Is The U.S. Becoming Anti-Science?

smooth wombat writes "As a follow-up to a recently posted Slashdot article, Reuters UK has an article which poses the question: is the U.S. becoming hostile to science? From the article: 'Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which extends throughout the nation,' said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a letter posted on the school Web site on October 3. Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his state of the university address last week, spoke about the challenge to science represented by intelligent design which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed. Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. 'When ideological division replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers,' he said." What is your take?

Comments

Re:Anti-Scientists are NOT a Majority

[Xeriar]

To answer your question, evolutionary science has brought us at least the following (partial list):

1: Partial linguistic reconstruction of dead languages by examining genetic data.
2: The yearly flu vaccine. This would be utterly impossible without evolutionary theory.
3: Genetic algorithms for computing. For many problems, they are the fastest way of finding and appropriate solution.
4: Gene therapy.
5: Radiation therapy.
6: Cancer research and cures.
7: Bacterial synthesis.
8: Nanotechnology.

Just off the top of my head. Evolutionary theory (it's a theory, not a hypothesis, because it has indeed been proven), is of great import in a vast quantity of fields. Creationism and intelligent design teach no more than astrology, alchemy, and phrenology teach. They are useless, and in some cases even damaging.