Sunday, February 25, 2007

Intelligent Design vs Evolution
In 1925, a landmark court case found high school teacher John T. Stokes guilty of teaching the theory of Darwinian evolution in the classroom, fining the educator $100. Today, the fight continues, ironically evolving into what is now a debate between intelligent design, rather, and evolution.

Above is an image of a flagellum, which is a collection of proteins that propels its respective bacterium through whatever medium it happens to be in. According to proponents of intelligent design--who contest that all life on earth is the product of an intelligent, divine will and not some random natural selection--this image is truth manifested that evolution is a hoax. However, like the defense that manipulated the George Holliday video of the Rodney King beating, intelligent design believers overlook the fact that the flagellum can still operate while lacking 80% of its protein structure. This fact--the image doesn't portray.

Science is an observation-based way of thinking. If you then move that and say, “We can’t find any evidence,” and therefore it was made my God or something or other, that simply moves into a totally different kind of intellectual discourse and is utterly different—it becomes not objective, which science is, but subjective.
David Attenborough

Zoologist

For the whole story: A War on Science (Google Video: query "intelligent design")

Seeing is Treating, by HBR
Today, even with highly advanced imaging technology, scientists and doctors are finding it much more accurate to couple it with other means of detecting disease. For instance, "in vivo imaging technologies are combined with in vitro laboratory diagnostics,"
to render the most effective means of catching malignant growths in the bud. What is interesting to note, therefore, according to this article, is that scientists and medical practitioners cannot rely solely on imaging technology--as advanced and clear as it may be--to diagnose and treat a patient. Today, imaging technology in the medical field seems to have become a means to an end, rather than the end itself, which is what the notion of photographic truth has so long contested.

Indeed, the popular study and use of biotechnology renders the lens almost obsolete. Lab technicians must rely on electronmicroscopes and other imaging hardware that harnesses the powers of... very advanced technology that is certainly not very familiar to the lay-student. And with man looking further inward into our bodies, it is no surprise that a convergence of imaging and biotechnology "can improve the quality of health care, the delivery of [said service], and the operational and financial performance of both health care providers and medical technology companies."

Hallelujah.

Seeing is Treating. Harvard Business Review. February 2007.

No comments: