on a recent talk by
Dr. John Patrick, Ottawa pediatrician and retired professor of
medicine, noting that

the "Darwinian myth" is becoming the "ordering myth" for the West,
replacing the Christian story, with potentially disastrous
consequences.

"Who would you rationally trust when we legalize doctor-assisted
suicide?" he asked. "A Darwinist physician or a doctor who believes in
judgment after death?"

the "Darwinian myth" is becoming the "ordering myth" for the West,
replacing the Christian story, with potentially disastrous
consequences.

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/06/darwinism-and-popular-culture-darwinism.html

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Darwinism and popular culture: Darwinism becoming the West's myth,
doctor says


My friend and colleague Deborah Gyapong reports on a recent talk by
Dr. John Patrick, Ottawa pediatrician and retired professor of
medicine, noting that

the "Darwinian myth" is becoming the "ordering myth" for the West,
replacing the Christian story, with potentially disastrous
consequences.

"Who would you rationally trust when we legalize doctor-assisted
suicide?" he asked. "A Darwinist physician or a doctor who believes in
judgment after death?"

Darwin's theories of natural selection, survival of the fittest and of
evolutionary progress are making an impact on health care, even though
Patrick describes the art of medicine as "very anti-Darwinist" in its
care for the sick and the vulnerable. But that is changing as society
becomes "profoundly incoherent," he said.

Patrick was speaking at a conference of Christian medical doctors,
June 3-9 at St. Augustine College in Ottawa. Unfortunately, other
speakers attempted to soothe the audience with tales of some kind of
accommodation with Darwinism, as long as the Darwinists would just
remember that Darwinism is not supposed to be the ordering myth of the
West. Yeah really.

The most interesting aspect of the current aggressive promotion of
evolutionary medicine (Darwinism in medicine and veterinaray
practice ) is its sheer clinical uselessness.

The proclamations are grand, to be sure:

"Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution," is
the oft-quoted title of a 1973 article for biology teachers by the
great evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. In it, he writes,
"Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually
the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it
becomes a pile of sundry facts some of them interesting or curious but
making no meaningful picture as a whole."

Evolution's role is equally central in the subset of biology
addressing human health and disease. The co-evolution of humans and
our pathogens, the rapidly shifting resistance of those pathogens to
our antibiotics, and our persistent vulnerability to chronic disease
all gain significance when viewed in the context of continuing
evolution. These subjects form the core of "Darwinian medicine," also
known as "evolutionary medicine."

But how exactly do these ills "gain significance when viewed in the
context of continuing evolution"? For the purpose of counselling and
treatment of the patient in the present day, it hardly matters when
they appeared or who - besides immediate ancestors and sibs, and
people who live nearby - has them.

Consider, for example, an illness for which there is apparently a
genetic predisposition: alcoholism. Fundamentally, the patient has
decisions to make (Will I drink or not? Will I get drunk or not?) What
if Alley Oop had the same problem? What if he didn't?

For that matter, what if there is really no genetic predisposition to
alcoholism? It makes no difference to the patient in the end. He
either drinks or he doesn't, and accepts the consequences.

One could say the same thing about obesity, that other scourge of the
family practitioner's office in prosperous countries everywhere. If
the Willendorf Venus was fat, so what? What if she had been thin? I
doubt that most Stone Age women were as certain of their next meal as
she must have been. But in the end, today's woman decides whether she
wants obesity, along with its problems, or not. And she's the only one
who can really do something about it.

Similarly, with antibiotic resistance (an often-cited passage in the
Gospel According to Darwin), I have it on good authority that the main
cause of the resistance is overprescription (and other overuse) of
antibiotics. We helped the bugs get where they are. We could stop
helping them. But that doesn't mean telling the old, old story of
Darwinism over and over again; it means getting patients to accept
alternative treatments. They will only do that if they can be
persuaded that other approaches work.

I suspect that Darwinian medicine will just go the way of evolutionary
psychology. I wonder how much harm it will do first.