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The Evo-Creation
debate is supposed to be about science but is being argued mainly by
columnists and philosophers and political scientists, and not
surprisingly lawyers, and big think tanks and PACs and the ACLU and the
Discovery Institute, everybody and his dog but scientists, in courts not
laboratories. It's embarrassingly like how theologians argued science
in ecclesiastical councils in the middle ages. We expected all this
sermonizing about science from The New Yorker, the New York
Times, Time Magazine, Slate, Wired News, and the bouquet of blogs
like "Panda's Thumb," and just shrugged.
But now we are
hearing from the AMA, our own family, our godfather, holding forth on,
of all places, its Medical Ethics web site ("Virtual Mentor" for
"analysis and discussion of ethical and professional issues").
But the really
ironic part is, here is the AMA, from its beginning in the early 1800s
the prime defender of medical science against medical quackery, warring
not against that, but, worse, scientific quackery, and in taking up the
cudgel acknowledging that medicine isn't scientific. If, as the AMA man
says (vida infra), "doctors might not view themselves as scientists, per
se," should the AMA, per se?
Frankly, as an old
doc we are nonplused and embarrassed by the AMA – a switch, because
doctors behaving quackingly are supposed to be the AMA's embarrassment.
But if the AMA has defaulted "it's privileged societal perch" (for style
the AMA man seems more in tune with the New Yorker than the AMA's
own investigative journals), it may merrily go on quack-quacking out
there in the pop pond with the other water fowl.
Here it is, distilled
down, in essence and in quotes, uncluttered by either our high-level
rebuttal (it's hardly a scientific article and not amenable to such a
response), or catcalls, the wrong medicine, like botox for impotence.
If you think what follows is so nonsensical that we must have doctored
the thing,
click the article and read it yourself.1
Science, the
scientific method, the scientific community, our public health, our
environment, "the very integrity of American democracy,"2
are under dire threat, and it's "beginning to scare the scientific
community" and the science teachers, 31 percent of whom, according
to a study, "feel pressured to include creationism, intelligent
design, or other nonscientific alternatives to evolution in their
science classroom." "What if we become a nation that can't chew
gum, walk down the street, and transplant embryonic stem cells all
at the same time? Does it matter?" "Are we headed back to the past
with no escape in the future? Are we trapped in a new period of
history when science, once again, is in for the fight of its life?"
"If you're a believer in facts, scientific methods, and empirical
data, the picture is … depressing."
Doctors "might not view
themselves as scientists, per se," but we should see ourselves "as
part of the larger scientific collective that can't afford to shirk
its duty." "The town scientist is the town doctor, so whether we
want it or not, we have the mantle--the trappings--of a scientist."
"Where Is the Medical Community? The medical community as a whole
has been largely absent from today's public debates on science.
…When physicians use their power of political persuasion…it's
generally for…their daily survival--Medicare reimbursement" and the
like. But the community "will have to use its privileged perch in
society to make the case for science." "It is time … to address not
only how one can heal thy patient, but also how one can heal thy
nation." Man the evolutionary ramparts. "Seize the day, Doc."
"Doesn't combating this virulent campaign of anti-knowledge lead us
back to that old adage of evolutionary leadership by example,
‘Monkey see, monkey do?'"
As those pixels
fade from our screen, we are left with a mental image of the beloved
new AMA Norman Rockwell country doc, as seen on nationwide TV, at
her roll-top privileged societal perch, her ACLU certification
framed on the wall, her stethoscope to the chest of the little boy's
dolly, squinting her non-scientific eyes and informing the anxious
parents, "Intelligent Design is bogus medicine, dangerous quackery.
But fortunately you came in time. Evo science and ethics are the
cure."
We demand a
second opinion.
1.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/15765.html
*
Dr. Wesley Kime, distinguished physician, retired in Ohio, paints with
oils, creates line drawings, and writes literary prose brimming with
subtle humor. His "Creationist Curmudgeon" one liners have become a
staple of Creation Digest.
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Blue Ribbon Science
Michael J. Behe, PhD
Wernher von Braun, PhD
Michael Denton, MD,
PhD
Henry Gee, PhD
Duane T. Gish, PhD
Howard Glicksman, MD
Steven J. Gould, PhD
Brad Harrub, PhD
D. Russell Humphreys, PhD
George Javor, PhD
Gerald A. Kerkut, PhD
Wesley Kime, MD
Frank Lewis Marsh, PhD
Stephen C. Meyer, PhD
Robert T. Mitchell, MD
Donald R. Moeller, MD, DDS
Colin Patterson, PhD
Jonathan Sarfati, PhD
Lee M. Spetner, PhD
Larry Vardiman, PhD
Jonathon Wells, PhD
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