Re: Letter to the Editor
James Taggart (James_Taggart@multilink.com)
Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:08:48 -0400
>>What would remain of the biological sciences if the whole word
>>were eliminated from it. I can bet that over 99% would remain intact.
I wonder. Without the underpinnings implied by evolution (common descent
implies that similar processes in different living beings work in similar
ways) the whole biological testing process falls apart. You could not
expect that the way some medical technique worked in one organizim would
have any applicabilty to another. It would be like trying to understand
the effect some process would have on a diesel engine by testing it on a
light bulb. They are unrelated.
Modern medicine/biology depends significantly on the idea that what happens
in an e. choli can lead to inferences about what happens in other cells,
what happens in a mouse can be extrapolated to what is likely to happen in
a human. If the theory of evolution is not the basis for justifying such
an inference, then what is?