Sexual selection is one of Darwins most interesting insights - it sounds like you think all of evoloution is simply about survival - it is not, it is about passing along your genes, survival is optional once that occurs - simply said that for members of a given species often the biggest competetors are not the predetors and parasites that live in their environment but members of the SAME species who are competing with eachother for not only food and resources but also for access to sex - males often devote vast amounts of energy and resouces to compete with other males for access to females - sexual selection explains what this is all about, and is one of the reasons scientist have so much respect for Darwin, since others before him tossed out ideas similar to natural selection but Darwin explained so many seeming parodoxes associate with that idea....
Soooo you don't believe in physical limits? because somehow you know human innovation will solve any problem that comes up - tell that to the easter islanders who cut down the last f-ing tree on thier isolated island percipiating a collapse of their population, or the greenland norse who went extinct due to climate change and lack of cultural flexibility - ever wonder why Iraq and the middle east is the cradle of civilization yet it is in a godforsaken desert, because when it was the cradle of civilization it wasn't a desert, it took a 1000 years of agriculture to make it a desert. So yeah more of that bullshit again - I am sure the planet can support 100 billion people because I have a feeling we will invent something to feed them all - either that or we will have plagues, starvation and war - in any event it is all good, it will sort itself out....
Mod parent up - companies exist because we the people let them exist - they have a charter to do something "beneficial" to society - like making cars, jellybeans or whatever... - that is why companies were invented so that groups of people can get together aggregate capital and do something useful for society - if corporations act as sociopathic parasites which privatize profits and shove costs onto the rest of society then they should be shut down and their directors jailed - people forget what companies exist for - they do not exist in and of themselves but in the context of the rest of society - duh, why have companies if they just fuck the rest of society.... but libertarian slashdotters seem to think that compaines should be able to do what ever the fuck they want while screwing the rest of us, like they are really something other than a fucking legal contract... we forget why companies were even allowed to exist in the first place.
I agree - this is just glorified curve fitting - not a demonstration of evolutonary algorithms - he is just lucky his fit (fitting his polygons to an image with a trivial cost function) didn't fall into a local minima, that is the only thing that suprised me.
Good point - we should do nothing to change our behavior because the models are all really complicated and intrinsically chaotic - no matter what they all suggest - Your point about computer simulations is a good one - lots (if not most) problems in physics cannot be solved analytically, and if they can't be solved analytically the simulations are not to be trusted - it is not like we can predict the location of space probes flying around the solar system with any true accuracy, or use the equations of fluid mechanics to design autombiles, jet turbines, predict the weather, or understand protien folding, damn, I design x-ray systems all the time and x-ray scatter can't be solved analyticaly... I should wait for an analytic solution - my bad. I can't wait to tell the mechanical engineers down the hall that they should just give up modeling fluid flow and turbulence, its unsolvable!
The point about stock traders using models is a good one too they obviously can't predict anything, it is not like they use them to make money - you should tell them to throw away their models and pocket the money they spend on modeling.
So you don't like models? - how do you propose investigating the impact of human activity on climate? Ouji boards, psychic powers, the bible? Just because our knowledge is imperfect does not mean we should ignore the models, models are tuned on prior centuries worth of atmospheric data and based on physics - Science is based on models as a math/engineer grad you should understand that - every theory in science is a model - if the models are based on sound physics and tuned with prior data they should be respected, if you wish to critique the models you should at least try to understand them, instead of saying "I don't trust models" - BTW: for chaotic systems you can always run the model over and over again and get a distribution of outcomes which can be very useful in guiding policy - it sounds like you would rather act out of ignorance than deal with an imperfect understanding of reality, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
I know this goes against the slashdot grain - but there are a lot of lines of evidence that point to the fact that intellegent (or even multicellular life) is very rare - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone - issues such as metal content of the star and orbit of the star about the galaxy are important for creating a stable environment for life to evolve - in addition there is the obvious fact that there is no alien life here or visitng the earth right now - simple calculations show that any spacefaring civilization will infest an entire galaxy quickly (on a galactic time scale) even with the very slow rate of expansion achivable today with nuclear propulsion... Furthermore computer simulatiosn of planetary formation should be pretty good - there is no "new" or unknown physics in planetary system formation - the problem in the anstronomy field was alawys how to explain how the solar sytem came to look the way it does, now that we have some observations of other solar sytems we have learned our simulations actually were not too bad and it is our solar system that is the exception... anyone who plays with simple solar system simulators will realize how hard it is to get a solar system to look like ours, large planets always fling smaller planets into crazy elliptical orbits - it is very difficult to get a stable solar sytem instead of a chaotic system.
It is very difficult to develop an entirely new competing technology from scratch - and when this does happen (which is very rare), in the one case I have seen. the company developing the new techology is bought out and the dissolved - effectively deep sixing the novel technology so the big boys can keep on selling same stuff they have always been - I have to agree with the parent about cross-lisencing agreements (I work for a very big company that does the same thing) limiting competition but don't forget the effect to the big boys buying out smaller (innovative) competetors and then dissolving the company - technology moves at a much slower pace than people are led to believe because of these predatory tactics...
I wish I had not posted on this so I could give you another mod point - 12 fucking hours on 9/11 and 160 trying to find out if Clinton aids pulled "Ws" off of computer keyboards (they didn't)- Fuck them all
Actually, didn't the price of oil fall when Bush sent an official to talk to Iran? The market is anticipating an attack on Iran by the US/Israel - the Saudis even say oil should be below 100 even with increased demand from the developing world - thank Bush for $100+ dollar oil, do you think our intervention in Middle east has increased the supply of oil on world markets? or helped keep the price of oil low? (hint: Iraq pumps LESS oil now than it did before we invaded)
Sorry for not studying enough nuclear physics - I got my PhD in particle physics, so forgive me for my ignorance - however, uranium fuel rods are not fully enriched, U238 is the most common unranium isotope in spent (or even unspent) enriched nuclear fuel - so MOST of the uranium (~95%)in any nuclear reactor IS U238 - the spent nuclear fuel rods from conventional nuclear reactors can be used in the breeder blanket of the reactor, the fuel rods can be burned down in conjunction with reprocessing to relatively short lived isotopes... right now we have swimming pools full of spent fuel rods sitting around at nuclear reactors waiting to go to Nevada - that is what people typiclly think about when they talk about nuclear waste... materials like radioactive concrete and steel are produced at a much lower rate (like once every 50 years when you decomission a reactor), I would have to look up what are the common half-lifes of materials produced in concrete and steel are but I suspect they are not as big a problem as the spent uranium fuel rods... from my admittedly anecdotal experience at BNL we had lots of concrete sheilding blocks and beam stops that never had any serious radiation issues, but I am not sure I can accuratly compare the exposure levels to that of a nuclear reactor core...
finally good luck with your molecular nanotechnology - I am sure that will solve all of the world problems (not) - nanotechnology already exists - it is called Biology - in any event it is not needed to deal with spent fuel rods...
Breeder reactors produce Plutonium, which can be used to make A-bombs - politically we (as a country) have decided not to go that way for non-proliferation reasons - hence the admistrative hurdles to building one - technically there is no issue, breeder reactors have been built and they work - I am pretty sure people will reconsider once mined uranium becomes scarce enough or we get sick of so much nuclear waste lying around... BTW plutonium can be burned in CANDU nuclear reactors so you can get rid of it that way....
Nuclear waste is a resource, it is radioactive! which means it has stored energy... it is not something to be squirreled away for eternity - it is an energy source for the future - currently it can be burned in breeder reactors in CANDU reactors - the whole concept of storing nuclear waste for ever is ill concieved, it will be used, we should treat it as such.
This is true - as a researcher a collegue proposed a project that was physically impossible to work - but management loved it - when I pointed out the issues, bending over backward to try and give them the benefit of the doubt - I was labeled as being "not a team player", needless to say one year and a million dollars later the project was shelved - did anyone tell me they should have listened to my arguments - no, my collegue still thinks I was just out to shaft him and I got dinged on my performance review.
Isn't skepticism the anthiesis of faith and therefore unamerican? I am pretty sure every pastor in america has a problem with the promotion of skeptical thought and critical thinking for their flocks...
So all the sudden, in 2001, right after the election the Republican Congress decided to hell with fiscal conservativism, lets bankrupt the country? I didn't know turnover in the congress was so high... Wasn't Hastert speaker from 1999-2007? Hmmm... what changed?
I think there are quite a few paid Republican Trolls - especially on the Washington Post (I mean aside from the editorial staff) - there was quite a drumbeat of posts that looked very similiar of people claiming to be Clinton supporters who would never vote for Obama, and then any article about Bush gets some Bushbots in high gear. Isn't this kind of disturbing? - I was told once that at Italian Opera houses people would be paid to go to the opera and applaud (loudly) at the end - on the one hand it is sad republican have to pay people to say good things about them, but it is really kind of fascist in the way they try and manufacture consent and make it appear there is general support for really unpopular positions....
To all the Libertarian slashdotters thinking of voting for McCain - I ask you one question, what the fuck is wrong with you? I thought you guys believed in civil liberties and the separation of powers - the republicans enabled the biggest fucking power grab by any president ever - Bush ignores congressional oversite and just does whatever the fuck he wants - do you guys get this? Never mind that the last democrat actually balanced the budget - the republicans enabled torture and bush expouses the unitary exectuive theory - at least the democrats will restore some balance of power...
I had to look up what the heck anarcho-capitalism is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-Capitalism
"It advocates the elimination of the state, the provision of law enforcement, courts, national defense, and all other security services by voluntarily-funded competitors in a free market rather than through compulsory taxation."
Does this mean if I need a cop I have to rent one? what if I am poor I guess I am SOL... or does it mean that the rich own the cops and you have to do what they say? - same goes for the army. Only one rich fuck would come up with such screwed up piece of garbage - equal rights? only what you can pay for... the good news everything is tax free, but your "government" is owned by the local robber baron or monopolist or militia - actually it does sound familiar... I am sorry but anyone who advocated "anarcho-capitalism" is a billionaire or an idiot
Seriously - how are any problems solved with manned space travel? - did you mean by moving the people off planet or by killing them all? because killing people to solve a population problem is much-much-much more cost effective than moving anyone to another planet - if we used a nuclear powered rocket (which incidentally works by dropping h-bombs out the tail end, and is the most efficent form of space propulsion - look up project orion on wikipedia) you could move a few hundred people (at most!)to mars at the cost of a few hundred h-bombs and trillions of dollars in R&D (you would also need a habitat on mars to house them - add your favorite mulitple of trillion) - or you could drop one h-bomb and kill millions - population problem solved! pollution too (less people is the best way to reduce pollution)... heck don't even use an H-bomb, kill people in an eco-friendly way with biological weapons - incindentally the rocket ship would cause more of an environmental problem than one h-bomb since you have to set off multiple bombs to get the ship out of the atmosphere...
Yes we only have 5 Billion years or so to go before the sun turns into a red giant... so we better get moving on manned space exploration... Seriously the only reason to evacuate the earth is if we screw it up massively (which we are on track for doing) but the energy expenditure to move everyone else where would trash the Earth anyway - it seems more realistic (and I mean that in a laws of physics sense of the word) that we just try not to trash the place - have you looked at what other planets are like - seriously - the earth is a garden of eden compared to the rest of the universe - the earth is not disposable and there is no way we are all going to migrate off it to live in a space colony, mars or alpha centauri - we might hope in the distant future that one of our decendents might start a colony in space or some distant star but that in no way is a solution to our problems here on earth.
I feel so much better that it is your opinion that Global Warming is natural - never mind the people with informed opinions who disagree with you - like people who actually study and model the climate - thinking for yourself is one thing, but having an opinion is no subsitute for evidence.
Actually Evolution is the one idea that ties all of Biology together, it neatly describes and predicts the physical, chemical and genetic similiarites and differences between all of life. Testing of drugs on animals does not make a whole lot of sense if there was not a biochemical similarity between animals and humans - would you feel better if a drug trial was conducted on mice or jellyfish? how about Chimpanzees? If ID were true jellyfish might be biochemically more similiar to us than mice - or all animals might be completely different - rendering animal trials useless. I think a doctor would be much more competent if he understood evolution if for the only reason that he would be able to interpert animal studies - nevermind that animal models are a vital piece of all medical research... Oh and understanding of mutation and spread of infectious diseases would be completely lost to the doctor as well...
A biologist who does not understand evoloution would be pretty useless as well, genetic similiarites and differences between plants and animals would be lost on him - how can you genetically engineer a new species of corn or rice without some understanding of the genetic relationship of the plant to other species? Without evolution biology is just an endless array of facts with no structure by which to organize them - every plant and animal would be a unique and complex system completely unrelated to any other - w/o evolution biology would be set back 100 years - get a clue dude...
Slashdot Mirror
Sexual selection is one of Darwins most interesting insights - it sounds like you think all of evoloution is simply about survival - it is not, it is about passing along your genes, survival is optional once that occurs - simply said that for members of a given species often the biggest competetors are not the predetors and parasites that live in their environment but members of the SAME species who are competing with eachother for not only food and resources but also for access to sex - males often devote vast amounts of energy and resouces to compete with other males for access to females - sexual selection explains what this is all about, and is one of the reasons scientist have so much respect for Darwin, since others before him tossed out ideas similar to natural selection but Darwin explained so many seeming parodoxes associate with that idea....
Soooo you don't believe in physical limits? because somehow you know human innovation will solve any problem that comes up - tell that to the easter islanders who cut down the last f-ing tree on thier isolated island percipiating a collapse of their population, or the greenland norse who went extinct due to climate change and lack of cultural flexibility - ever wonder why Iraq and the middle east is the cradle of civilization yet it is in a godforsaken desert, because when it was the cradle of civilization it wasn't a desert, it took a 1000 years of agriculture to make it a desert. So yeah more of that bullshit again - I am sure the planet can support 100 billion people because I have a feeling we will invent something to feed them all - either that or we will have plagues, starvation and war - in any event it is all good, it will sort itself out....
Mod parent up - companies exist because we the people let them exist - they have a charter to do something "beneficial" to society - like making cars, jellybeans or whatever... - that is why companies were invented so that groups of people can get together aggregate capital and do something useful for society - if corporations act as sociopathic parasites which privatize profits and shove costs onto the rest of society then they should be shut down and their directors jailed - people forget what companies exist for - they do not exist in and of themselves but in the context of the rest of society - duh, why have companies if they just fuck the rest of society.... but libertarian slashdotters seem to think that compaines should be able to do what ever the fuck they want while screwing the rest of us, like they are really something other than a fucking legal contract... we forget why companies were even allowed to exist in the first place.
I agree - this is just glorified curve fitting - not a demonstration of evolutonary algorithms - he is just lucky his fit (fitting his polygons to an image with a trivial cost function) didn't fall into a local minima, that is the only thing that suprised me.
Good point - we should do nothing to change our behavior because the models are all really complicated and intrinsically chaotic - no matter what they all suggest - Your point about computer simulations is a good one - lots (if not most) problems in physics cannot be solved analytically, and if they can't be solved analytically the simulations are not to be trusted - it is not like we can predict the location of space probes flying around the solar system with any true accuracy, or use the equations of fluid mechanics to design autombiles, jet turbines, predict the weather, or understand protien folding, damn, I design x-ray systems all the time and x-ray scatter can't be solved analyticaly... I should wait for an analytic solution - my bad. I can't wait to tell the mechanical engineers down the hall that they should just give up modeling fluid flow and turbulence, its unsolvable! The point about stock traders using models is a good one too they obviously can't predict anything, it is not like they use them to make money - you should tell them to throw away their models and pocket the money they spend on modeling.
So you don't like models? - how do you propose investigating the impact of human activity on climate? Ouji boards, psychic powers, the bible? Just because our knowledge is imperfect does not mean we should ignore the models, models are tuned on prior centuries worth of atmospheric data and based on physics - Science is based on models as a math/engineer grad you should understand that - every theory in science is a model - if the models are based on sound physics and tuned with prior data they should be respected, if you wish to critique the models you should at least try to understand them, instead of saying "I don't trust models" - BTW: for chaotic systems you can always run the model over and over again and get a distribution of outcomes which can be very useful in guiding policy - it sounds like you would rather act out of ignorance than deal with an imperfect understanding of reality, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
I know this goes against the slashdot grain - but there are a lot of lines of evidence that point to the fact that intellegent (or even multicellular life) is very rare - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone - issues such as metal content of the star and orbit of the star about the galaxy are important for creating a stable environment for life to evolve - in addition there is the obvious fact that there is no alien life here or visitng the earth right now - simple calculations show that any spacefaring civilization will infest an entire galaxy quickly (on a galactic time scale) even with the very slow rate of expansion achivable today with nuclear propulsion... Furthermore computer simulatiosn of planetary formation should be pretty good - there is no "new" or unknown physics in planetary system formation - the problem in the anstronomy field was alawys how to explain how the solar sytem came to look the way it does, now that we have some observations of other solar sytems we have learned our simulations actually were not too bad and it is our solar system that is the exception... anyone who plays with simple solar system simulators will realize how hard it is to get a solar system to look like ours, large planets always fling smaller planets into crazy elliptical orbits - it is very difficult to get a stable solar sytem instead of a chaotic system.
SELL!!!
It is very difficult to develop an entirely new competing technology from scratch - and when this does happen (which is very rare), in the one case I have seen. the company developing the new techology is bought out and the dissolved - effectively deep sixing the novel technology so the big boys can keep on selling same stuff they have always been - I have to agree with the parent about cross-lisencing agreements (I work for a very big company that does the same thing) limiting competition but don't forget the effect to the big boys buying out smaller (innovative) competetors and then dissolving the company - technology moves at a much slower pace than people are led to believe because of these predatory tactics...
I wish I had not posted on this so I could give you another mod point - 12 fucking hours on 9/11 and 160 trying to find out if Clinton aids pulled "Ws" off of computer keyboards (they didn't)- Fuck them all
Actually, didn't the price of oil fall when Bush sent an official to talk to Iran? The market is anticipating an attack on Iran by the US/Israel - the Saudis even say oil should be below 100 even with increased demand from the developing world - thank Bush for $100+ dollar oil, do you think our intervention in Middle east has increased the supply of oil on world markets? or helped keep the price of oil low? (hint: Iraq pumps LESS oil now than it did before we invaded)
Sorry for not studying enough nuclear physics - I got my PhD in particle physics, so forgive me for my ignorance - however, uranium fuel rods are not fully enriched, U238 is the most common unranium isotope in spent (or even unspent) enriched nuclear fuel - so MOST of the uranium (~95%)in any nuclear reactor IS U238 - the spent nuclear fuel rods from conventional nuclear reactors can be used in the breeder blanket of the reactor, the fuel rods can be burned down in conjunction with reprocessing to relatively short lived isotopes... right now we have swimming pools full of spent fuel rods sitting around at nuclear reactors waiting to go to Nevada - that is what people typiclly think about when they talk about nuclear waste... materials like radioactive concrete and steel are produced at a much lower rate (like once every 50 years when you decomission a reactor), I would have to look up what are the common half-lifes of materials produced in concrete and steel are but I suspect they are not as big a problem as the spent uranium fuel rods... from my admittedly anecdotal experience at BNL we had lots of concrete sheilding blocks and beam stops that never had any serious radiation issues, but I am not sure I can accuratly compare the exposure levels to that of a nuclear reactor core... finally good luck with your molecular nanotechnology - I am sure that will solve all of the world problems (not) - nanotechnology already exists - it is called Biology - in any event it is not needed to deal with spent fuel rods...
Breeder reactors produce Plutonium, which can be used to make A-bombs - politically we (as a country) have decided not to go that way for non-proliferation reasons - hence the admistrative hurdles to building one - technically there is no issue, breeder reactors have been built and they work - I am pretty sure people will reconsider once mined uranium becomes scarce enough or we get sick of so much nuclear waste lying around... BTW plutonium can be burned in CANDU nuclear reactors so you can get rid of it that way....
Nuclear waste is a resource, it is radioactive! which means it has stored energy... it is not something to be squirreled away for eternity - it is an energy source for the future - currently it can be burned in breeder reactors in CANDU reactors - the whole concept of storing nuclear waste for ever is ill concieved, it will be used, we should treat it as such.
This is true - as a researcher a collegue proposed a project that was physically impossible to work - but management loved it - when I pointed out the issues, bending over backward to try and give them the benefit of the doubt - I was labeled as being "not a team player", needless to say one year and a million dollars later the project was shelved - did anyone tell me they should have listened to my arguments - no, my collegue still thinks I was just out to shaft him and I got dinged on my performance review.
Isn't skepticism the anthiesis of faith and therefore unamerican? I am pretty sure every pastor in america has a problem with the promotion of skeptical thought and critical thinking for their flocks...
So all the sudden, in 2001, right after the election the Republican Congress decided to hell with fiscal conservativism, lets bankrupt the country? I didn't know turnover in the congress was so high... Wasn't Hastert speaker from 1999-2007? Hmmm... what changed?
Yet somehow that same Republican Controlled fiscally conservative congress let Bush blow the entire surplus and then go 9 trillion into debt...
I think there are quite a few paid Republican Trolls - especially on the Washington Post (I mean aside from the editorial staff) - there was quite a drumbeat of posts that looked very similiar of people claiming to be Clinton supporters who would never vote for Obama, and then any article about Bush gets some Bushbots in high gear. Isn't this kind of disturbing? - I was told once that at Italian Opera houses people would be paid to go to the opera and applaud (loudly) at the end - on the one hand it is sad republican have to pay people to say good things about them, but it is really kind of fascist in the way they try and manufacture consent and make it appear there is general support for really unpopular positions....
To all the Libertarian slashdotters thinking of voting for McCain - I ask you one question, what the fuck is wrong with you? I thought you guys believed in civil liberties and the separation of powers - the republicans enabled the biggest fucking power grab by any president ever - Bush ignores congressional oversite and just does whatever the fuck he wants - do you guys get this? Never mind that the last democrat actually balanced the budget - the republicans enabled torture and bush expouses the unitary exectuive theory - at least the democrats will restore some balance of power...
I had to look up what the heck anarcho-capitalism is ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-Capitalism
"It advocates the elimination of the state, the provision of law enforcement, courts, national defense, and all other security services by voluntarily-funded competitors in a free market rather than through compulsory taxation."
Does this mean if I need a cop I have to rent one? what if I am poor I guess I am SOL... or does it mean that the rich own the cops and you have to do what they say? - same goes for the army. Only one rich fuck would come up with such screwed up piece of garbage - equal rights? only what you can pay for... the good news everything is tax free, but your "government" is owned by the local robber baron or monopolist or militia - actually it does sound familiar... I am sorry but anyone who advocated "anarcho-capitalism" is a billionaire or an idiot
Seriously - how are any problems solved with manned space travel? - did you mean by moving the people off planet or by killing them all? because killing people to solve a population problem is much-much-much more cost effective than moving anyone to another planet - if we used a nuclear powered rocket (which incidentally works by dropping h-bombs out the tail end, and is the most efficent form of space propulsion - look up project orion on wikipedia) you could move a few hundred people (at most!)to mars at the cost of a few hundred h-bombs and trillions of dollars in R&D (you would also need a habitat on mars to house them - add your favorite mulitple of trillion) - or you could drop one h-bomb and kill millions - population problem solved! pollution too (less people is the best way to reduce pollution)... heck don't even use an H-bomb, kill people in an eco-friendly way with biological weapons - incindentally the rocket ship would cause more of an environmental problem than one h-bomb since you have to set off multiple bombs to get the ship out of the atmosphere...
Yes we only have 5 Billion years or so to go before the sun turns into a red giant... so we better get moving on manned space exploration... Seriously the only reason to evacuate the earth is if we screw it up massively (which we are on track for doing) but the energy expenditure to move everyone else where would trash the Earth anyway - it seems more realistic (and I mean that in a laws of physics sense of the word) that we just try not to trash the place - have you looked at what other planets are like - seriously - the earth is a garden of eden compared to the rest of the universe - the earth is not disposable and there is no way we are all going to migrate off it to live in a space colony, mars or alpha centauri - we might hope in the distant future that one of our decendents might start a colony in space or some distant star but that in no way is a solution to our problems here on earth.
I feel so much better that it is your opinion that Global Warming is natural - never mind the people with informed opinions who disagree with you - like people who actually study and model the climate - thinking for yourself is one thing, but having an opinion is no subsitute for evidence.
Actually Evolution is the one idea that ties all of Biology together, it neatly describes and predicts the physical, chemical and genetic similiarites and differences between all of life. Testing of drugs on animals does not make a whole lot of sense if there was not a biochemical similarity between animals and humans - would you feel better if a drug trial was conducted on mice or jellyfish? how about Chimpanzees? If ID were true jellyfish might be biochemically more similiar to us than mice - or all animals might be completely different - rendering animal trials useless. I think a doctor would be much more competent if he understood evolution if for the only reason that he would be able to interpert animal studies - nevermind that animal models are a vital piece of all medical research... Oh and understanding of mutation and spread of infectious diseases would be completely lost to the doctor as well... A biologist who does not understand evoloution would be pretty useless as well, genetic similiarites and differences between plants and animals would be lost on him - how can you genetically engineer a new species of corn or rice without some understanding of the genetic relationship of the plant to other species? Without evolution biology is just an endless array of facts with no structure by which to organize them - every plant and animal would be a unique and complex system completely unrelated to any other - w/o evolution biology would be set back 100 years - get a clue dude...