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Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

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Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they’re more likely to believe in God than the general public so yes that’s entirely possible https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows...

I seem to recall seeing a breakdown of belief in God by discipline, and it was the opposite of what I would have expected. Abstract mathematicians were the most likely to believe in some form of God, followed by physicists, with biologists being the least likely to believe. Considering how complex and unpredictable biological science is compared to something like particle physics, I was surprised by this.

Makes sense. Abstract math and physics are very... platonic. I can understand why someone who believes in a Divine Order would be attracted to abstract mathematics or theoretical physics.

Also makes sense that messy experimentalism would be less allured by the idea of especially Abrahamic God.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What frightens me is that osteopath magical thinkers (DOs) are allowed to practice medicine in the US just like MDs. They're glorified chiropractors!

Tell the AMA to allow more MDs.

Or, better yet, collude with hospital systems and other care providers to side-step the AMA by giving NPs and PAs more autonomy to operate independently of an MD. You don't need four years of med school and a residency to do an annual health check-up for a pre-teen or put in a few stitches.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#113
post #101
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'as per Newton, Leibniz et al...' isn't good enough? Seriously though: if it is indeed true that you need to justify it this way, that is insane: this is just basic calculus. Do you have to justify every single statistics calculation also? Do you have to say 'as per Whoever et al' every time you calculate the standard deviation of something? What referee would object to 'estimating the area using the trapezoidal rule…

If one feels the need for a citation for something basic like this, a textbook works quite well. Pretty much any high school calculus textbook will have the necessary formulas.

The issue is that many of these researchers may never have taken Calculus.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#114

Tangental point here, but I find Medical student's relationship to Science quite fascinating. For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students EDIT: reference to it in this story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/21/religion.highe...

Per my own anecdata in the US, MDs are a pretty diverse group of people in regards to faith. The 'calling' of being a doctor/healer is strong among many faith based communities in the US. As such, their reasoning for being an MD is not based on science as much as it is on their faith and purpose. The point is to be a doctor/healer, how the knowledge to better do so is generated may be incidental.

Note: Medical researchers are a different bunch, per my own anecdata, I'm talking about practicing MDs specifically here.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#115

>unlike calculus—wasn’t something that physicists were expected to take during high school. did you guys have integrals in HS? I had only limits and derivatives for optimization via extremas finding EU, Poland.

Speaking only from personal experience, medical researchers in the US may not have any training in Calculus. I'd put it at ~30% that do not. It is only taught in High Schools if the child and their parents want them to take it and is not required for graduation (though this varies a lot from district to district). Depending on the major and the school, Calculus may also not be required for graduation from university. Depending on the grad-school, Calculus is also not required for a PhD.

Speaking personally, I know of entire departments where Calculus is not known among the majority of the faculty members who are publishing in medicine/biology, though this is a bit rare. However, higher order Calculus like Lagrangians, Diff-Eqs, and Matrix algebra is as rare as hen's teeth among bio/medical researchers.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#116

Tangental point here, but I find Medical student's relationship to Science quite fascinating. For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students EDIT: reference to it in this story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/21/religion.highe...

Per my own anecdata in the US, MDs are a pretty diverse group of people in regards to faith. The 'calling' of being a doctor/healer is strong among many faith based communities in the US. As such, their reasoning for being an MD is not based on science as much as it is on their faith and purpose. The point is to be a doctor/healer, how the knowledge to better do so is generated may be incidental. Note: Medical resear…

Also a lot of pressure for child’s of immigrants to become doctors and engineers. And because immigrants are more likely to be religious, so are their kids

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#117
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall seeing a breakdown of belief in God by discipline, and it was the opposite of what I would have expected. Abstract mathematicians were the most likely to believe in some form of God, followed by physicists, with biologists being the least likely to believe. Considering how complex and unpredictable biological science is compared to something like particle physics, I was surprised by this.

I don't think it should be surprising if biologists are the least likely group to believe in God. One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. The reason why this turns out not to be a very good reason is that evolution explains this better (dealing e.g. with cases where the design seems needlessly complex, malicious, etc.). Biologists are more familiar with evolution an…

>One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are.

Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. There's a clear lack of any intelligence in our design beyond satisfying evolutionary requirements.

Up to 9/10 first time mothers suffer a perineal laceration during childbirth. 65% require stitches.

Male/female ducks are in an evolutionary arms race for control of breeding. Males have extremely long corkscrew penises for rape, while the females have vaginas with fake paths designed to resist. Humans have the same conflict, but it plays out socially (e.g. faking signals of high value during courtship) or in war.

A number of religious people, both genders, have argued to me that we can't apply human concepts of rape to animals/god. Nuts.

Either God is a sick, twisted, sadistic fucker, or life wasn't intelligently designed. Pick one.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#118
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it should be surprising if biologists are the least likely group to believe in God. One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. The reason why this turns out not to be a very good reason is that evolution explains this better (dealing e.g. with cases where the design seems needlessly complex, malicious, etc.). Biologists are more familiar with evolution an…

In a similar vein, a lot of "ingenious biological designs" turn out to be amazingly hacky close up. The eye, for example, has blood vessels blocking some of the photoreceptors. A moderately intelligent designer wouldn't run the power cables directly in front of the camera's lens! Or...maybe we're not made in His Image: cephalopods don't have this problem, after all. Cthulhu ftaghn....

If you accept that God is an internet startup, it all makes sense. Everything barely cobbled together, but it looks pretty good from the outside!

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#119
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it should be surprising if biologists are the least likely group to believe in God. One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. The reason why this turns out not to be a very good reason is that evolution explains this better (dealing e.g. with cases where the design seems needlessly complex, malicious, etc.). Biologists are more familiar with evolution an…

>One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. There's a clear lack of any intelligence in our design beyond satisfying evolutionary requirements. Up to 9/10 first time mothers suffer a perineal laceration during childbirth. 65% require stitches. Male/female ducks are in an evolutionary arms ra…

> Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion.

That was my point: this is one reason why biologists are particularly unlikely to believe in God. (At least in places where the dominant form of belief-in-God gives prominence to the idea that God is responsible for the design of living things.)

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#120
post #63

Tangental point here, but I find Medical student's relationship to Science quite fascinating. For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students EDIT: reference to it in this story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/21/religion.highe...

> For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students I don't find that particularly surprising, actually! I would assume that most subfields of biology relies more on deep understanding of evolution than medicine does. Like, if you're a botanist or entomologist or whatever, you need to have a very understanding of speciation and evolutionary pressure and whatnot…

You'd be surprised how many people with supposedly elite educations don't believe in evolution.

For me the most shocking example (or maybe not that shocking) is how it's de rigour in sociology to deny evolution. Yes, they will superficially claim they believe in it, but that belief collapses when placed under the slightest pressure. For example if you ask them for examples of male/female differences that originate in evolutionary selection pressure, you'll discover there are none. Not even men being physically stronger than women has an evolutionary explanation, according to this field.

The rejection of evolution by sociologists is a long standing problem. There's an essay about the problem from 1990:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01112591

and in 2018 people were still writing about the very same thing:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00024...

The field systematically rejects Darwinism for ideological reasons.

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