|
|
Posted on 12/03/2005 6:18:54 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
I’m afraid we live in loopy times. How else to account for the latest entries in America’s culture wars: science museum docents donning combat gloves against rival fundamentalist tour groups and evolution on trial in a Pennsylvania federal court. For those keeping score, so far this year it’s Monkeys: 0, Monkey Business: 82. That's 82 evolution versus creationism debates in school boards or towns nationwide—this year alone. [1]
This past summer, when most Americans were distracted by thoughts of beaches and vacations or the high price of gasoline (even before the twin hits of Katrina and Rita), 2 heavy-weight political figures joined the President of the United States to weigh in on a supposedly scientific issue. US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Arizona Senator John McCain, and President George W. Bush each endorsed the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in the science classroom. Can anyone reasonably convince me that these pronouncements were not just cynical political punditry but, rather, were expressions of sincere beliefs?
So you have to ask yourself in light of all of these events, 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?
In times like these, as inundated as we are by technical wizardry, one might conclude that American technological supremacy and know-how would lead, inevitably, to a deeper understanding or trust of science. Well, it doesn’t. Perhaps just the opposite is true. Technology and gee whiz gadgetry has led to more suspicion rather than less. And a typical American’s understanding of science is limited at best. As far as evolution is concerned, if you’re a believer in facts, scientific methods, and empirical data, the picture is even more depressing. A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Science found that 64 percent of respondents support teaching creationism side by side with evolution in the science curriculum of public schools. A near majority—48 percent—do not believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is proven by fossil discoveries. Thirty-three percent believe that a general agreement does not exist among scientists that humans evolved over time [2].
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?
New York Times journalist Cornelia Dean, who balances her time between science reporting for the Times and lecturing at Harvard, told me that she believes that science stands in a perilous position. “Science, as an institution, has largely ceded the microphone to people who do not necessarily always embrace the scientific method,” she says. “Unless scientists participate in the public life of our country, our discourse on a number of issues of great importance becomes debased” [3].
Others, such as journalist Chris Mooney, point to the increasing politicization of science as a pollutant seeping into our nation’s psyche. In his recent book, The Republican War on Science, Mooney spells out the danger of ignorance in public life when ideology trumps science.
Science politicization threatens not just our public health and the environment but the very integrity of American democracy, which relies heavily on scientific and technical expertise to function. At a time when more political choices than ever before hinge upon the scientific and technical competence of our elected leaders, the disregard for consensus and expertise—and the substitution of ideological allegiance for careful assessment—can have disastrous consequences [4].
Jon D. Miller, PhD, a political scientist on faculty at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine, believes that the sophisticated questions of biology that will confront each and every American in the 21st Century will require that they know the difference between a cell and a cell phone and are able to differentiate DNA from MTV. For decades, Miller has been surveying Americans about their scientific knowledge. “We are now entering a period where our ability to unravel previously understood or not understood questions is going to grow extraordinarily,” says Miller. “As long as you are looking at the physics of nuclear power plants or the physics of transistors [all 20th Century questions]…it doesn’t affect your short-term belief systems. You can still turn on a radio and say it sounds good but you don’t have to know why it works. As we get into genetic medicine, infectious diseases…if you don’t understand immunity, genetics, the principles of DNA, you’re going to have a hard time making sense of these things” [5].
These ideological battles aren’t likely to vanish any time soon. If anything, an organized and emboldened fundamentalist religious movement buttressed by political power in Washington will continue to challenge accepted scientific theory that collides with religious beliefs. So one must ask, is it too farfetched to see these ideological battles spilling over into areas of medical research and even into funding at the National Institutes of Health?
Now I am not asking for a world that doesn’t respect religious belief. My education as a Roman Catholic balanced creed and science. In the classroom of my youth, one nun taught creationism in religion class while another taught evolution in science, and never the twain did meet.
So what does one do? How can a medical student, a resident, or a physician just beginning to build a career become active in these larger public battles? Burt Humburg, MD, a resident in internal medicine at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center, is one role model. He’s been manning the evolutionary ramparts since his medical school days in Kansas in the late 1990s when he became active in Kansas Citizens for Science. On a brief vacation from his residency volunteering as a citizen advocate for the federal trial in Pennsylvania, he said education is the key role for the physician. While he realizes that medical students, residents and physicians might not view themselves as scientists, per se, he sees himself and his colleagues 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” [7].
It is time for the medical community, through the initiative of individual physicians, to address not only how one can heal thy patient, but also how one can heal thy nation. There are many ways to get involved; from the most rudimentary—attending school board meetings, sending letters to the editor, and volunteering at the local science museum—to the more demanding—running for office, encouraging a spouse or partner to do so, or supporting candidates (especially financially) who are willing to speak out for science. As Tip O’Neill, the larger-than-life Speaker of the House of Representatives, famously declared, “All politics is local.” Speak out for science. Isn’t that a message that should be advanced in every physician’s office?
Northwestern’s Jon Miller concedes that speaking out may come with a price, “It won’t make…[physicians]...popular with many people but is important for any profession, particularly a profession based on science” to do so [5]. Consider this: shouldn’t civic leadership be embedded in the mind of every blooming physician? In the end, 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?” Seize the day, Doc.
Bailey's account of how he cared for the first three newborn human-to-human heart-transplant patients was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, October 9, 1986. Accompanying the article was an editorial congratulating Bailey and his staff for their successes. The editorial was written by scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine.
In November, 1986, the California Legislature approved Resolution No. 481, honoring Bailey and his associates, in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the first successful newborn-heart transplant, on a patient named "Baby Moses." (It is firmly believed that there would not have been a "Baby Moses" had there not been a Baby Fae. Both the donor and recipient were referred to Loma Linda because of the widespread publicity on Baby Fae. The publicity on "Baby Moses" then made the scientific community and the public aware that newborn-heart transplantation was possible.)
Dr. Sandra Nehlsen-Cannarella, Baby Fae's immunologist, accepted an invitation to join the faculty of Loma Linda University School of Medicine. On March 1, 1985, she opened Loma Linda University's Immunology Center, where she directs both clinical and research laboratories involved in the immunology of transplantation and maternal-fetal compatibility.
Baby Fae's daring surgery was a landmark case. It has become a reference point in the public's awareness of hypoplastic left-heart syndrome and the serious efforts being made to save doomed babies. It became the cornerstone of a successful, international, infant-to-infant heart-transplant program begun in Loma Linda about a year later. Baby Fae struck a uniquely human chord in most people: the capacity to hope, and to cheer those who take great risks to help one little person.
Plus, it was a team that went through this experience and not a single doctor.
The reason they tried an animal heart on Baby Fae was that there simply were not enough infant-sized hearts for all the babies who needed them. Who would have thought that it was REALLY because a Seventh-Day Adventist was not properly deferential to the Evo-god? Looks like we have a new species of primate...and they evolved their own tinfoil hats.
|
|
I know nothing of the Baby Fae affair nor do I particularly care. You disputed From many - one's choice of source through claims of potential bias and a bit of guilt by association; I simply returned the favour.
Is that what I said?
"Is there something in their theology that approves of baboons and doesn't care for chimpanzees?"
Did I say or imply they did?
Do you wish to compare the PETA crowd with Loma Linda University Medical Center any further?
Yeah, that'll do too.
Life is a fatal condition.
The good doctor appears not to be on record as trying to obtain a human heart.
Sorry, not my standard of medical practice.
And how is any of what you quoted relvant to failing to attempt to obtain a human heart or even a chimpanzeeheart?
I detest PETA because they put animals above people and if they had their way an enormous amount of solid research would never happen.
Nevertheless the article is backe by solid refs including one to the quote.
6. Gould SJ: The heart of erminology What has an abstruse debate over evolutionary logic got to do with Baby Fa[e]? Natural History 1988;97:24.
I consider this a reputable source.
You seem to go for a lot of guilt by association. I don't.
As it happens most public libraries, and my basement library have complete sets of Natural History Magazine, going back pretty far.
I'll check out Gould's sources when I get a chance.
Still, he entered into a very difficult ethical minefield. Why not throw a Hail Mary? This leads many bright professionals into folly. At Bailey's time, hopes ran so high for transplants--and while some of those hopes have borne fruit, intractible long-term difficulties for even the most successful human-to-human are the biggest problem at the forefront right now.
That, and obtaining enough organs for transplant.
Animals presented a hope in the seventies and eighties--because you can keep a baboon alive in the basement of the hospital to harvest when you need it, which means when all hope for an alternative has disappeared. The key was figuring out how to make it work.
Chimpanzees are and were endangered species, and for the most part unobtainable. I expect that Bailey used a baboon heart because it was the best thing he had available. If he shrugged off the pieties of the evos--well, surgeons as a breed tend to have egos of their own.
I take it you don't like to read things or make judgements from what occurs. Read the link you might find the reasoning for the choice made.
This is all guessing. What is available is the event and what the University says was the history of the decision. It was not made by a single person. The important point was that the heart was not rejected. The first chimp transplant didn't last a day. Of course, that was probably not due to rejection, but was another chimp attempt made by anyone?
The reason they use a baboon heart was because the doctor did not have the smarts to use a chimp nor the honor to first look for a human.
Yeah, human heart would be hard to get so he didn't try.
That's your answer? Because there are grounds for cynicism we should lower academic standards? Shouldn't this rather be a reason to RAISE standards? Or did you just not want to answer the question at all?
Add me to the grok list.
I think we need to find someone a little more reliable than me to run a grok list. I'm not able to be here every day.
I concede, you win
No problem, we'll do a virtual ping list, like the virtual ignore list (really need that one lately!).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
