Saturday, March 13, 2010

Adjunct anthro profs need to understand elementary logic

Christopher O'Brien believes that med students need to understand evolutionary biology.
  1. O'Brien is ignorant of the very position(s) he criticizes. For example, not all ID proponents would necessarily oppose teaching evolutionary biology.

  2. If it's licit for secular scientists to use science to argue metaphysical positions (e.g. for atheism or against theism), then why is it illicit for other scientists like creationists or ID proponents to use science to argue metaphysical positions (e.g. for theism or against atheism)?

  3. So O'Brien wants his doctor to "put personal beliefs aside" and "treat [him] with all the modern science that could be mustered...including evolutionary biology." Let's say it comes to light he has an abnormal gene or set of genes which would certainly be harmfully passed onto future generations. In this case, O'Brien ought to never father children. Perhaps he ought to consider a vasectomy or similar.

  4. There's a disputable assumption in O'Brien's post: that one can't be an innovator in the medical field without understanding evolutionary biology.

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