CHANGING SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

Bringing about changes in science and medicine has always been a difficult process.  Although scientists and physicians are thought of as being open-minded, the fact is that once they have been taught certain "truths" they seem to be even more resistant to change than most people.  It apparently took a hundred years before scientists accepted the theory of continental drift.  Dr. Heimlich had great difficulty convincing the medical profession how to save people from choking to death.  A more extreme example was poor Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865).  He was a Hungarian obstetrician who discovered that physicians were spreading puerperal fever to women who were giving birth,  by not washing their hands before delivering babies.  Up to thirty percent of women who gave birth in hospitals died, whereas women who gave birth at home did not. By ordering students to wash their hands before examining women, Dr. Semmelweis greatly cut the death rate.  However, he was unable to convince his colleagues of the necessity of hand-washing.  At times he resorted to standing outside the door to the surgery room and physically forcing physicians to wash their hands.  Finally they had him committed to a mental institution.  Imagine the gall of telling physicians that their hands were not clean! 

People in general have been just as bad.  They have been fighting the theory of evolution for a hundred years.  Although the mainline churches accept evolution, the religious fundamentalists rage incessantly about the impossibility of evolution and explain that it is "only a theory," not understanding the scientific meaning of "theory," or choosing not to understand it.  The sad thing is that they resist allowing their children to be properly educated about evolution.  A minister in England about one hundred years ago wondered when the earth was created and decided to determine the answer from the Bible.  He calculated that it happened about six thousand years ago.  Actually recorded history is only 5,000-6,000 years; so he did a fair job in a sense.  All people have wondered about creation.  Every civilization has a creation story.  People have always wanted to know when the universe was created and how.  The Bible is for spiritual guidance, it is not a scientific text.  It is sad that people feel the need to stick with the theory of the minister in England.  At least they are not still insisting that Atlas is holding the earth on his shoulders, or the earth is sitting on the back of a turtle. 

Actually, the Bible itself gives a somewhat evolutionary form of creation.  It has life beginning in the ocean, then the birds and sea-beasts, finally animals on the earth, and last of all human beings.  This was a remarkable insight in my opinion.  But why, in an age of science, are people clinging to such absurdities as people living in the age of dinosaurs?  Naturally these people are closed to the idea of climate change.  And the gas, oil, and coal companies are taking advantage of this mind-set to insist that there is no problem.  After all, these corporations are making a lot of money and do not want to limit their pollution.  What does it take to open peoples' minds?