There are a lot of people in this country (the U.S.) that believe in the literal truth of the bible. There are a lot that don't, but for a country that invests so heavily in the sciences, that is responsible for so many technical breakthroughs, it is astonishing to me how many people will abandon the scientific method when it comes to the question of how we (humans) came to be.
It occurred to me one day that a great many of our medical advances were made possible by theory of evolution and the science of genetics. This was confirmed for me by a quote in recent article in
Scientific American. Here is the quote:
Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University, recently decided, however, that he had to remind a former premed student of his that “without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn’t make sense.” Certainly there are many Creationists whose lives have benefited, therefore, from evolution. It seems unjust that this very active (politically) group should be able to extend the length and quality of their lives based on a principle they vehemently reject, and are trying so hard to remove from our schools.
Maybe if I could identify the medical advances that strongly depended on evolution, and I could force people to at least acknowledge this dependency, I could start to change a few minds.
So here is my rough outline of a plan:
1) Get a list of medical procedures and drugs
2) Get some smart people in medical/evolutionary sciences to go over the list; determine which ones would not exist without evolution.
3) Notify anyone that benefits from this procedure or drug that they should thank the scientific method in general, and specifically, evolution.
I would sure welcome anyone who has good ideas on how to go about this.
---Dan
