Look out, it’s evil! - Faith-based Medicine

01:09 am August 13th, 2006




			Look out, it’s evil! - Faith-based Medicine Helping to drag America, kicking & screaming, into the Age of Enlightenment

6_bleen_7


	Faith-based Medicine
	The journal Science recently published an unsurprising but horribly depressing article¹ about the acceptance of evolutionary theory by the public in Japan, the United States and Europe. As the graph (under the cut; large version here) shows, evolution is more often rejected in the United States than anywhere in Europe except Turkey. Here we see how the public of each nation responded to the statement, "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." Pharyngula and The Panda's Thumb have already discussed the article, and have covered the essential points. However, I want to re-emphasize that religious and political ideologies predicted attitude toward evolution considerably more strongly in the US than in Europe. Spain and Germany, while overall quite religious and, specifically, Christian, scored near the top of the list—so apparently religion and reality can coexist. Also, I wish that the countries of the Middle East were included in the poll. I have a feeling they'd do no better than Turkey, and probably worse. Then we could say to the Fundies, "Look! All of those evil Ay-rabs deny evolution! You have to accept it now! Or are you one a' them terrorists?" At just about the same time the article came to my attention, jillbertini discovered a humorous fake motivational poster poking fun at the 17-member tribute to Fundamentalist brainwashing, the Duggar ~~Herd~~ Family. I wrote one of my most scathing rants (warning—potentially offensive!) about the Duggars, and, gazing in horror at that portrait of the entire brood, I realized that I could use it to construct the visual equivalent of my main thesis, that the reason that the Duggars have sixteen live, healthy children, instead of nine or ten clinging to life with varying success, is the triumph of science over the medieval superstition they teach their children—and want taught to all American schoolchildren—in place of science. Here it is (click on the image for a really big version, albeit with lower resolution in the photo): Fortunately, before this terrible fate can be realized, I expect that (if current trends continue) the US will first lose its superpower status, on account of widespread ignorance and a political and social atmosphere hostile to scientific progress. Maybe a little humility will wise us up! Edit: Below is the original version, in which the word "DIED" took the place of the skull and crossbones. I like the skull version slightly better, but the direct mention of death has much to commend it. If you prefer the "DIED" version, please let me know (this is sort of an informal poll). I'd also be happy to take suggestions for improvement, e.g., more medieval maladies. ____________________________ ¹Miller, J.D., Scott, E.C., and Okamoto, S. (2006). Public acceptance of evolution. Science 313, 765-766. Tags: evolution, fundies, rant Current Tunes: Schickele Mix

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	Comments

	From: wananga	Date: August 13th, 2006 05:54 am (UTC)		(Link)

This is so sad and just pisses me off. People are so willing, eager really, to through away everything we've gained through education and science for this nonsense.

It's like they don't even want to be able to think.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 14th, 2006 05:11 am (UTC)		(Link)

Hopefully, this sort of thing is self-correcting. Unfortunately, critical thinking is something that has to be taught, and it takes effort and responsibility, in contrast to sheeplike obedience.

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From: lonesomepolecat	Date: August 15th, 2006 06:29 am (UTC)		(Link)

Take a look at the state of Metric measures in the USA (hint, only county that's not either converted or actively trying to finish conversion).

For the greater populace, once they've learned something (no matter how wrong), it's not worth their time to seek anything better.

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	(no subject) - 6_bleen_7 Expand

	From: jimcarson	Date: August 13th, 2006 04:57 pm (UTC)		(Link)

You may find some of these graphs equally disconcerting:

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

(A more thorough distillation appeared in this quarterly's _Skeptic_ magazine.)

The "abortion" argument in _Freakonomics_ is also an interesting read...

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 14th, 2006 05:12 am (UTC)		(Link)

Thanks! I'd seen the figures from that paper on per capita murder rates in a different context, but I hadn't read the whole thing. I'll definitely add that to my reference library.

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	From: inthane	Date: August 13th, 2006 08:24 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I wish I could say I didn't expect this - but sadly, I do. It's not even in the interests of those in power to fix it. A well-educated public would probably question the motivations and actions of many of those who currently profit from our ignorance...

Just remember the three maxims:

War is Peace!
Slavery is Freedom!
Ignorance is Strength!

Now go to sleep, little consumer, and be glad that Big Brother George is keeping you safe from terrorists...

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 14th, 2006 05:15 am (UTC)		(Link)

Fortunately, we have the rest of the world to show us the value of science and knowledge. Now we just need to get Americans to recognize that there is a rest of the world.

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	From: ellipticcurve	Date: August 14th, 2006 02:56 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Don't forget accidents. Nasty things, accidents, especially if you are 400 years from the nearest ER.
And, of course, if you had any sort of genetic problem or chronic illness that, today, might be easily controlled (think Type I diabetes, hemophilia)--you probably didn't make it out of early childhood.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:26 am (UTC)		(Link)

Diabetes—that's a good one! I'd like to have a different disease that is either no longer fatal, or no longer a serious danger, for each child.

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	Think she'll pop out some more? - green_ruby Expand


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	From: giza	Date: August 14th, 2006 05:03 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Those are awesome posters, thanks for putting them up. (I came over via

elfs' LJ.)

Also, I find it interesting that the top 3 countries on that list are all Nordic countries. :-)

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:29 am (UTC)		(Link)

Thanks! Iceland is known to be the overall best-educated country in the world. That may be an offshoot of a small, relatively close-knit population, but I suspect that long winters with nothing to do have some impact. In any case, their pro-science attitude is admirable; for example, pretty much the entire population has volunteered to be subjects for studies in population and disease genetics.

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From: owlmirror36	Date: August 14th, 2006 05:21 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Looking at the CDC's historical vital statistics,

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/vsus/historical/historical.htm

I see that in 1890, the big infant/childhood killer was not smallpox (vaccination had existed for quite a while by then), but rather diarrheal diseases. After that are cholera infantum, diphtheria, enteric fever, malarial fever, and whooping cough.

I suspect that rather than "nine or ten" living children, the real number would be "five or six", or maybe even less.

Seventh sons were probably lucky because their family had six older children who had lived through all of the crap that the world throws at us.

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	From: babbage	Date: August 14th, 2006 10:55 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Cholera is also diarrheal, I think.

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	(no subject) - 6_bleen_7 Expand

	From: jafnhar	Date: August 14th, 2006 06:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	what about violence?

We like to think we live in violent times, but we don't. At least a few of those boys should die in blood feuds. But heck, you can wipe out the entire family with a 14th century plague if you like.

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	From: cutiepi314	Date: August 16th, 2006 02:40 am (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: what about violence?

Then also some of the girls could die from rape, too. :-/

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	From: unclekage	Date: August 14th, 2006 06:52 pm (UTC)		(Link)

You might get a kick out of http://triggur.livejournal.com/176646.html.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:32 am (UTC)		(Link)

Heh-heh—thanks! Hadn't seen that one.

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	From: 11011110	Date: August 14th, 2006 07:47 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I think I like the "died" version a little better — that way there's no ambiguity about whether smallpox made them turn into pirates or something. Anyway, great visual, very persuasive. Here from Pharyngula, btw.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:34 am (UTC)		(Link)

Okay—thanks! Oddly enough, I considered putting an eyepatch on the father, to suggest some kind of accident, but I figured that people would think I was just making fun of him by turning him into a pirate.

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	From: kingfox	Date: August 14th, 2006 09:42 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Both graphics are well done, but I do prefer the skull and crossbones one for its oomph.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:35 am (UTC)		(Link)

Thanks for the input!

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	From: cutiepi314	Date: August 14th, 2006 10:30 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Have you posted this to the childfree communities? I'll bet they'll get a kick out of this.

I do not own a 5 MB camera, yet, but what about

samwibatt? Perhaps we can do some experimentation with these photographs and see if either a t-shirt of poster would be doable. If you make a t-shirt, I'll wear it with a ton of pride.

I understand that this is supposed to have a twist of black comedy, but if we want to put it in a sadder context, we could compare this to the leaders of South Africa or China not believing that HIV/AIDS is an epidemic. In those situations, I feel it is another form of abandoning medical and scientific advancement. Look at how many children are becoming orphans to the disease or also becoming infected.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:37 am (UTC)		(Link)

Unfortunately, we'd then need the family to pose for us. I was hoping to find a high-res picture on the Net, but the one above was as well as I could do. Perhaps we could pose as a fellow evalengelical, and request a print of the portrait from Jim-Bob because it's so "inspiring." A little flatbed scanning, and presto!

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	From: mouser	Date: August 14th, 2006 11:12 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Don't know if you missed it, but they DID lose one child to miscarriage, that's why there are only fourteen pictured.

Only.

*twitch*

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:42 am (UTC)		(Link)

I didn't know that—thanks for the info! Unlike the Fundies, however, I wouldn't count a miscarriage as a "lost child." Anyway, even modern medicine can't make up for a couple of lost chromosomes or the total lack of a vital organ.

SomethingAwful.com did a highly controversial front-page story about parents who'd had miscarriages who construct Web sites mourning their "lost angels," with pictures of their spontaneously aborted fetuses and vast quantities of lens flares and sappy poetry. They probably received more hate mail on that one than on anything else they've ever done (except maybe dissing Insane Clow Posse).

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	From: inkcat42	Date: August 15th, 2006 12:40 am (UTC)		(Link)
	another cause of medieval death

How about the bubonic plague?

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 03:44 am (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: another cause of medieval death

Plague would be a good one. I thought about it, but I figured smallpox would be somewhat better for a massively epidemic disease, because the survivors would be so heavily scarred.

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	Re: another cause of medieval death - inkcat42 Expand


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	which witch? - inkcat42 Expand

	From: scs_11	Date: August 15th, 2006 02:53 am (UTC)		(Link)

I have more than a few words to say on this topic, but I've said them over here.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 04:02 am (UTC)		(Link)

Somehow, I can't drum up much sympathy for creationists in the US, as long as they pretend to suffer religious persecution while in fact are attempting to push their religious agenda on all Americans, in the manner of a priveleged majority. In any case, it's pretty clear that you take this far more seriously than I do. Obviously—and I mean painfully obviously—I'm exaggerating: creationism is taught as science in home-schools across America, and even in a few public schools that lack whistle-blowers; and though we fall well below the other industrial democracies in many standards of public health, such as teenage pregnancy, we're nowhere near the horrors taken as a matter of course in medieval societies. So please fight the natural tendency toward self-righteousness, and repeat this simple mantra:

It's clearly satire.
It's clearly satire.
It's clearly satire.
What I tell you three times is true.

'Nuff said.

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From: kayigo	Date: August 15th, 2006 04:04 am (UTC)		(Link)

My main complaint with your presentation is you dont go far enough.
You need one child to have died or been disfigured by each disease we vaccinate children for routinely today:
rubeola (measles)- pneumonia or encephalitis
rubella - especially disasterous if contracted by mom while child is in first trimester of pregnancy, leading to profound mental retardation, blindness and deafness in the child
tetanus - fatal "lockjaw"
diptheria - fatal respiratory infection
pertussus (whooping cough) - highly deadly to small infants
polio - potentially fatal, or long term neurological complications
Then, there should be one deaf from recurrent ear infections/mastoiditis in childhood.
And how about a case of strep throat advancing to rheumatic fever and severe cardiac complications. Extra credit to anyone who knows what St Vitus' Dance is.
Then, how about a nice case of pneumacoccal pneumonia, or some H. flu meningitis.
And that is just for starters. Dont forget, before good dental hygeine and fluoride in the water, none of those kids would have those nice white smiles.
That was all I could think up in five minutes and a mental review of my kid's health history. You should get a consult from our resident Pediatric expert.
Congrats on getting the mention on Pharyngula! It was way cool to go there and see your name!

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 04:26 am (UTC)		(Link)

I was hoping you'd weigh in—figured you'd have some good suggestions. I didn't know too many diseases that would be both common and potentially fatal back then. Come to think of it, I should definitely add "Measles" in light of the frightening recent anti-vaccination movement, especially with the MMR being blamed for autism (the most highly heritable psychological disorder). Someone commenting on Pharyngula suggested Rh incompatibility, which is an excellent one, though difficult to squeeze in the available space.

"Pneumonia" and "infection" were in the running, but people still die of those fairly often in industrialized countries.

One thing I may still add is being bled to death as medical treatment, though again that's hard to express in twelve letters or fewer. "Trepanation" might work.

Yeah—I ought to blacken a few teeth. As I mentioned above, I almost gave Jim-Bob an eyepatch, but with current pirate fad people might get the wrong idea.

I have heard of St. Vitus' dance, but wasn't sure how one would contract that.

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	From: cutiepi314	Date: August 15th, 2006 04:33 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Since we're talking about the middle ages...

For more humorous and ironic purposes, why don't we claim that one of the daughters is a witch, and that the village burned her at the stake?

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 04:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Heh-heh—someone else suggested that, as well. That would go well with the whole theocracy angle, though it wouldn't quite fit with the public health theme.

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	From: smoooom	Date: August 15th, 2006 05:28 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Oh please, a belief in creation is not a rejection of all science. If it were so we wold have no christian doctors, nurses, scientists, researchers etc etc. Now I'll admit his bumper sticker is out to lunch, but please don't assume that just because I believe the earth was created that I reject modern science in other ways. Someday I'll be able to sit down and have a rational conversation with an evolutionist, we'll answer each others questions (to some degree al least) and I might understand evolution some more.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 15th, 2006 06:36 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Thanks for your comment. I'd like to point out niether Christianity nor the more general belief that God created the universe in any way contradicts modern science. Science explains how they were created and developed. Similarly, belief in "creationism," interpreted in ways that contradict science, is not synonymous with Christianity. As an important example, Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, star witness for the prosecution in the Kitzmiller trial, is a devout Catholic. In the greater sphere, the Vatican, the Episcopalian Church leadership, and the Jewish Rabbinical Council have all affirmed God as the Creator and their acceptance of current scientific theories regarding natural history, including evolution.

Your last sentence is telling. You imply that your skepticism about evolution is tied in with your lack of understanding of evolution. Scientists, including me, predominantly consider lack of education the key obstacle to mainstream acceptance of evolution. I hope that when you learn more about evolutionary biology you'll find that you can reconcile this aspect of the natural world with your personal views.

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	From: cutiepi314	Date: August 16th, 2006 02:47 am (UTC)		(Link)

I have nothing new to add except that I just wanted to raise your LJIF and be the one to give you your first 50+ comment post!!! :-D

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 16th, 2006 05:36 am (UTC)		(Link)

Woohoo! Thanks!

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	From: cutiepi314	Date: August 6th, 2007 11:51 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Very late to respond with this reply, but I decided to look at their webpage again to see the family recipes. It shouldn't come as a surprise, but the family does not care to practice good nutrition. Nearly all of the recipes are abundant in partially hydrogenated oils and will easily push both one's LDL and triglyceride levels over 1000 within one week. In addition to the deaths you have posted above, you should add cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, and over-exposure rbST.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: August 10th, 2007 02:09 am (UTC)		(Link)

Unfortunately, the diseases you mention have little to do with any particular religion, since Americans overindulge pretty much across the board. What's more, they only rose to prominence after science solved the causes of the large majority of the major infectious-disease killers.

I regret to announce that even Mrs. Duggar's best efforts to kill off her family with trans fats aren't working nearly fast enough. For some reason it isn't mentioned on their Web site, but I heard reports that she had her 17th child recently. For the sake of Jesus, put a plug in it already. If I were her OB, I'd gladly sacrifice my career to perform a quick, unrequested tubal ligation and stem that particular brainwashed tide.

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	From: margareta87	Date: September 22nd, 2007 02:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Looks like Canada didn't merit a mention in the graph... Would have been interesting to know.

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: September 30th, 2007 04:37 am (UTC)		(Link)

That's very interesting—I hadn't even noticed! But now that you mention it, Australia is missing as well. Bet you that both were considered part of the UK for the purposes of the study; and I predict furthermore that the rate of acceptance of evolution is very similar in all three countries. At least I hope that Canada is closer to the UK than to the US.

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	From: margareta87	Date: September 22nd, 2007 02:57 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Oh, and completely tangential, but speaking of dying in childbirth. You know what pissed me off the most about Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith? (There were many, many things, actually.) It was the fact that in this supposedly technologically advanced society -- one that could take a burned-to-a-crisp quadruple amputee and turn him into the deadliest bad guy in the galaxy -- the notion of "dying in childbirth" was still so common and widely accepted that it's taken as a given that it's a real and unavoidable threat. (It's the first thing that comes to Anakin's mind when he realizes Padme's life is endangered, and he doesn't even say,"huh, dying in childbirth, wouldn't that be weird.")

I guess in the George Lucas universe, advancements in women's health don't rank nearly as high on the priority list as innovations in women's fashion...

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	From: 6_bleen_7	Date: September 30th, 2007 04:56 am (UTC)		(Link)

I see what you mean, but I didn't interpret it the same way during the movie. She appeared to have given up all hope, and to have stayed alive just long enough to deliver the twins. Somebody remarks that she should have been perfectly healthy, but that she was dying anyway.

That said, it is very strange that they didn't do something about her emotional condition. You'd think that they could have dosed her with some happy pills for a couple of days, or something, until she could get a sense of perspective. But no, they (Padme included) sacrificed her life for that one tragic gesture.

Perhaps I didn't think of it because, to me, it was overshadowed by that ridiculous lightsaber fight that had just ended. Dancing around three feet above a lake of lava? They should have been burned to a crisp. And the whole deal about holding the high ground; did Lucas forget for a moment that they weren't battling it out with catapults?

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