Without that piece of knowledge you don’t know if they were commenting on an ultimate source of existence, or just saying that they believed in thunder gods.

And philosophically, isn’t that distinction relevant? I have, over the last few months met a number of pro-evolution people who assert (a number of them biologists with doctorates) that evolution proves the random (chaotic) nature of the universe, to which I replied….”run away, run away…”

Well anyway, I worked at a big Pharma co. for three years in R&D. Frankly, the actual knowledge of the MD’s worried me…they had none, no thinking skills, no ability to reason…zip. I think it had to do with the severe indoctrination into authority driven social systems that they experienced in med school. To demonstrate I used to ask MD’s if the student could ever be smarter than the teacher. Without reservation they almost all answered no…at which point I asked them where they kept the leeches.

Personally, I only see NP’s for day to day medical needs. They focus on accurate research, rather than a false hubris attempt at memorizing everything.

In about 1995, Frontline reported that about 70% of the medical techniques being used had never been proved to be of value. If you worked in the field for a few decades, you could verify this by comparing what you do now with what you did then.

The medical field is loaded with mumbo-jumbo and deep bows to the swami doctor. Don’t be surprised if a lot of them are faith healers.

Which maybe the reason that so many intelligent people fall for ID. Einstein once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

When someone comes up with a flaw in a theory all of a sudden it is announced that the theory is wrong. What they don’t understand is that this does not negate the facts that supported this theory. The whole throwing out the baby with the bathwater syndrome comes into play.

I’ve found myself having to explain (sometimes prove) what a theory is before I can go on with the conversation (or argument).

I think that the more complicated science becomes the more people will turn to an answer that makes sense to them, even if it is illogical. People like neat and tidy and science tends to be a ball of questions that, when answered unlock more questions.

But I’d like to comment on Michael Kircher’s question: Why are Jewish doctors so less likely to believe in ID?

It could be that Judaism (with the exception of extreme sections) is built on the idea of asking questions. There are tomes written on arguments between great Jewish teachers. These books are used for study and not taken as unquestionable fact (two Jews, three opinions). This is not present in many of the religions that were polled.

Don’t forget, to be Jewish only requires that your mother is Jewish (or you convert, which entails the person to question why they are converting not once but three times. Jews are not missionaries) therefore it is possible to be an atheist and Jew at the same time.

Where else can you find that kind of juxtaposition?

Actually, relatively few doctors are good scientists or engineers. Because of the law of large numbers, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to follow the bell curve. This means that learning a probably correct treatment for each set of symptoms is good enough. Until very recently it has been standard practice to dispense anti-bacterial drugs for viral infections.

If you look around, most medicine, as practiced does not require verified diagnoses and verified treatments. Now and then one finds a doctor who is willing to think logically about the symptoms and develop a treatment and test plan, but this is surprisingly rare and always has been.

Why should doctors accept evolution and the big bang when so many of them cannot handle simple causality or Bayesian statistics?

I’m no polling expert, but I’m not convinced that the 0.3% of the people that responded were totally representative of doctors everywhere.