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Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 3, 2005 / 25 Iyar, 5765

Doctors Doubt Darwinism

By Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak

The Medicine Men
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If you believe you are just a blob of cellular tissue, please raise your right protoplasm.

Does your own doctor treat you like a human being, or just an accidental collection of chemicals, haphazardly arranged by dumb chance?

A recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research suggests an answer. The poll finds that 60 percent of doctors reject the mechanistic Darwinian belief that "Humans evolved naturally with no supernatural involvement — no divinity played any role." Only 38 percent of the doctors polled agreed with this statement.

Given their "hands on" experience with individual human beings, doctors appreciate the intricate design implicit in every part of the body. For example, an eye surgeon knows the intricacies of human vision in detail; so vague evolutionary stories about how the eye appeared by a process of random variation and selection do not overawe him.

Darwin himself said, "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Notice that Darwin shifts the burden of proof away from his theory. Despite this rhetorical sleight of hand, the eye is no friend of his theory, both because Darwinists have utterly failed to offer a detailed, plausible account of how it might have evolved, and because design theorists have laid out positive evidence showing that the eye has the hallmark of designed systems.

And the eye is just one of countless organs and interdependent systems in the body whose origin defies Darwinian or other solely mechanistic explanation.

Recent discoveries about the inner workings of the cell provide additional powerful evidence for design. In Darwin's time, the cell was just a black box, a great unknown. The discovery that in fact, all cells possess astounding complexity and meticulously calibrated function has convinced a growing number of scientists that modern evolutionary theory is utterly inadequate to explain how this complex organism could have developed.

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My fellow physicians and I were taught that evolution is how we came to be, starting from those first mysterious single-celled living organisms. Alternative theories are not usually presented to medical students or even to biologists studying for doctoral degrees, since such theories are quickly branded as "creationism," mocked, and dismissed.

So how is it that 65 percent of the doctors surveyed by the poll, even though they obviously received the full dose of evolution-as-the-only-answer indoctrination in medical school, responded that they thought intelligent design should be allowed or required to be taught in schools along with Darwinian evolution?

Why is this issue important to patients treated by doctors? If a doctor believes human beings and other creatures do indeed show evidence of intelligent design, those same human beings are due significantly more reverence and respect than if they simply reflect natural selection working on a pointless series of chance events.

If a person is due no more respect than a chicken or lump of clay, he is as easily disposed of should someone more powerful (such as the doctor or a government agent) decide he has outlived his usefulness. That anti-human attitude isn't science fiction. It's the stated position of some contemporary bioethicists.

Fortunately, mounting evidence in the medical sciences points in a different direction — toward the conclusion that you and I were designed for a purpose.

Detailed poll results are at http://www.hcdi.net/polls/J5776/CumulativeReportNoGraph.htm.

Editor's Note: Robert J. Cihak wrote this week's column.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here.

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