Homie said:
Are you saying that the accepted explanation in the medical community for germs growing resistant to drugs is evolution?
This was answered already, but Id like to give a shot at this.
See, when penicillin was first invented, humanity did actually enjoyed a period free of germs. It was announced at the time that the tragedy that was infection was a scourge defeated by humane witty.
It was not true
but the potential of the discovery was diminished sensibly because people at the time did not apply evolutionary thinking to the usage of the new medicine.
What happened is that, being inserted in the organism, penicillin changed the environment from friendly to hostile to the germs, killing most of them. However, in a perfect example of micro-evolution, some of the germs a minority had different caractheristics which made them less vulnerable, or immune, to these new environmental conditions. So, by living when the other germs died, they faced no competition for the environmental resources, managing to multiply into a new breed, in which resistance of penicillin was the rule, not the exception.
There are several concepts that are fundamental of the ToE in this little tale Environmental pressure, competition, genetic buoyancy, survival of the fittest.
By understanding these, doctors back them could have done what doctors today do monitor the infection closely; apply different kinds of antibiotics at once in hard cases; start with old stuff and avoid using new stuff only if extremely necessary to prevent more buoyancy; increase dosage little by little, but do so steadily until the infection is not only beaten, but
exterminated.
See, this manner to apply vaccines, which is elementary of modern virology, is a very real and practical application of the understanding brought by the ToE.
It is not the only one, though.
The ToE provided the knowledge necessary to the application of eugenic programs into crops and animals, creating new breeds which are stronger and best suited to our needs. Of course, some madmen tried to apply it in humans to, failing miserably because humane value is subjective, not objective but ToE, like all applications, is amoral, and works for evil just as well as for good.
In fact, its all well known that Darwins work, exposing the natural essence of the creatures traits, have influenced Mendels creation of Genetics and, after that served as a guide on how to apply it. Going through that route, you see that indeed much of modern medicine owes a great deal to the ToE, which truly opened a new horizon as to what should be done to enhance medicine, and most importantly,
how this work should be done. Fact is that modern medicine would be a shadow of what it is if it was not for the ToE so, indeed, it does matter what these people creating new drugs believe.
These practical aspects are just to answer your request
but the greatest importance of ToE is not this not by a long shot. The most relevant aspect of it is indeed the mindset it generates, the manner it molds ulterior thinking. The ToE is acclaimed in modern science as the unifying concept of all biology, and with good cause for that. It is the one idea that found a common reason for all the knowledge that already were possessed, at the time, by what was called natural science. ToE is indeed instrumental in understanding, let alone improving, everything we know about living organisms and how to better their living conditions.
It, however, is also useful in reversed circumstances. For example, the same mentality of preserving the power of antibiotics is applied in agriculture, to preserve the efficacy of pesticides, and, generally, any form of biological plague-control can benefit from this concept.
This is just the most tangible gain; there are other practical application, particularly dealing with algorithms that were used to advanced forms of calculation, related to engineering in many areas of expertise and related with computer programming.
Sociologically speaking, the dynamic described by the ToE formed a field of thinking called Sociological Darwinism which theorizes about competition between human beings in social environment; it has also generated the Social Darwinism, this one aiming to explain the peristaltic movements of collections of people, why some groups succeed and others fail, etc
So, you see, ToE has had application and influenced in a very practical several disciplines ranging in all fields of humane knowledge, making it, quite frankly and despite the resistance it receives, far worse than it deserves one of the most relevant and successful scientific ideas of all human history.
Homie said:
I do not know what "fractals" are, I know English as in day-to-day English, but I don't know science english or math english, which was why even basic math last semester at an American college was a headache, because I had to learn a bunch of new math words.
I always knew fractals as forms which will, instead of blur, always present new geometrical complexities as you approach to it. Apparently, this explanation is but colloquial, but you can thank the almighty wikipedia for
this more technical explanation.
Regards

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