Do Doctors need to know about evolution?

A rather ignorant, pigheaded jerk of a neurosurgeon doesn't seem to think so, and the DI has been posting his ignorance for all the world to read for the last couple of weeks. Well, here's how doctors who really do care about true biology actually deal with evolution's impacts:

Good Math, Bad Math : Pigheaded Egnorance, Antibiotic Resistance, and Tautologies:

Do Doctors need to be aware of evolution? Does awareness of evolution have anything to do with how Doctors should respond to infections? As an answer, let me tell you a bit about what my children's pediatrician has told us:

• As a pediatrician, she does not routinely prescribe antibiotics. For a basically healthy child, no matter what the infection, she won't prescribe antibiotics for at least 4 days, to give the child's immune system a chance to defeat the infection on its own.
• She does not prescribe antibiotics for any illness until there is hard proof that it's caused by bacteria.
• When she prescribes antibiotics, she does it in a very strict way. The first prescription for a child without drug allergies is always penicillin.
• After the first time that they prescribe antibiotics, the practice keeps careful track of exactly what has been prescribed to which child when; they follow a strict rotation process with antibiotics to try to not repeatedly prescribe the same antibiotic to a child within a six-month period.
  

Why such a strict process? Because bacteria are evolving resistance to antibiotics. By following a strict process like this, they minimize the quantity of antibiotics that they prescribe, and they try to prevent a chronically ill child from becoming a walking incubator of resistant bacteria. (And yes, when talking about this, she does specifically say that bacteria are evolving resistance.)

today's AT40...

...is gonna suck.  March 1980, so every song is either disco or mellow, worse than the '78 one from yesterday.

so I'm not going to be commenting...much...

the recap already started out bad: Dan Fogelberg's "Longer" was last week's #3.

*sigh*

and it got worse. "Yes, I'm Ready" (to throw right up on you) by Teri DeSario & KC.

Oh, a saving grace where it's most needed.  #1 last week: Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love.  One of those that's in the "immortal" category rather than trapped in an era, in my opinion.

so, on with the countdown...

oh there's a little more rock than i thought: Heart's "Even it Up".  definitely from their "old" style before they hit the keyboards like mad, but a fun rocker nonetheless.

I've heard this one before, 'cause he just did the one about the producer (of Blondie's Heart of Glass and the currently playing My Sharona) who insured his ears with Lloyds of London for $10million.  It's not the one I wrote about in February, so I'm guessing its one I heard during the marathons back at NYRF opening weekend when XM first started broadcasting these.

J. Giels' Band, pre-"Centerfold" (and subsequent breakup).  Really, ahead of their time in many ways, so by the time the 80s caught up with them, it was a large-scale case of "been there, done that, now what?".

Bette Midler's rendition of "When a Man Loves a Woman" from The Rose (which she had just been nominated for the oscar for).  Not so sure it's really "Bette".  Its very much in character and as such is not the Bette Midler most of us prefer.

Heh, another 80s hit machine before the 80s really hit: ZZ Top.  Just like Heart, they sound nothing like they would 5 years later.  And another, John Waite leading "The Babys".  Now this DOES sound like what Waite's solo stuff would sound like years later.  And a bit of Journey and Bad English in there, as the keyboard player here was Jonathan Cain, who would join Journey for Escape after the Captured album ran its course.  Knowing this now, it makes perfect sense for Waite to have joined Bad English.

Ok, Mr. Manilow, one slide (a key change up a step) is enough in a song.  Two is just begging for it and *really* doesn't hold up well.

Speaking of not holding up too well, should it be considered Kevorkian to write a song like September Morn that just about begs people to end it if they're in the middle of a breakup?  And speaking of doing the double-slide, that's two in a row here.  Geeze this era sucked.

Baby Come Back was a pretty big hit in my memory, catchy enough for a 9 year old to grasp.  The group, "Player", didn't really do much else.  Today it just blends in with other groups of that style like Ambrosia and Little River Band.  That was actually from Jan '78, part of their recaps of #1s of the past (the other being that How Deep is your Love Bee Gees song I mentioned yesterday, and the 3rd being Staying Alive...can't escape those guys this weekend, it seems...knowing my luck, next week they'll play one from 1989 and I'll have to endure "One" from them).

Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind.  A movie theme song desperately in search of a movie.

Nova Scotia's biggest star, Anne Murray.  Nice lady, loved her in Pete's Dragon, but her cover of Daydream Believer could have been left behind, as it really adds nothing to Davey Jones's original.

Kasem has this habit of talking about Tom Petty's hatred of the record industry every time he gets a hit.  He talked about it here in 1980, but also told the same story in the 1987 one broadcast last week.  The hit this week, Refugee.  Last week? Jammin' Me.

You know, I'm hearing a lot less disco than I expected to hear.  Had the "burn the records" backlash started yet?

Meanwhile, Blondie's Call Me is rocking through the airwaves on its way to #1 in a little over a month, after Pink Floyd's Another Brick II (currently #3). 

Geeze, talk about a convoluted history.  Shalamar in 1980 included Jody Watley, to be famous in her own right by last week's 1987 survey, but she and another member left before their big 80s hit from Footloose, Dancing in the Sheets.

The shortest playing record to hit #1 - Stay by Maurice Wlliams and the Zodiacs, at 1 minute, 35 seconds long.  They went ahead and played that for the hell of it.  Meanwhile, "Yes I'm Ready" is on its way down, from 2 to 7.  good riddance. They're playing a LOT of "AT40 Extras" - 3 70s era #1s, Stay, 2 long distance dedications, now for no reason at all, Dancing Queen from Abba...in fact, there's more disco in these extras than there is in the countdown itself.  maybe the AT40 people should have learned something from that.  Making matters worse, they interrupted Gilmour's guitar solo in Brick II early to move on to the next song.  Had they not thrown in the disco crap, they could have treated Dave with a little more respect...

ok, NOW the disco shows up in the top 5 with that cover of "Working my way back to you, babe" and Donna Summer's "On the radio", then Andy Gibb's Desire.

That leaves Longer in #2 and Freddie does Elvis at #1.

and i'll be around next week.  be sure and tip your waitress.

on NCLB encourages the wrong behaviour in just too many ways...

Pharyngula: Michael Egnor, Paleyist surgeon: Comment written by "QrazyQat" in reply to a subthread I started on No Child Left Behind (well, "No Child Gets Ahead" as I worded it there) --

There was a very interesting Daily Howler some time back which pointed to a good point he'd seen about what happens under the NCLB. His entry had more details (I can't find it with a quick search) but the bottom line is that under NCLB, there is a tremendous incentive to work hardest on those kids who are just barely below whatever the cutoff point is, so both the brightest kids and those kids who need help the most will naturally tend to get shortchanged. This is because -- well, assume a level of 70 is where you want kids to get to for funding to not be cut off. The school then gets no credit for taking a kid who's at 90 and getting them to 99 (which would be terrific) or for taking a kid who's struggling at 20 and getting them to 50 (which would be fantastic and a really huge help for that kid, and society at large once the kid is out of school). Instead the school gets credit for taking a kid from 68 to 70 and no credit for either of the others.