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British Muslim med students refuse to attend Darwin propaganda lectures

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File:Stethoscope-2.png

In “Muslim medical students boycotting lectures on evolution… because it ‘clashes with the Koran’” (Daily Mail, November 27, 2011), we learn,

Muslim students, including trainee doctors on one of Britain’s leading medical courses, are walking out of lectures on evolution claiming it conflicts with creationist ideas established in the Koran.

Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs.

Hey, wait a minute: Why is Darwinism on the med school course anyway?

Maybe those students’ beliefs coincide with being good doctors, or maybe they don’t. But the attempt to waste medical students time on Darwinism – in a world where real knowledge of the human body is exploding – should be regarded as a scandal.

And those students should not be judged on their acceptance of Darwinism but on their ability to cope with and effectively use the tsunami of new information about how the human body works.

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor provides a useful way of understanding the matter: Medicine deals in proximate causes. For example, the patient, 59, complains of pain and swelling in her wrist, for several days since she fell on the ice. The doctor thinks: collis fracture. Common in older women who fall. X-ray will tell.

What well-intentioned person would wish to waste the doctor’s time with a discussion of monkeys and apes who fall out of trees and fracture bones, and the learned professors who expatiate thereon? Actually, most American doctors agree with Egnor, and if you are really sick, you are as well off in a teaching hospital the United States as anywhere.

Incidentally, the story was bylined, “Daily Mail Reporter.” Weird.

Comments
They choose to leave the class. AlexzRoss
Bjorn Ostman, a postdoc at Michigan State University, posted about it on his blog Pleiotropy: The Muslim creationists refuse proper education http://pleiotropy.fieldofscience.com/2011/11/muslim-creationists-refuse-proper.html Enezio E. De Almeida Filho
Graham, you're assuming they had an original function different from their current function. There is really no way of knowing this. It may be a reasonable conclusion if one accepts the neo-Darwinian synthesis as true, but if not, it is pure speculation and therefore cannot serve as support for Darwinism without being a circular argument. Bruce David
But the attempt to waste medical students time on Darwinism – in a world where real knowledge of the human body is exploding – should be regarded as a scandal.
--I don't think doctors should need to take classes on paleontology, taxonomy, biogeography, or physical anthropology. But I don't think it "scandalous" for DOCTORS to take an "intro to biology" college course - even if there are things in the class, such as evolution, not directly applicable to diagnosing an injured wrist. Also, contrary to what the Canadian wrote: http://www.physorg.com/news6847.html goodusername
Walking out of a class is not the way. You're going to do better for your cause by sticking around and asking lots of difficult questions. This would help to negate the indoctrination process thus producing better critical thinking students. Mytheos
Proposed hypothetical function. Maybe not original function. Mytheos
Oh, I didnt realise you were quoting from a religious site. Graham
These organs may have some new function, but the important point (for this discussion) is that they have lost their original function. Graham
Actually, as to the somewhat minor extent evolutionary reasoning has influenced medical diagnostics, it has led to much 'medical malpractice' in the past:
Evolution's "vestigial organ" argument debunked Excerpt: The appendix, probably the prime example of a supposed vestigial organ, is now known to have an important immunological function, especially in the first years of life. "The appendix, like the once 'vestigial' tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body's immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary 'left over,' many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice" (David Menton, Ph.D., "The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution," St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). The tonsils, long thought to be useless, are now known to have a useful function in the immune system. They act as a defense mechanism against infection of the upper respiratory tract and perform an important service to the digestive system by filtering out alien materials that may enter the body through the mouth or the nose. "Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery" (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. Moreover, various muscles attached to the tailbone are important for helping bowel and childbirth movements, for supporting internal organs and keeping the entrance of the alimentary canal closed. It also has an important function as a point of insertion for several muscles and ligaments, including the gluteus maximus, which is the large muscle that runs down the back of the thigh and allows us to walk upright. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/
bornagain77

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