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If the doctor learned his material properly, what difference would his belief that you evolved from some base mammal vs. belief that humans were created by God

If the doctor learned his material properly, what difference would his belief that you evolved from some base mammal vs. belief that humans were created by God a few thousand years ago make? So long as he's following current understanding of what medicines and procedures work, the why doesn't matter all that much and what humans were like a million years ago has literally zero bearing on anything your local doctor will ever do for you.

antimagic 13y ago
If a doctor learned his material properly, he would know that humans evolved from a type of ape. The fact that he believes otherwise immediately puts in to doubt whether he has or not learned his material. As to whether or not someone can just learn what has to be done in a specific situation or not, let me ask you this: do you prefer working with developer colleagues that work with Cargo Cult mentality or because they understand the underlying technology that they use? And which of those two developers produces better work? Yeah, I choose doctors that understand evolution.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  If the developer were the best I could hope for I wouldn't take someone worse because of his sad, but ultimately irrelevant beliefs. I would hope I could build on his work enough to get someone better later. I would certainly never shoot myself in the foot by picking someone (or allowing someone to be picked) who had more solid beliefs but was dangerous to the project.
  - antimagic 13y ago
    And we were always at war with EastAsia. In this particular case, the beliefs are not irrelevant - doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. To be clear, I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      >doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Be concrete. In what way would not knowing anything about evolution affect the duties of a doctor? > Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. Well, you were making a comparison to a developer who understands what they work with vs. one who doesn't. For this comparison to work, the one with understanding would have to be evil or dangerous. In that case, I would pick the one with lack of understanding provided they at least can get the work done that I need. >I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree. That I agree with a competent psychopath is more dangerous than an incompetent person? I would agree with that. I don't necessarily agree that psychopathy is orthogonal to the discussion tough, it's a key part of the reason why I'd vote for someone like Paul. :)

antimagic 13y ago

If a doctor learned his material properly, he would know that humans evolved from a type of ape. The fact that he believes otherwise immediately puts in to doubt whether he has or not learned his material. As to whether or not someone can just learn what has to be done in a specific situation or not, let me ask you this: do you prefer working with developer colleagues that work with Cargo Cult mentality or because they understand the underlying technology that they use? And which of those two developers produces better work? Yeah, I choose doctors that understand evolution.

flyinRyan 13y ago
If the developer were the best I could hope for I wouldn't take someone worse because of his sad, but ultimately irrelevant beliefs. I would hope I could build on his work enough to get someone better later. I would certainly never shoot myself in the foot by picking someone (or allowing someone to be picked) who had more solid beliefs but was dangerous to the project.
- antimagic 13y ago
  And we were always at war with EastAsia. In this particular case, the beliefs are not irrelevant - doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. To be clear, I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    >doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Be concrete. In what way would not knowing anything about evolution affect the duties of a doctor? > Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. Well, you were making a comparison to a developer who understands what they work with vs. one who doesn't. For this comparison to work, the one with understanding would have to be evil or dangerous. In that case, I would pick the one with lack of understanding provided they at least can get the work done that I need. >I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree. That I agree with a competent psychopath is more dangerous than an incompetent person? I would agree with that. I don't necessarily agree that psychopathy is orthogonal to the discussion tough, it's a key part of the reason why I'd vote for someone like Paul. :)