[NativeNewYorker]

A specialist must accept the basic, fundamental premises of his discipline. Natural selection is as central to biology as belief in G-d is to, say, Judaism. I wouldn't go to a faithless rabbi. YMMV.

[freedomcrusader]

Evolutionm is hardly a basic premise of modern medicine. Please demonstrate diagnostic and therapeutic prinicples that are based on evolution.

[Dark Knight]

He did not want to be a biologist, he wanted to be a doctor. A belief in the Theory of Evolution is as fundamental to a doctor as being able to ride a motorcycle. Useful, sure. Clinically useful, not really. Certainly more relevent criteria should be used. If the professor chooses to use less relevant criteria to base his opinion, that is his right. It is also our right to laugh at him in public for being a poo-poo head. And it is the right of the young man that was discriminated against to sue the institution that took his good money and wasted his time with a biased "science" teacher.

DK

[Blood of Tyrants]

Natural selection and evolution don't necessarily go hand in hand. There is no doubt that the stronger survive to pass on their genes. However, it is much disputed that this leads to the creation of new species. Fruit flies have been raised in laboratories for thousands and thousands of generations and every effort to alter their genes has only resulted in defective or sterile offspring and never in a "better" fruit fly.

From your usage of the word "G-d", I assume that you are Jewish and on at least some level you are still practicing your faith. If that is so, then you also believe that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God. If that is so, then you should also believe that God doesn't make up fairy tails for our amusement and that Creation as described in Genesis is the literal truth.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Natural selection is as central to biology as belief in G-d is to, say, Judaism. I wouldn't go to a faithless rabbi. YMMV.

Natural Selection may be a central fact of biology, but it doesn't do the Evolutionist any good. Natural Selection is an essentially "conservative" force, not an "evolutionary" one.

If I have 50 red marbles made of glass and 50 blue marbles made of ice, and I put them all on a tray and let them sit in the hot sun for a few hours... at the end of the day the higher melting-point of the red marbles will result in their continuation as marbles, whereas the blue marbles will just have been selected out, eliminated. And, the demographic complexion of the marble population will have changed from "overall purple" to "overall red" due to this form of "natural selection".

But while the overall complexion of the population has indeed changed, no "evolution" has occurred. You still have the same red marbles with which you started... Natural Selection has conserved the "most fit" of what you had to start with, but you haven't anything new -- nothing "evolved".

Ah, then, "Random Mutations" you say? Well, now we're suddenly talking about a very different matter than testable, repeatable, well-proven Natural Selection. We're talking about the undocumented, unproven, and statistically-dubious (not to say ludicrous) idea of relatively-common "positive" germline mutations.

Insisting that a student exercise a blind faith in the "power of positive mutation" is a little bit different than expecting him to affirm the simple, proven Facts of Natural Selection.

If you believe basic biology is not central to "diagnostic and therapeutic prinicples", I can offer you no satisfactory explanation.

If you believe Evolutionism is of any utility value whatsoever in the actual practice of Medicine, I submit that we ask some actual Practicing Doctors, mmm?

Doc? Polycarp? Have either of you ever needed to call in Richard Dawkins or Steven Jay Gould to consult on a medical case?

[Dataman]

Natural selection is as central to biology as belief in G-d is to, say, Judaism.

Natural selection is not evolution.