Evolution is a lie: Christian nuts get company of Muslim zealots

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It probably was inevitable: Muslim medical students boycotting lectures on evolution... because it 'clashes with the Koran'

There you have it, nuttiness is infectious.

 

We really should protect children against religion until they are adults.

 

Maybe the Romans were correct and we should feed Christians to the lions. Now they are corrupting the Muslims and making them do irrational things.

 

The Romans were correct about many things.

 

I tend to agree with the professor - why would these people want to study biology at all? There are countless people in the US who subscribe to the creationist school of thought, but hardly any of them are biologists. As someone with a bachelors in biology and a master in biochemistry, I fell pretty confident it stating that it isn't really feasible to study biology without also studying genetics, and as genetics is directly tied to evolution, you're going to be studying evolution too.

My take on these Muslim fundamentalist students is the same as my take on Christian fundamentalists. I don't give a rip what you believe - if it helps you sleep at night, gives you life greater focus, or whatever other reason you want to give - go with it. However, once you have decided that, you probably should make a career choice that involves the study or practice of theories that goes against your beliefs. Kind of like if you can't stand the sight of blood, you probably shouldn't decide to become a surgeon.

 

You'd think that these students will see that evolution would be in the syllabus and just NOT take biology class.

 

It's simple: fail them. If you don't accept evolution, then you don't accept biology. A medical practitioner that doesn't accept biology is quack and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a patient.

 

That would actually be a great idea. Although people that convert to a religion when they're already adult tend to be more strict about it, there would certainly be a lot less of them.

As for the creationism believers, it does beg the question of why they started studying biology in the first place. Maybe they converted to this belief later on, or maybe they didn't think their choice of study through quite thoroughly enough (not that many kids actually do that).

And as Morgoth points out, I suppose it would be hard for them to pass this course if they refuse to answer the way the course material teaches them (they don't have to believe it, they just have to give the right answers).

 

Well done. It is amazing how the simpleist answers are almost always the best answers.

 

Well, yeah. If you like it or not it's your business, but if you don't take the courses or do the assignments, you don't pass the course.

I have to agree with the professor, though - why are these people still be studying medicine instead of something else, like Theology?

 

Just out of curiosity, why does a medical student need to know about evolution in order to practise medicine? Isn’t it more important to know how the human body works now rather than how it got that way?

(Note: I realize that my ignorance of biology and medicine may be shining through here, but I thought I’d ask. I do know that the study of evolution is one of the core components of biology, but I’m just wondering why it’s essential in medicine.)

 

Eh, it's not a perfect analogy - as a mechanic could work on a prius one dau, a 1968 GTO the next (sweet!), and an '94 Chrysler Lebaron the day after (wah-wah-waaaaah) – so, such a thorough understanding would come in very handy. But I see what you're saying.

Short answer is - yes. You'll never have a thorough understanding how something works until you know how it was made. Understanding evolution is key to understanding how and why we have the working parts that we do, and thus, you're better equipped to understand and diagnose potential problems that arise and, most important of all, the correct way to correct those problems without causing new ones.

 

I’m going to disagree with that (other than the last part, which is a “learning-from-our-mistakes” thing). Understanding how the human body got the way it is might be interesting and somewhat useful (and I’m sure critical in certain medical fields), but if I’m going to be, say, a GP, I’m not sure I really need to have an understanding of evolution in order to do my job well. But again, I stand to be corrected.

 

I guess it's the difference between seeking out physicians who know just enough to do their jobs and those who really know their sh*t. Where my health is concerned, I personally prefer the latter. Call me crazy.

 

That's quite a stretch. Biology, in it's essence, is the basic understanding of how living matter functions. There is no need to understand how it got that way in order to understand and accept the vast majority of biology. Hopefully an MD will never conduct genetic experiments on his or her patients and so, as Splunge states, a knowledge of evolution is really not necessary for the job.

I would venture to say understanding chemistry is more key than evolution and a vast majority of biologists have a very weak grasp of the chemical reactions which govern life (and even fewer doctors). Chemistry is the building blocks to the cells, not evolution. Chemistry is the "how was it made", evolution is only the "how long it took to be made" portion.

An auto mechanic is really not a good analogy here -- closer would be a person who works on or even designs computers. There is no need to understand how the microchips were made (from sand to final product) only what the chip does and what it can handle.

Personally I could care less if a physician has a firm grasp on evolution as long as he or she can identify problems with my body and fix them. To me, the physicians that can accurately identify and fix problems are the ones that "know their sh*t."

 

I don't disagree with anything you just said, T2. For me, evolution was never a terribly difficult concept to understand or accept. It is a fundamental concept of modern biology. So for an aspiring doctor to reject it is a red flag for me personally. I don't trust a medical expert who rejects a key foundation of the knowledge upon which his expertise is established. That said, it's possible that I've been treated by physicians who've rejected evolution and I've been none the wiser. So I will concede it's not the worst possible trait in a physician. But that doesn't mean evolution is meaningless to one.

 

To me, the flaw in that reasoning is that biology is a field of study in and of itself, and medicine is another field of study that draws upon biology, but doesn’t necessarily require a detailed understanding of all the various facets of biology. I compare it to my profession (accounting) and mathematics – mathematics covers a number of areas, such as basic arithmetic and calculus. Accounting requires an understanding of the arithmetic component of math, but calculus has no importance whatsoever.

 

Evolution is about more than the origin of biological complexity; it is the necessary outcome of the processes that are active inside each living cell. To deny the reality of evolution one would also need to deny the biological origin of birth defects (mutations), the reality of viruses (common vectors of horizontal gene transfer), the basic observation that children look like their parents because they freaking descend from their parents, and the testing of medicine on mice because mice are biologically similar to humans in almost all aspects. Someone who studies all that and still denies evolution because of a fictional voodoo book is simply nowhere near reality. It would be a disgrace for a university to let such a student graduate in a field that involves biology.

 

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that there are doctors all over the world who believe in god and are creationists, and who therefore in effect deny evolution. Are you saying that any university that has ever allowed a christian to become a doctor is a disgrace?

 

Now that they know better, yes.

Edit: To clarify; I'm not saying that the universities should feel disgraced about doctors that graduated more than a century ago when there still was an honest debate. As far as I know, the truth of evolution hasn't been questioned in the last century by those who actually study and understand biology (and aren't inhibited by their religious dogma.)