Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism

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Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism is a petition promoting intelligent design. It consists of a list of people agreeing with an statement casting doubt on evolution. The petition was produced by the Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI), a nonprofit organization formed by the Discovery Institute, and is intended to support the Discovery Institute's campaign to portray intelligent design as a scientifically valid theory by creating the impression that evolution lacks broad scientific support.^[1] It is similar to the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to discredit evolution.

The document itself has been the subject of controversy and extensive criticism from a variety of sources. The statement in the document has been branded as poorly worded, misleading and vague.^[2]

This campaign, like the rest of the Discovery Institute anti-evolution campaigns, has come under criticism for being misleading and anti-science. The list of signatories represents an insignificant fraction of medical professionals (about 0.02%). The evidence of evolution is not determined by petitions or polls, however, but by scientific evidence. This is the reason that, in biological science itself, the theory of evolution is overwhelmingly accepted. ^[3]

1 Statement
2 History
3 Analysis
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Statement

The medical doctors and comparable professionals are signatories to a statement which disputes evolution, which they refer to as "Darwinian macroevolution" or "Darwinism", which are both misleading terms. The statement that the organization subscribes to is titled "Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism" and contains the following text:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and we therefore dissent from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory. This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory."

Evolutionary synthesis and the theory of evolution state that random mutation leads to inherited traits that become more or less common due to non-random natural selection and random genetic drift, as well as other mechanisms. Therefore, the PSSI statement is overly vague and worded in a misleading fashion, since few real evolutionary biologists would subscribe to the version of evolution presented by the statement.^[2] In addition, evolution does not include the study of the origin of life, as the statement implies. Moreover, the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is drawn primarily by creationists or those unfamiliar with the study of evolution.

The wording of this statement is very similar to the wording of the Discovery Institute's petition, "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism", which has been widely criticized for being inaccurate and misleading.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

[edit] History

The Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity was formed in 2006. By May 8, 2006, the PSSI Dissent petition had 34 signatories.^[2] There were 100 signatories on July 30, 2006. By December 2006, 167 had signed the statement. By May 22, 2007, 252 appeared on the list. As of July 30, 2007, the list included 264 names.^[8]

The PSSI invites holders of the M.D., D.O., D.D.S., D.M.D., D.V.M., or similar degrees to sign the Dissent petition.

[edit] Analysis

The statement is similar to the one of the A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism of the Discovery Institute which has come under extensive criticism from a variety of sources as misleading, poorly phrased and containing only a tiny fraction of professionals in relevant fields.

Statement of "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism":

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

The value of the opinions of physicians, surgeons, veterinarians, optometrists and other signatories of this petition is not clear. Referring to the number of people on the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list and their claimed relevance, University of Minnesota biology professor PZ Myers writes, "Not only is the number that they cite pathetically small, but they rely on getting scientists whose expertise isn't relevant." In analogy, it can be argued that the ‘Physicians’ list represents an insignificant fraction of the total medical profession. Addressing a specific example, Myers says of neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, who signed both lists, that "The Discovery Institute may like to trumpet his expertise in neurosurgery as an indicator of the significance of his dissent from evolutionary biology, but I think I'd rather trumpet his ignorance of evolutionary biology as an indicator of the uselessness of the Discovery Institute's list."^[9] Myers continued to state that the signer "is not only wrong, but he's pretty damn arrogant about it — how else to explain someone who is proud of the fact that he knows nothing about a subject, and is proud of his inability to find sources that would correct his ignorance, even when they're pointed out to him directly? He's like Michael Behe, in that we can plop mountains of information in front of him, and he'll just blithely claim it doesn't exist."^[10]

The compiled list of medical professionals is available on the Internet, where each signatory is listed three times: by last name, by country and by specialty. Most of the doctors who signed the statement are from the United States. As of May 22, 2007 there were 224 signatories from the United States, two signatories from Australia, four signatories from Canada, eight signatories from the United Kingdom and another 14 from nine other countries. The signatories include doctors trained or working in a wide range of disciplines, including, addiction medicine, bariatrics (i.e., weight loss medicine), dentistry, dermatology, hospice care, opthamology, optometry, plastic surgery, psychiatry, radiology, urology, and veterinary medicine.

The American Medical Association estimates that in 2006, there were more than 884,000 physicians in the United States.^[11] In addition, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that in May of 2003 the US had 97,090 dentists, 63,780 opticians, 22,740 optometrists and 43,890 veterinarians.^[12]

Therefore, the total number of US professionals in the fields represented by the "Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity" Dissent petition is at least 1,111,500. That is, the 224 US signatories of the statement represent approximately 0.02% of the total number of US professionals in these fields.

However, this figure should be expected to rise, based on a poll of 1472 US physicians conducted by the "Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research" at the Jewish Theological Seminary and HCD Research in Flemington, New Jersey, from May 13-15, 2005. This study showed that 34% of physician respondents felt more comfortable with intelligent design than evolution.^[13]^[14]

By contrast, the Discovery Institute's Access Research Network claims that this same poll shows that 60 percent of physicians are skeptical of macroevolution:^[15] These are the figures quoted by the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views:

Jewish doctors: 32% reject Darwinism.
Protestant doctors (largest group of U.S. doctors): 81% reject Darwinism.
Catholic doctors: 78% reject Darwinism.
Orthodox Christian doctors: 72% reject Darwinism.
Hindu doctors: 54% reject Darwinism.
Buddhist doctors: 43% reject Darwinism (compared to 36% who accepted it)
Muslim doctors: 86% reject Darwinism.
Atheist doctors: 2% reject Darwinism.
"Spiritual but no organized religion": 48% reject Darwinism.
"Other": 54% reject Darwinism.^[16]

The reason for the apparent discrepancy is because of the way the questions were phrased, and the lumping of the largest group of respondents, those who subscribe to theistic evolution, in with the group rejecting "Darwinism".