Answers in Genesis has a nice post today called Evolution and Medicine. The author makes some very nice points, though the article is too superficial and doesn’t address the many contentions that might arise in such a discussion – in particular, Ed (one of our commenters) keeps claiming that diabetes treatment came out of an evolutionary view. I’ll have to research that. However, this article is a nice starting point, and summarizes the main issues regarding evolution and medicine.
…not one example could be put forth of the need for evolution (or belief in its tenets) in order to practice modern medicine.
Medicine and Antibiotic Resistance
Quite overlooked by the evolutionist are the multiple mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, none of which require or involve so-called evolutionary changes, which would add new information into the genome.
…any mutation will result in a loss of information due to the change in genetic material. Even in the very unusual occurrence of a so-called “beneficial” mutation, there is an ultimate loss of genetic information available to succeeding generations….Recently, similar arguments have been put forth to explain resistance in certain strains of the influenza virus. These arguments fail for the same reason. This loss of information is inconsistent with a biological model that proposes to explain how organisms become more complex over time. Loss of information is the opposite of molecules-to-man evolution, and fits well into a creationist model of biology. Thus, antibiotic resistance is not a valid argument for the Darwinian evolutionist.
Medicine and Vestigial Organs
It can be argued that this viewpoint actually hindered the advancement of medicine, as many accepted this concept of vestigial organs and expended no effort to seek out possible functions for these organs….In fact, there are “vestigial organs” in the human body – but left over from our embryonic development. That has nothing to do with “molecules-to-man” evolution.
Medicine and Questions of Why – Evolution Contrary to Compassion
Can one not argue that the evolutionist is inconsistent when insisting evolutionary thought is vital to the practice of medicine? Is it not more consistent to argue that there should be no doctors? If survival of the fittest is the mantra for evolutionists, where is there room for pity? Why does one show concern for his fellow man? Are these actions and emotions not at odds with the prime driving force of evolution – survival of the fittest?
The concept of helping the weak and the suffering is derived from a Christian outlook, not an evolutionary one. It has no foundation in evolution and its heartless process of survival of the fittest. To be consistent, a physician espousing an evolutionary worldview must question himself about his motives as he is actively working against the very natural processes that he claims have brought man to his present condition.
I’m sure many of our readers will have a problem with this conclusion, but this accusation can’t be simply dismissed by simply saying “just because you believe in evolution doesn’t mean you believe in Social Darwinism.” The weakness in this argument is that all disciplines of truth should be integrated, and because this world view can not be *logically* and simply integrated (or at all) with a worldview that includes compassion for the genetically “weak.” it is suspect.
Just another reason why the Creationist view is superior – not only is it more consistent with what we observe, it is more consistent with other disciplines of knowledge.
The loss of information argument is pretty vacuous as far as I can tell. I never see anyone (YEC, that is–biologists have various metrics) tell me how one can measure the information content of the genome and changes in that content. Without having some observable to measure it is meaningless to talk about losses or gains in genetic information.
It seems to me if you are going to talk about genetic information you need to relate it to sometype of fitness function. The point of evolution, after all, is to increase ones differential reproductive success. Since antibiotic strains of viruses successfully do this then whatever change in the populations genome makeup was obviously benificial.
Don't get AiG on your face.
Vestigial organs are vestigial, whether they have a function or not. AiG's error is assuming, incorrectly, that "vestigial" means "has no current function." For example: Wisdom teeth work well as molars when they come in correctly, but in most people in industrialized nations, human jaws are now too small to accommodate those teeth. Wisdom teeth are vestiges of our past ancestry, they are vestigial.
But our tailbones? What function do they serve? None at all. The bones are frequently removed with no ill effect after serious or repeated injury, or to aid in the treatment of some diseases. We have no use for our coccyx, and it causes no ill to get rid of it. What was AiG thinking?
But don't take my word for it. Go check out the sources for yourself. Probably the chief public exponent of Darwinian medicine is Randolph Nesse. Go look at his website to start, and go from there: http://www.darwinianmedicine.org/
Note that the AiG article deals with very little of what Nesse accurately labels Darwinian medicine.
Since AiG thinks that evolution plays no role in medicine, they must think the Human Genome Project a complete waste of time, no? Using Darwinian methods to tailor treatments to each individual would be a non-starter, were evolution false.
Is AiG willing to stake their health on their beliefs? I bet not.
As to altruism: Darwin noted, in Descent of Man, that altruistic behaviors that appear to be instinctual in humans provide survival advantages in a social species such as ours. Humans could not survive without caring for one another. Even Neandertal took care of injured comrades, and there are many good reasons to do this in a social species. Older members of the tribe may know where to look for water when the rains don't come. Older members, too feeble to hunt, may be critical in caring for the infants and toddlers when others go out to hunt. This is not much different from life today, when grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and siblings, contribute to raising families and often to making the family business go.
So we can conclude rather handily that AiG doesn't know what Darwin said about altruism at all, and since they assume contrary to Darwin's writings and those of many others that evolution would urge an end to medical care, instead of better medical care, that AiG is simply an unreliable source of information.
George Santayana pegged creationists when he wrote, "Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it." For that reason alone, medical care is essential — for what are we as a people without those who tell the stories. Where would we be without those stories passed down for generations, often by the elders, that eventually came to be written down in the Bible?
Darwin didn't like "survival of the fittest." That was Herbert Spencer's term. Darwin wrote of a "struggle for survival originally, and for several years. In our struggles to survive, help from all sources is essential. Our survival often depends on the survival of those "less fit" in some way, and so we use our God-and-evolution-given minds to find a way to keep those "less fit" going.
No scientist would argue that our world would be better off without Stephen Hawking. I'm sure AiG wishes Hawking would go away, but we use science to keep him alive and to allow him to communicate. It seems to me that it's AiG who has the vested interest in people dying early.
But that's a nasty thought, so let's not take that as a position. Let's instead determine to hold to highest academic standards.
Will you join me in asking AiG to correct their errors?
Ed, I don't have time right now, but I'll get to a list of *your* errors in time.
Needless to say, your understanding of Creation Science is off if you think that it obviates the need to know and explore the human genome. The more scientific data we have the better, but the real question is, how will you interpret that data? The evolutionary model provides no insight that simple comparison can not already give, and in many cases, leads away from the truth (take for example, junk DNA, which of course, was a postulate of evolutionary thinking, but is steadily retreating as an explanation for redundant and other non-understood DNA sequences). Creationism would never have come to such a bogus conclusion.
The problem with creationism is that it wouldn't even have asked the questions in the first place.