EpiFunny’s of Mine

last thursday we had a seminar on history of medicine..yes..it’s true,around 200 years ago,some guys got bored enough that they created this subject,so that, 200 years later,we,the uninterested 5th year students can have a seminar about it,for 2 long hours,once a week,for who knows,how many time(didn’t bother to check the schedule,the bad news of another seminar may break my already fragile spirit)

imagine combining the most boring elements of sociology and medicine in one pot and putting it in one compact..err..lesson,if u can call concentrating not to snooze off a lesson.

the lecturer started the seminar with a question”do you think that history of medicine a science?”..the answer,after 30 minutes or so of defining science,medicine,and even some other things that i never thought of having definitions was, “no” it’s not a science,rather a part of the big and wonderful subject of “HISTORY”.

then,we entered one of the subsubjects of the day”the history of prehistoric medicine”..we started on of course defining what is prehistoric time and that unsurprisingly led to the darwin’s theory of evolution..and that’s the reason i’m writing this blog anyway.

bear said prehistoric time started 5 thousand “million” years ago,but of course the evolutionist* lecturer said that it was wrong,it started at the time when the apes turned into humans(huh).of course,most of us are creationist** because we are muslims,and rejected the idea that we originated from some hairy apes with tool wielding abilities.he then showed us the timeline of human evolution(with helpful imaginary sketches)

then he asked,”when do u think medicine started in prehistoric time,could the apes have acquired some skills of medicines in their community”,
of course that led to another fuss (i think the thought that apes learning medicine is a real threat to med students everywhere)

the lecturer kind of looked at us in a funny way when he realised that most of us didn’t believe the darwin’s theory,may be to him.it’s like saying the sky is violet,the grass is blue,and i can play football.

at that moment i realised,”woah..i’m in the middle of something here..”may be it’s just at a miniscule scale,but it was a clash between evolutionist ideas and creationist belief,with the lecturer explaining the human lineage and some of the guys mumbling about how the don’t believe a cent of it.

well,in short this was my observation:

the lecturer:he was born in a communist community,where for many years religion and the idea of god was banished,all he had was a firm believe in science and human intrepretation of natural occurence.the idea of evolution was embedded in him hard.of course knowing that some students not believing in it
was quite a shock.

most of us:we were brought up in a country where the idea was not popular,how many times i saw people ridiculed the evolution theory publicly.but never i saw this problem discussed academically,thus rejecting it in a discussion will prove difficult,it’s our fate that we came to a country that pride itself with many famous evolutionists.

well,i had always been interested in the theory of evolution,since there was a time(when i was 8-11 i think),that i really wanted to be a paleontologist,
yeah,digging for dinosaurs and stuffs,but i had to abandon my dreams for some personal reasons(that’s another story)
well,in the course of pursuing the ambition,one could not help to find the literature supported by darwin’s theory,but it never seem to get into my head,i really don’t know why but the more i read about it,the more difficult i found to digest it.alhamdulillah..

even after i decided that i’m not suited to be a paleontologist,i’d always find books,and stuffs bout dinosaurs and evolution’s theory a part of my interest.after all these years i found some interesting facts dan findings against the theory ,i’ll not state all of them,but here’s some of the higlights :

-the theory stated that life originated from sea,from fishes that became amphibias,then became reptiles,then into birds and mammals.that means that between all the transformation,there should be creatures of “half-fish”-”half-amphibians”,”halfreptile”-”halfbirds” et cetera,to prove the theory,we should be able to find fossils of these creatures.a few decades ago a fossil of a fish said to have lungs and leg-like fins are found,i think they called it coecalith(sorry if i misspelled it),this,was said to be the link where the fishes leapt onto land became amphibians,(thus the origin of all land creatures)but a few years later,the fish(not a fossil) was found living in deep sea(not even near a beach or any land mass),with perfect gills and fins,and after millions of years,it didn’t evolve a bit.

-the theory stated that evolution was a process of natural selection,where mutations will make new creatures,and nature will select those reliable mutated creatures to breed and pass their genes to the next generation,but of course,anyone who learnt biology knows that almost all mutations will lead to dire effects not better beings,sickle cell anemia,down syndrome,albinism are result of mutations,in real practical life,we can never see cool mutants like wolverine,prof x or beast,the x-men are all just hoax to subconciously implant our minds that mutations can lead into better humans.nature will never select mutants,and if u’re in medicine u’d know that in most genetic defects,even if the subject’s phenotype is normal,they will be sterile or produce more abnormal offsprings.

-the theory supporters stated that life occurs spontaneously,that is from one celled creatures into more complex ones,but even if the mutation towards that(1 cell to multicells creatures) can happen(see point no 2)the complex dna structure(s) can never had been spontaneously occured.even the most simple 1 celled organism will have complicated dna structure supporting its functions and life.numerous experiments to produce dna spontaneously had failed.

-all of the skeletons said to be early humans,australapethicus,homo habilis,homo erectus,was proven to be frauds even before 1980’s,the ones who was said to dig them out was found to attach human skull with orang utans jaw(in the case of australapethicus i think)and most of the other skeletons that they say are early ape-humans are most probably different races of humans,we can see the differences in front of our eyes,are the builts of europeans the same with asians?by saying that the fossils are subhuman due to their brain sizes and backbone forms can be explained by malnourishment and diseases.
and don’t be fooled by documentaries showing antropologist-artists making models of apelike creatures from skulls that they said from the ape-humans,it’s more imagination than science,they can make the model into anything they want,even u,me,an orang utan,it was proven by giving the same skull to different artists,in the end,the result was different models.but of course the truth was never been published,and all the imaginary facts are still taught in most schools.

uh.oh,the blog turned into some refarat..well anyway,the class then was continued with the usuals,talking about the medicine in renaissance,the period where europeans turned secular and started antrophocentrism thinkings(that’s another story),rejecting the idea of god and the starting of many social problems now(at least in my opinion la),the leturer ended the seminar earlier and gave us a diskette of hometasks for our next seminar(i really am not looking forward for that).

more fast facts:
-karl marx was so impressed with darwin’s theory that he dedicated a copy of”das kapital” to darwin.

current world affairs:
-i heard from latha(the only indian student in our class)that the idians are boycotting softdrinks due to their proven hazard,it’s a nationwide campaign,even in the cinemas before they show the movies(i heard indians are such movie goers),i told her just last week my housemates did some of their own experiment on colas,putting rusty coins in cola,they found that the cola deoxidised the coins after a few days,imagine what happens to our stomachafter we drink the cola
-russia is still sanctioning georgia,though at the same time disapproving americas intention to sanction north korea and iran.

from my own vocab:
*:one that life on earth evolved from the natural selection process
**:believers of God,and life is created by Him.

On the earth are signs for those of assured Faith, As also in your own selves: Will ye not then see? And in heaven is your Sustenance, as (also) that which ye are promised. Then, by the Lord of heaven and earth, this is the very Truth, as much as the fact that ye can speak intelligently to each other. (adz zariyat:20-23)

ps:most of the facts are from my own observation and experience,adding my own opinions,if there’s any discrepancies or wrongs found in them,please tell me.it’ll be much appreciated.wassalam…

This entry was posted on Monday, October 16th, 2006 at 7:16 pm and is filed under @noTheR dAy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.