Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> writes:

> On 10/22/2010 7:11 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Lots of bad things happen to bad people. If it happened only once, I
>> don't see what the grave concern is for.
>>
> Umm. No. This isn't about "bad people". This is about someone who,
> maybe, needs a medicine to live, but the local pharmacist(s) doesn't
> want to give it to them, so they have to find some way to get themselves
> hundreds of miles away, to get it from someone else. Good or bad never

And this has happened where? And if it did happen, what became of the
pharmacist?

> even enters into it. For the most part, the most common one you here on
> this is "contraception", but some court cases, not just in the US, but

This is nothing like the scenario you mentioned. Contraception is not
medicine, and sure as hell is not needed to live, and I've yet to hear a
case where the next opportunity was hundreds of miles away.

> deny people, on what ever basis they want. Hell, its hardly an unknown,
> or completely unheard of, for there to be cases of dying people being
> sent, in the US, to a hospital 10-20 miles farther away (along with the
> additional delays, at the most critical time for injuries), because the
> closest one was Catholic, and objected to some known characteristic of
> the person that got delivered to their own emergency room. Its been

Citation? And what happened to the one who rejected treating the person?

Moving emergency room patients to other hospitals is a known phenomenon,
but all the cases I was informed about had to do with financial
considerations, and not religious. 

> frakking documented to happen, and its not specifically illegal, if the
> hospital doesn't receive funds the government, or is otherwise private,

Then you should be able to show me cases (full disclaimer: I haven't
Googled it). 

Any hospital that accepts Medicare/Medicaid payments is bound by the
law, and refusing service would be illegal for them (even if the patient
is not on Medicare/Medicaid). There are very few hospitals out there
that don't fall into this category.

And for those, if this is a problem, then the problem isn't religion,
but one of not having any regulations that require emergency room
patients to be treated. 

>>> 2. - I would say, among those that deny evolution at the same time,
>>> pretty much 100%. I can't say for those that do not deny basic sciences.
>>
>> I asked for two percentages - which are you referring to?
>>
> The first one, you can see my answer below for why the second one is

OK - my experience differs from yours even in the first one. I know
plenty of engineers who don't believe in evolution, but have not
attempted to justify it using their engineering knowledge.

>>> 3. Unknown. But, again, the issue isn't necessarily, despite your
>>> ignoring that point, whether they are religious, but whether their
>>> religion happens to specifically come into conflict with the subject
>>> they are being asked about. That is why I say I find it
>>> implausible. *Something* is bound to conflict, at some point, and when
>>> it does, why wouldn't the result be sub-par?
>>
>> Did you even read the question I asked?

> Yes, I did. And I answered it. I don't have statistics on that, they are

Then why are you saying "I'm ignoring the point" when that was
specifically the question I was asking?

> bound to be problematic to collect, but it is almost impossible to hold
> irrational views and *never* run into conflicts with those views. Exact

The concern isn't whether there is conflict, but whether it impacts
their professional behavior. Outside of that sphere, everyone has
conflict in something or other. 

> statistics would certainly be nice, but the first problem you have to
> address is how you determine what their output/results would be if they
> *hadn't* had a bias, before you can address whether or not any bias

Yes, it is a problem. And therefore I'm not going to make assumptions
until it is well documented.

And, BTW, that's what control groups are far. Just find similarly
qualified engineers/scientists who are doing that work or similar work
and see if they perform better.  

> Its *way* harder to pin down the effect of a bias from, say, giving one
> example I do know of, a neurosurgeon who believes that the brain is
> merely some sort of magic black box, which interfaces with a soul, and
> that any malfunctions are not the "intent" of the soul (presumably even
> cases such as someone suffering radical emotional changes, and killing
> someone, instead of caring for them), but in his words, "A result of a
> failure of the machine to correctly interpret what the soul wanted."
> This is absurd on its face, creates serious issues, at least as far as I
> can see, with his interpretation of "anything" discovered about the
> brain, never mind his practice. Its not even coherent from the stand
> point of religion and punishment for sins, which presumably would result
> from the soul choosing, not the brain machine malfunctioning, outside of
> the soul's control. How do you define *exactly* the parameters of when a
> person who holds that position is going to do something stupid, based on
> the, "brain as mechanical thing, the soul works through, not the mind
> itself", presumption. Hell, how do you even pin down where such a person
> delineates "choice" vs. "malfunction", so you can make any sort of
> distinction that it is only effecting "some" of his practice, not the
> whole thing, even if, in this case, possibly, by shear accident of the
> beliefs nature, benignly?

Frankly, I couldn't follow your point above.

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