Who loves widespread disease? Conservative, anti-scientific minds who are always chaining themselves up with their own personal incredulity. Intelligent designers, for example—suggest that a complex organ like the eye just evolved, and they can’t believe it. They think that sounds ridiculous, impossible, maybe even a little sinful:

“If polar bears are (the) dominant (predator) in the Arctic, then there would seem to have been no need for them to evolve a white-coloured form of camouflage.” In his book Probability of God, Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore casts doubt on neo-Darwinian evolution with that statement. This argument was addressed by the evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker, who wrote that if the writer had thought to imagine a black polar bear trying to sneak up on a seal in the Arctic, he would see the evolutionary value of such fur. The ignorance in this case was assuming that no other purpose could be served.

Just like intelligent designers, people who first heard of inoculation—put a little disease in you to stop the big disease from killing you—couldn’t believe it, thought that sounded ridiculous, impossible, sinful:

in 1721, Boston doctor Zabdiel Boylston took a gamble with his young son’s life and inoculated him against smallpox. Puritan minister Cotton Mather had learned from one of his slaves that in Africa people did not fear the disease that so terrified Europeans. The Africans placed a small amount of smallpox pus into a scratch on children’s arms, thus making them immune to the disease. When an epidemic broke out in Boston in 1721, Mather wanted to try this method. He convinced Dr. Boylston, but other physicians and the public thought the idea barbaric, even sinful. However, when those Boylston inoculated survived, the tide of public opinion began to turn. Within a few years, the once-controversial practice would be routine.

Funny that, in this case, a Puritan preacher and his slave are the agents of progress, but there it is. History is weird.

Also historically weird: If it weren’t for smallpox, America would’ve taken Quebec and Montreal would probably look like Buffalo, New York.

(Thanks to Mudede for the links.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

18 replies on “Pandemics and the People Who Love Them”

  1. Who loves widespread disease? Conservative, anti-scientific minds who are always chaining themselves up with their own personal incredulity.

    Yes, like the conservative, anti-scientific people who eat animal corpses who are incredulous at imagining life without eating harvested carcasses.

  2. Great point. I’ve always felt that if you truly believe that God’s will is the only meaningful force in the universe, than you are committing a sin by trying to resist His will through godless human artifices such as penicillin and chemotherapy. The Adventists may be crazy, but at least they are logically consistent.

  4. Huh. I guess that’s who Boylston St in in Boston must have been named after.

    Well, it’s all well and good until retards like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey start advocating against inoculation and immunization, with anti-science.

  6. these are choir-preaching arguments only. most christians – including, you know, those in the history lesson – believe in “science”. to say, if you don’t believe in science then you shouldn’t take medicine is not an effective argument. that arguments falsely implies that all of science is one thing. yet, even scientists don’t all agree on everything.

  7. let me give you a counter-example. some christians i know love to say, “if it’s global warming, why is it so cold this year?” we’ve already changed the expression to “climate change”, yet i have to hear about each occurrence of a place getting cooler from them. in their circles, this argument sounds really nifty. but once it crosses over, it loses all effectiveness, in the process making them look worse.

  11. Ch Frontenac in Quebec city would be a 20 story glass monstrosity with an indoor waterpark. Worse yet though, poutine would not exist. Gasp.

  12. Polar bear’s fur (or is it hair??? Damnit!) is in fact hollow colorless tubes which, through the magic of Jesus Christ, appears white. And it also makes the bear much more buoyant when swimming from ice floe to ice floe.

  13. Polar bear’s fur (or is it hair??? Damnit!) is in fact hollow colorless tubes which, through the magic of Jesus Christ, appears white. And it also makes the bear much more buoyant when swimming from ice floe to ice floe.

  14. If the Americans took Quebec, they might’ve later gotten Ont. too. The compromise with enslavement the north made with the south in 1787 would perhaps not have happened, as the South wouldn’ve been relatively less powerful and the North would have felt more okay about not hooking up with the enslavement states. This might have led to a split and creation of two American states, north (incl. Quebec and Ont.) and south.

    Long story short, this might’ve led to fewer NASCAR dads and single payer by now for us in the North.

    Merde!

  16. Does the Bishop know what “dominant predator” means? It doesn’t mean “magical predator who snaps his fingers and prey falls down dead.” It means “the top predator.”

    Predators still have to go out and make a living. Blending in to the snowy scenery helps them do this.

  17. I have to point out that this liberal rag is pretty much 80% dedicated to swine flu now too – seems like the Stranger loves them some pandemic as well…

  18. @10 — thanks for that bit of info. i’ll check it out as it would be good to know that.

    i was, however, referring to popular usage of terms. i wasn’t discussing this (or much of anything) in the 70s. the first expression i remember hearing in widespread usage was “global warming”… which has started shifting to “climate change”.

    @8 i think you are probably right – they might say it to get my goat. and i get the feeling that many think it is a nifty if not “true” way to do it.

    that’s why it works so well with the comparison to the “don’t believe in evolution? don’t use medicine” expression.

    the global warming comment doesn’t get might goat. it just makes me think the person saying it doesn’t fully understand the issue.

    the same for the evolution/medicine argument. you may think you just burned a christian (or got their goat – or made a good/thoughtful argument)… but you haven’t. they’ve most likely heard it before and might just as likely think you are the one who doesn’t fully understand the issue.

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