Darwin = the Boogeyman

[Doomed Harlottt]

So Doug has a written a post about a heartbreaking situation involving a 3 year old girl who has been denied a kidney transplant due to severe developmental delays, and questions about whether she or her family will be able to administer the complicated regimen of post-surgery drugs that woudl be required over the years.

Now, I am not defending the decision to deny her a transplant. I just don't know enough about the issues. Presumably eligibility criteria for transplants have been developed for a reason. And presumably our amazing ability to prolong life combined with the limitations on the resources for doing so has placed us in the morally difficult position of making difficult decisions.

But naturally Doug doesn't actually examine the issues or investigate what the rationale might be for determining this child ineligible for a transplant. He simply calls this awful situation an example of Darwinism 101, and denounces this as an inevitable consequence of Darwinist thinking. Poor Darwin. All he did was DESCRIBE reality. He didn't PRESCRIBE implicitly or explicitly solutions to complex moral problems, and there is absolutely nothing about accepting evolution that would lead one to adopt "survival of the fittest" as a moral code. I have a feeling Doug is educated and bright enough to understand this perfectly well, but his income depends on stirring up his flock's blind indignation at the pointy headed intellectuals who accept science as a way of understanding the natual world.

The irony is that without Darwin's insights, many life saving cures to disease would not exist. Moreover, Darwin is part of a tradition of enlightened thinkers pushing back against church doctrines in order to discover the truth about physical reality. Another example that comes to mind is Leonardo da Vinci and others, who dissected cadavers, in violation of church teaching about the dignity of human life, in order to understand the human body better. Ironically, those willing to take some liberties with human dignity in the name of science are the ones who have actually been able to prolong human life.

http://wwwDOTvisionforum.com/news/blogs ... 2/02/9938/

[emmiedahl]

The girl was denied because she has a condition that will kill her in the near future with or without the transplant.

Darwin was a minister and Doug is an idiot.

[finleeport]

The girl was denied because she has a condition that will kill her in the near future with or without the transplant.

Darwin was a minister and Doug is an idiot.

Amen to that. Doug is and always is a

Up yours Doug.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Ah, I missed the part about her dying soon.

[Patsy]

We also discussed the case here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6770

The child and the decision, that is, not Doug being an arse. That can be found in innumerable threads.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Thanks Patsy. Sorry I missed that.

[Patsy]

If "Sorry I missed that." is an apology, no no no, your details aren't at all a rehashing, I just thought that somebody might want to look at what FJers had already had to say about the case itself.

And, er, if you meant "wish I'd been in on the discussion at the time", then never mind, I'm just going to sit down and shut up.

[Doomed Harlottt]

I sort of meant both, but that's more about my resolution to spend less time flapping my gums and more time listening to all the brilliant things people have to say here. I appreciate the link and your comments!