Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

E-Letter responses to:

editorial:
Randolph M. Nesse, Stephen C. Stearns, and Gilbert S. Omenn
Medicine Needs Evolution
Science 2006; 311: 1071 [Summary] [PDF]
*E-Letters: Submit a response to this article

Published E-Letter responses:

[Read E-Letter] Medicine has evolution
Harold R Zeckel   (7 March 2006)

Medicine has evolution 7 March 2006
Top
Harold R Zeckel,
psychiatrist

Respond to this E-Letter:
Re: Medicine has evolution

"...training in evolutionary thinking can help ...clinicians ask useful questions that they might not otherwise pose."

I beg to differ with this statement. Physicians are taught evolutionary thinking all through medical school, from why humans get hemorrhoids and varicose veins, to the presence of accessory nipples and branchial cleft remnants, from the presence of the appendix to the presence of the pineal gland, etc, etc. The understanding of the manner in which cancer cells reproduce in the body and the development of resistance among bacteria, plus why sickle cell anemia developed among blacks in Africa, all these are mentioned with reference to evolution while we are taught in medical school. I think it is that non-physicians don't realize how prevalent evolutionary thinking already is in the education of physicians that editorialists think we should be taught more about it. Of course, there is always more to learn.

Harold Zeckel, M.D.

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)