Slashdot Mirror
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?
Yes. Any other stupid questions?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It's about the message science is bringing. Some people, for religious, political or business reasons don't want to hear what science is saying. This is initially a case of trying to silence the messenger. Not just about science, either. Tell people the economy stinks, they can see the evidence all around then, and they deny it.
Seems every couple generations people in the US have to re-learn the hard lessons of their forebearers. Silence science in this country and it'll be carried on all the more in other countries. e.g. Stem Cell Research. The State of California approved a bond for stem cell research, a few billion $ if IIRC, not much of it has been spent and it will be years before any of it is, on research, because a bunch of Right To Lifers are fighting it on many fronts in state courts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I am pro-science, anti-god, some people are pro-science, pro-god, some are anti-science, pro-god, and even some (particulary insane ones) are anti-science, anti-god.
America, as a whole, can be considered none of the above. There's roughly 250,000,000 people in the US. Even if 95% of them absolutely hated science, that'd leave millions left to fight for reason.
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I think it's sad that we only tend to hear the voice of extremism in the media.
I mean, I guess it makes sense, because nobody ever holds an "I'm riding the fence on this one" rally.
Still, this is making us look bad because the ones with the crazy opinions are the ones with the loudest voices sometimes.
With backwards, religious zealots running the country, like DUMBya and his minions, you get the mess we are in now.
..
All this "Intelligent design" crap is for the physical adults that chose to remain mental children
Just look at the banning of the nature videos at the Imax theaters recently because the films discuss evolution..
The zealots in washington would have the scientists put to death if they could get away with it for denying their precious book of fairy tales.
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
...science and engineering work is getting outsourced to Asia with little complaint, why should the US spend capital on teaching real science here?
America is more than anti-science. American culture in the broadest terms has become very anti-intellectual, which is really a super-set of being anti-science.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
It would be nice if the anti-science stuff didn't always focus on the creationists and would occasionally also focus on the animal rights nuts who advocate killing researchers and blowing up labs. Just 'cause they don't tote Bibles (though some do), doesn't mean they're not every bit as big a problem as the creationists (besides, creationists rarely blow up biosciences labs like animal rights extremists do).
Most of the heavily religious people in the US are Christians with fairly fundamentalist, or at least evangelical, views. These people are not particularly interested in the physical world, because their religion teaches them that whatever they do here is merely preparation for an afterlife that will be much much better. If your primary concern is going to heaven when you die, why would you care about physics?
There's also the simple matter that learning about critical thinking in general and science in particular makes it hard to swallow religious dogma. Science isn't incompatible with spirituality, but it's totally in opposition to biblical literalism and other fundamentalist practices. It's very much in the interests of these kinds of religious groups to denigrate science, as doing so makes it easier to spread their beliefs. (And, for people whose faith isn't enough, easier to justify their beliefs.)
I think the public is smart enough to realize that what's being propped up and paraded around as "science" is in fact just a bunch of hogwash, much of which is politically motivated (i.e. global warming, stem cell research, etc.). As a result, there's a general lack of trust of the scientific community to begin with. Plus, our "convenience store" mentally of wanting everything now now now means we have little patience to wait 20-30 years for results.
First they came for the mathematicians, and I did not speak out--
because I did not like math;
Then they came for the theoretical economists, and I did not speak out--
because I did not understand economics;
Then they came for the engineers, and I did not speak out--
because I did not believe engineering was a true science;
Then they came for the scientists, and I did not speak out--
because I did not like my science teacher;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
My take is that I should learn to speak chinese.
What's unfortunate in the US is the pitiful state of scientific literacy makes is easy to subvert voters with propaganda, everything from religious fundamentalism to superstitious pseudoscience like astrology and psychic phenomena. Go ask an average guy on the street to explain basic concepts of chemistry, physics, medicine or astronomy, and you'll see what I mean. All those TVs, microwaves and cell phones may as well run on magic for all they care.
Yes and I'm scared that we're approaching a Christian induced period of "believe in what makes you feel good" instead of "believe in what is correct, true and accurate."
I'd like to become a born again SCIENTIST but I never left the fold.
If any are tough enough to do it and already have a Biology degree, pick up and read Origin of the Species. Many things were not known to Darwin and his peers at the time like genetics and plate tectonics so many of his assumptions are not entirely accurate, but they are a path on the road to the understanding that we have today. Read it for reference, not to learn new concepts since many ideas posted are superseded by what we now know. And read it so that you actually can talk on an informed manner to those who claim to know that evolution is a myth.
Religion is a panacea for those of small minds who are to lazy to learn how the world really works and feel comfortable with small and easy answers - even if they are false.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Mostly, I think, the scientists just keep quiet and do their job of saving lives and advancing technology and let the naysayers bicker on the internet...
Amen.
-everphilski-
One of the actions of the US that is declared "anti-science" is the refusal to ratify Kyoto. I find that very strange since one of the lead scientists doesn't agree with kyoto. Lindzen's senate testimony is an extremely disturbing look into how politics shape science. Couple that with the bad data found in the Mann report and it's enough to make anyone doubt good science is being done.
At the end of the day, the US isn't anti-science it's a system that has been built around science in much of the developed world that doesn't promote enough skeptisism or honesty. Peer review in some circles just means you belong to the right clique, with the right point of view. Put that together with funding that often comes from political circles filled with "true believers" and you have a recipie for disaster.
Lindzen's quote "There is a certain charm when politicians are so certain of the science when the scientists are not" seems rather apt.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Of course science is suffering in the U.S. In 1991, 9% of the U.S. population believed in Naturalistic Evolution. That went up to a whopping 10% in 1997 with 44% believing in creationism and 39% believing in Theistic evolution (evolution, but God-guided). Now, if you ask scientists (which pretty much includes anyone with a higher degree in science, but presumably people of intelligence and education), the percentage that believe in Naturalistic Evolution goes up to 55%, with only 5% believing in creationism and 40% in Theistic evolution. So 95% of scientists believe in Evolution in one form or another. Why? Because it's a friggin' fact!
The 44% of the US population that don't believe in evolution of any form believe there's a God who's idea of a good time is toss dinosaur bones around the world making them look millions of years older than our 4000 or 5000 year old Earth. As if his time couldn't be better spent smiting creationists or something.
But really, if you have such a large population that simply can't believe facts, then how on Earth can science advance in that kind of environment.
weapons development is science
Intelligent design? As far as I know, nobody has actually refuted "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe. The man is not an idiot, he knows his molecular biology, and he raises some valid points. Screaming, "He's just a creationist!" doesn't make the points go away. Talking about how the consensus of scientists agree with you doesn't make the points go away. (The consensus is only right until it's wrong - but it takes quite a while for the consensus to change after it's been shown to be wrong.)
Stem cell research? There are people who believe that a fertilized egg is a human being. That's not a scientific question. But until it's answered, there's a moral problem, at least for those people, and asking them to accept that there will be scientific advances just makes them think of Dr. Mengele. Now, you can argue that it's a dogma to those people, and you'd be right. But to them, it's not a scientific issue. And until you can persuade them that stem cell research isn't a moral issue, they're going to fight you. And some of them (certainly not all) can give you some intelligent reasons why they think what they do. If you can't respond with some intelligent reasons of your own, all you have is a dogma.
Here, your own Bible says that God didn't directly create animals, but that he gave his blessing for the earth to produce life:
..."
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatues, according to their kinds
Gen 1:24
So, even if I chose to argue with the creationist point of view solely from the Bible, you can't say that God just popped a creature into existence. He let the land produce the living creatures -- can this leave room for interpretation that God said, "let life evolve?"
It would make for an interesting study whether evolution is completely random or not. Perhaps the whole tree of species is following some sort of pattern, like a literal tree growing from a single seed -- some randomness is involved, but overall, there is a meaning and order to how the growing tree develops.
This kind of science would overlap more with Gaia theory than theology.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Science, and rationality in general seem to be given short-shrift here and now. ... And perhaps for good reason!
From an authoritarian viewpoint, properly indoctrinated, docile "believers" are generally more convienient than thinkers! "Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat." -- Christopher Morley
For that matter, few corporations hav gotten rich by encouraging rational consideration of a product's merits and utility; impulse purchasing and "I want it 'cause I want it and I want it NOW!" is much more profitable.
If anyone actually thinks there can be logical discussion about this topic on Slashdot, they should consult a doctor....or maybe just get out more.
Religion remains strong in America on both sides of the issue. The religious beliefs most Americans hold are not incompatible with science, but all too often educators and scientists fail to realize this. Instead, they make a religion of science itself and proclaim that all views that do not idolize science are wrong. This in turn has produced a backlash amoung many Americans who subcribe to a religion other than science. This is not to say that all scientists have science as their religion. Properly viewed, science is not a religion - it is a tool and like any tool it has limits.
What has caused most of the backlash is the issue of what is taught in school. It would help a lot educators could simply acknowledge that:
1. Science cannot tell us what happened, only what is a plausible explanation for what happened, and there are always alternative explanations.
2. You don't need to believe the theory of education to pass the class, you only need to understand it and be able to explain it because whether it turns out to be correct or not, it is widely accepted enough that you need to know about it to be educated.
There is a happy middle, but of course it is the most vocal on both sides of the issue who cannot compromise and who get most of the press.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
And even worse than that, a very small minority of American believers are actually anti-science. Try to google for recent opinion polls, and you'll see that most Americans are actually pro-science and fairly liberal in outlook.
These religious, anti-science people are bullies, and they must be opposed. And the opposition should start in the mainstream media, which unfortunately have been neutered by political correctness, especially giving all sides of a debate equal air time, and by the incredible propaganda of the right and the far right parties.
Even moderate Republicans are now becoming afraid of the political power of the know-nothings (because being anti-science is bad for the bottom line, but that's another story).
If you take a look at history, you'll see that, historically, periods of great scientific progress have been associated with weakened -- or at the very least more tolerant -- religions. The best example of this is the islamic golden age, which saw an incredible civilization that was tolerant of science and of other religions (including christian jewish scientists) and saw marvelous art bloom. Of course, being able to control the trade routes between Asia and Europe also helped a lot. At the same time, Europe was tightly controlled by the Catholic Church and in the darkness of the Middle Ages.
As soon as the different islamic countries were overrun by the Turkish Caliphate -- which practiced a much more puritanical and intolerant brand of Islam -- and by the Spanish 'reconquista', the islamic dark ages began.
At about the same time, Europe started its Renaissance, by re-discovering the classical Roman and Greek philosophers (whose books were copied by the Moslem scientists) as well as importing many of the arabic innovations in science (the number 'zero' and the distillation of alcohol, among other things) and asserting the powers of the state vs the power of the Church.
I am afraid the USA are headed down the same path: the puritanical streak that has always been present in American society is making a strong come-back (like it does every 30 to 50 years: see McCarthy, Joseph and the term 'witch hunt'). If it is not fought vigorously, the USA will go down the path of the great islamic statelets of the past and will slowly fade in importance. Progress, after all, has usually been followed by regression many times in history.
The question is, will it take the rest of the world with it, or will americans find the strength and courage to fight obscurantism?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Unfortunately for promoters of science, philosophy is unavoidable. The mathematical method of studying the world itself embodies a philosophy, and a remarkably incomplete philosophy at that. Numbers can only tell us what, they can never tell us why. Numbers describe but they do not ultimately explain. Science is about nothing but numbers -- measurement is the foundation of everything it does. Because it focuses so doggedly on numbers, it has begun to insist that there is nothing beyond numbers -- there is no purpose, no intentionality, nothing beyond measurement and description. This is the theory of evolution in a nutshell. ~ Steve Kellmeyer
You see, we need science. Science is the tool that we use to understand the what questions of this world. Only an engineer will be able to tell me if this building was built well or not and if I could add another story to it without any problems. Only a Computer Science Graduate can really code at a high enough level to write most of the graphic algorithms used to draw the video games I play.
But when we try to use science to tell us about history we miss the point. Science can tell us what happened to some degree of accuracy but it cannot tell us how or why. Philosophy best explains these things. Most of what so-called scientists come up with for an explanation of the orgin of life on earth doesn't make sense and is not reproducable. Moreover it is not probable due to irreducable complexity and the probability of everything being present for the spontaneous start of life. Life has never spontanously started. That is the point of this whole Intelligent Design argument.
The problem is that people polarize over the issue. Some say that science is useless. Other say that only science is valuable. I say that both science and philosophy are valuable. We need both and both help us understand our world.
Fortunately for science, though unfortunately for America, attacking science produces negative dynamic stabiity. You can't disrupt one part of science without disrupting *ALL* parts of science. The inevitable result is that, in the long term, the societies with the best science will wind up with the biggest and best bombs, too. (Unfortunately, in the short term, you might wind up dead due to the bad science...)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I think there should be a definate emphasis here that the US isn't in a dabate now over science in general, it's a debate about teaching controversial science in the classroom. Teachers in the US couldn't care less about teaching physics, chemistry, physiology, etc. The fight is over issues in science that are controversial, and whether or not they should be taught along side equally (if not more) controversial religious ideas.
If some "designer" spent time "designing" the "designed" parts of us
If the designer didn't need a designer, then why do we?Again, he doesn't have any testable points. It's pure religion.
Religion cannot be tested. Religion is not science.
"Intelligent Design" is religion. "Intelligent Design" cannot be tested. "Intelligent Design" is not science.
Those who believe that it is just demonstrate how poor our science education has become.
That's the whole point.
The people pushing "Intelligent Design" are claiming that it is "science" and should be offered as an alternative TAUGHT IN SCIENCE CLASSES to "Darwinism".
If it were just a religion, no one would care. No one is trying to get transubstantiation taught in physics class as an alternative to "Newtonionism".
Actually the spoof is not flawed. It is true that the purest form of ID states only that there was a designer, not specifically whom that designer was. However, the way ID is being discussed in the USA, it almost always points to "god/jesus/christian views/etc" as the designer. This is where the spagetti monster spoof comes in. If the proponents of ID want to keep pushing this BU**SH*T "theory" then they have to - by the very nature of their own "theory" - recognize that there is a slim chance that there exists a spagetti monster and that he created us. I think it's fricken hilarious, but to each his own.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the only major science/politics debates concern the following:
1) Creationism taught alongside evolution in biology or philosphy in a few public schools.
2) The federal government doesn't actively fund embryonic stem cell research beyond very limited lines.
Is there any other ways in which science is degrading in this country besides the above two examples? It just seems to me that all these Slashdot stories are just making mountains out of molehills. I simply cannot see where these large dents in science are coming from. I know people are paranoid that Southern conservatives will take over the country and ban all science classes, but the reality is, we're not seeing it. Sure there are some anti-science blips, but overall, the above two aren't really affecting the numbers of students seeking science careers or America's abiltiy to lead the world in science.
So again, how is science being degraded in this country? Is it funding? Various science budgets go down, while others go up (for example, NASA has been given sizeable funding increases for the past few years now.) If it's not funding, then it is just a general trend of Americans to seek different jobs that don't require science? Or is it that we need better salaries to attract better science teachers? Do core requirements for science need to be raised? Help me out here, is American really becoming more anti-science, or is this just some passing media fad, similar to the fads of the summer of shark attacks and the flesh eating bacteria craze?
There are plenty of European/Western scientists, that most would consider some of the greatest scientists in the world, believed in a Christian view of God. The two are not mutually exclusive. It seems to me that people that believe as you do are as ignorant as you believe Christians are. That is pretty sad.
Here is an article about a
chemical engineer/scientist that happened to be a Christian. Do you think he would have been more accomplished if he took on an atheistic view of the world? If so, why?
This is nothing but a stupid pissing contest between one group with strong religious beliefs, namely athiests, and another group with equally strong yet contradictory religous beliefs, namely christians. Being a christian does not make someone "anti-science" any more than being an athiest makes someone "pro-science." Both sides are playing word games. The christians say "intelligent design" when they're really arguing for the existence of God, and the athiests say "evolution" when they really mean athiesm. The reason why neither side is being honest when presenting their position is because they know that no one else gives a damn. The entire argument is pointless to anyone with half a brain since anyone with half a brain knows that the question of whether God exists or not quite simply cannot be answered conclusively at this point and may never be answered.
So this is a war of bullshit. Both sides are desperate to convince everyone else that their own bullshit isn't bullshit, and that the bullshit of the other side is even bigger bullshit than it already is. Its just really sad that anyone takes either side seriously. This is like two crazy people arguing about the conversations each has with the voices in their head. There is no right side to take in that kind of a debate. The proper response is to tell both nutjobs to get the hell away from you and leave you alone. Sooner or later that is what the American public will do as well.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The U.S. is not becoming anti-science. It only appears that way because our administration (sorry if this seems like flamebait.. it is, but its clearly the truth) prioritizes their political success, fiscal policy, and religeon over the recommendations of science.
I hate Bush as much as the next scientist, but the anti-science draft is not blowing from the White House. Did you RTFA? If so, you must have missed the following:
Note the use of "for many years" and polling of non-administration Americans. This is a very widespread problem and it's a rare case where it's not 100% Bush's fault. We have a growing problem and it's dangerous to assume that all will go well once Bush is out of office. The scientific community needs to combat this.
I confess that I don't have the solution. Would a new documentary TV series in the vein of Carl Sagan's Cosmos do the trick? I don't know. Would better and more conservative reporting of scientific achievements in the media (and less hyping every radical article appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine as some sort of scientific consensus) help? Beats me. Would having articulate and engrossing scientists discussing their work publically foster an appreciation for scientists and they work they do? Stop asking me these tough questions, okay? :)
I don't know what the answer is. This board will be filled with various strategies and ideas. But we need to start thinking of how to correct this dangerous trend. Yeah, Bush's administration certainly isn't helping, but saying that "the U.S. is not becoming anti-science. It only appears that way because our administration..." is wishful thinking.
GMD
watch this
The USA can only exist by the strength of it's economy.
It's economy can only exist if it's industry can continue to be profitable.
But every industry the USA develops is eventually understood well enough by other societies with lower wage costs - so to preserve it's high cost of living, outsourcing is inevitable.
The only way to survive waves of outsourcing is to develop new industries that are not yet accessible to low-wage countries. This is a never ending cycle - invent, exploit, outsource, abandon.
New Industries are driven by new technology.
New Technology is driven by new science.
And new science is driven by high standards of education coupled to the kinds of blue-sky research that pretty much only comes from government and university programmes.
Pull away the rug at the bottom - and the whole edifice comes tumbling down within maybe one or two human generations.
www.sjbaker.org
Do you think that this is somehow not the norm for every society throughout history?
I find it humorous that ID has gotten so much attention lately. I imagine its advocates appreciate the publicity. However, I think it's a fairly small part of any problems the US is having staying at the forefront of scientific study. Even as a biologist, believing strict evolution or ID isn't going to greatly affect your current research, and in any other field, the impact will be nil.
A greater problem is the shortsighted policies toward research in the US. In the past, the National Science Foundation has focused on foundational research while DARPA, NASA, and various other agencies have funded practical, shorter term applications. For some reason after 9/11, it was decided that NSF grants should only go to projects that had a short timeframe for "useful" results. Suddenly, the engine that drives all the discoveries that aren't just applications of previous work has dried up.
Another huge problem started 25 years ago. Since the early 80s when educational institutions were given full rights to market their discoveries, we've seen huge profits to Universities, and an equally perverse incentive to keep research secret. It also gave a big incentive for researchers to study quick, economically valuable problems, regardless of long-term benefits. Who cares if you could find a cure for malaria? Only the third world countries would need it, and they don't have enough money to make the researcher and her university rich.
It's easy to scapegoat religious fundamentalists for the problem, but it goes far deeper. The problem of a lack of foundational research will affect the US for a generation, if not corrected.
Are you suggesting that religious faith isn't superstition? Seriously, believing in things that don't follow natural law and lack evidence seems to be the very definition of superstition.
Well, the United States is not and has never been one thing or the other. It's a very heterogeneous country, with many strong and often conflicting trends.
Among these, yes, there's a long and robust history of anti-intellectual populist amateurism, a feeling that any man's opinion is just as good as a trained expert (maybe better), and that any one of us, just by sitting down and thinking hard about the matter, can give an authoritative opinion on any subject whatsoever.
Um, does this remind anyone of any community in particular? Say, an on-line discussion group? No? Well, let's move on...
As a direct consequence of this robust amateurism, Americans have always tended to distrust the voice of authority when it conflicts with their own "instincts" and "common sense." People who think the authority of religion is why folks reject evolution or global warming, et cetera, are utterly misunderstanding Americans. These things are rejected not because Joe Sixpack trusts authority A (the pastor) over authority B (the professor), but because he trusts his own instincts more than either.
Now, it turns out neither evolution nor global warming are plain as the nose on your face obvious. (After all, even clever scientists took centuries to clue in to them.) It takes a fair amount of education and sifting of subtle data to really understand the arguments for and against, and to accept that these theories are much better explanations for the facts than anything else.
Not surprisingly, for someone who lacks both data and education, it's going to seem hard to believe that (for example) a change of carbon dioxide content from 0.033% of the atmosphere to 0.034%, which raises the average temperature of the Earth by 2.0 degrees, or maybe only 1.5, is going to result in an onslaught of massive hurricanes, massive species extinction, desertification of big swathes of the Midwest, the cessation of ocean currents that will turn England into Greenland, buried in ice 8000 feet thick, and other miscellaneous global catastrophes. Joe Average, confronted with such a bald statement, can perhaps be forgiven for initially responding: what the hell are you smoking?
I wouldn't believe it myself, except I have studied the data and I do understand the physics.
Of course, experts are unanimous that these theories are correct. And if Americans were more in the habit of trusting experts, they would just take their word for it. "Oooookay, global warming of 1 degree causing massive climate change seems plain nuts to me, but Professor Foo here says it's so, and he's a smart guy with all the data, so I guess it must be so."
But many of us don't think like that. Hell, none of us thinks like that. How many here are willing to make a similar statement about (say) the President's judgment with respect to WMDs and the war in Iraq? "Well, it seems nuts to me, but he says it's so and he has all the data..." Ho ho. Plain fact is, we all think we're just as smart as the "smart guys" and are entitled to question their conclusions if they don't make obvious sense to us.
So, big chunks of the population remain skeptical of anything nonobvious in science. Fact of American life, mostly.
If I had to put my finger on any reason why this fact might be a smidge more prevalent than it ever was, I'd put it square on the pernicious spread of relativism over the last 40 years. We are trained for years, in school and sometime in the workplace (sensitivity training, anybody? TQM?) in the basic principles that (1) all viewpoints are equally valid, (2) truth is not an objective thing, but a subjective opinion that legitimately varies with your viewpoint, (3) explanations of events that reduce social friction and validate everyone's worth are to be preferred, even if you must doubt the evidence of your own eyes to accept them, and (4) there are often "higher truths" than the plain ordinary truth. That is, statements can
I see a lot of comments here blaiming Washington DC, Bush, etc. And that has a lot to do with it. But let's not forget the rest of the people who live here, too. This is a country where every science related expence is examined with a microscope and disected, but we think nothing of paying athletes millions of dollars. And don't even get me started on how much we spend on those with absolutely no talent, like Paris Hilton. Washington will not change until the people want change...and quite frankly, I don't see that happening any time soon.
And local issues are just as bad. In my own area (Bartholomew County, Indiana, USA), if the schools need money for something like computers or science equipment, no one can help. Same goes when we run short of money for teachers. But when one of the local highschools wants to raise $400,000 US to replace the grass in their football field with astroturf, people run over each other trying to get to their checkbooks so they can donate.
Washington will not change until the people want change...and quite frankly, I don't see that happening any time soon.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I'm pretty sure that this scientist, as well as most all others, take offense at your claim that science is "The easy way out."
It's not advocated by atheists, it's advocated by scientists.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that "The easy way out" would be to believe a story in a book while ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
It has everything to do with the fact that our other friends who became doctors, lawyers, MBAs, etc are making more money, at younger ages, than we will.
Yes! I'm also a young scientist (physics grad student). You're right, although it's not just the money. It's the sacrifices you have to make in terms of family and having a life. For instance, my supervisor nearly forgot her own (young) son's birthday. She also had to carefully plan her pregnancy to coincide with tenure decisions, and had to wait a long time to have kids (which increases the risk of lots of problems).
Then there is the lack of jobs (if there aren't enough scientists, why aren't there jobs for all the current scientists?). If I wanted to end up as a medium-paid programmer, I wouldn't get a physics PhD to do it. There are much easier ways.
Then there's the slave labor that's expected of many grad students (I have a friend who was working 70+ hours a week who was told he needed to work even more).
One of my professors told me that you should only go into physics* if you love it and can't bear the thought of not doing it. He's right, except that I would add that you shouldn't do it unless you love it more than anything else. I have a feeling I won't make a really good physicist because I refuse to put my career ahead of family. One might say that this is true of many professions, except that you can make a very comfortable living in almost any city as a mediocre doctor or lawyer, whereas you have very few options as a mediocre scientist. You'll be lucky to get a job as an untenured instructor making 40k in Cornfield State University, Generic Midwestern State, and you'll be stuck teaching unmotivated students while having zero time for research, which is probably the reason you got into physics in the first place.
* this probably applies to most other sciences in addition to physics.
This is why we have so few Americans going into science.
That's ok then, as long as it is going to happen everywhere.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I myself believe in God, but I don't follow any organised religion. For me God is a feeling of peace inside one. But that's just me. I know that that statement will make some of the more religious crowd shout "sacrilege" and "you'll burn in hell" bla bla bla, and the other side will laugh because I believe in a "feeling". But who are Christians anyway to tell me how to feel? And how on earth do they even know what hell is and why I personally will burn there because I don't believe the same thing as they do. And what is the difference between a Christian wanting me to believe as he does (why, fuckhead? do you feel lonely or what?) and some Islamic nutcase frothing at the mouth about Allah and Infidels and heathens etc?
Who is right? The Christians, the Jews, the Moslems, the Buddhists, the Hindus etc? Who? Every religion claims to know "The Truth". Explain that to me enlightened Christians who claim to know everything but got it from an old book that has as much of interest in it as Hemmingway's The Old Man and The See.
I don't know if there IS a God. I certainly don't believe a church or any religion that routinely slaughtered people in the name of a God that has strange problems about sex or eating funny foods, especially on Fridays.
I think that anyone who actively tries to convince others that his religion is the only right one is a fucking moron who's afraid of people who think for themselves.
I personally don't hold much stake in atheism either, since my feelings tell me there is more to life than just a collection of chemicals, but I may be wrong.
I think it would be wonderful if people would think for themselves and come to their own conclusions, but that is terribly out of fashion today.
Small?
Stats: 80% plus of americans (including our current elected leader) hold one (or more) superstitions as the basis for the formation (and often more) of the world and universe. 50% (more, actually, because there are many at the center of the curve) of Americans have an IQ of 100 or under. They wouldn't know science from sophist nonsense if you gave them a roadmap, a GPS, and a seeing-eye dog. They don't know what theory is, what it means, or what it implies. This is not their fault, at least in my view; it is the fault of the educational and political system, mainly. In a system that does not protect its citizens, why would we not expect them to turn their eyes to Zeus or the constellations?
Religionists (and some cosmologists, sad to say) are constantly self-reinforcing the proposition(s) that things happen(ed) by what amounts to magic, and that science is merely the bastard stepchild of some supernatural entity's imagination, a descriptive convenience, no more.
When fervent assertions that entirely lack evidence in the form of objective fact form an important, or the important, part of your thinking, how are you going to be able to discern the difference between convincing reality and this conviction without any reality at all?
Yes, there might be one person doing the main attacking; but mark my words, there are hundreds of mute, average or below average folks standing quietly in the wings behind that person, urging them on, funding them, and so forth.
As science knowledge expands, the cracks between the known parts get thinner and thinner. These are the dark places where religion and superstition live. But people cherish those thoughts; we have to expect that as those superstitious ideas are squeezed into the light (which generally speaking, kills them) the holders of those ideas are going to react.
This is where "intelligent design" came from. it is purest sophist nonsense with no objective fact backing up the assertions is makes, trying to hide the idea of a god under a cloak that they cry as loudly as possible "is science" when in fact it is not. Nothing testable is put forth. It's just more hand-waving. I expect the light will kill it shortly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The U.S. survived a pretty terrible depression (indeed, people even call it the Great Depression) without resorting to fascism as Germany and Italy did. What exactly makes you think the economic situation today is so unbearably terrible? Not to mention that the root of much of the backlash against the rationalism of the Enlightenment was a result of the horrors of World War I. I think you're just being sensationalist. The pendulum swings back and forth, but not always the same distance.
English is easier said than done.
Frankly, I could care less if kids in Asscrack, KS have to deal with a sticker on their textbooks warning them of potentially contentious science within. The smart ones will see through the nonsense (possibly with the help of smart family members) and the stupid ones will stay stupid. No great loss either way. Complex societies benefit from stupid kids growing up to be stupid adults - someone's gotta do the cleaning, the gas pumping, the infantry duty, and it certainly shouldn't be smart people. Education isn't the problem.
The REAL danger is that, by changing the public perception of the value of real science, it makes it that much easier for fake science to take its place. We're seeing this happen on a regular basis, as the heads of important "scientific" advisory bodies are actually just pulled directly from industry, PhDs in unrelated fields wielded mightily to reinforce non-existant credentials.
Want less regulation on pollution? Appoint EPA "scientists" who are actually just businessmen.
Want limits on reproductive freedom? Get testimonials from "scientists" who are actually just clergymen.
I'm American and those religious nuts scare me! If you ask me, the only real threat to our rights and freedoms is the religious right. Sure the terrorists can kill a few of us, but the religious right can take everything we have away.
They complain about countries which have Islamic law, but do you really think "Christian law" will be any better? These people are a threat to us sane and secular Americans.
I have nothing against religion, until of course they try to run my life and the lives of all other Americans.
I believe in evolution, (the full-blown kind, not the ID kind) yey I am going to have to disagree with you here. I have yet to hear of a single testable facet of evolution. The example you give, that chimps and humans share a large portion of their DNA is consistent with evolution. But that is not the same thing as a repeatable test not is it predictive. No one has ever conducted an "evolution experiment" whereby the input was some lower life form and the output was a higher life form. We can observer similiar phenomena such as selectively breeding animals to enhance certain traits and we can and have observed minor variations in species as they react to changes in their environment. These are both evidence of evolution, but neither is a prediction or an experiment. I could always propose some exotic other mechanism (such as perhaps monkeys evolved from humans) which may be less likely to be consistent with other pieces of evidence, but is similarly not "disprovable" by any test until someone actually observes a monkey evolve into an human.
My argument also holds incidently for general relativity, newtonian gravity, or the Ptolemeic model of the solar system. All were at one time or another believed to be consistent with all the evidence, but we still don't know even if GR is the actual mechanism of gravity...it just seems to be the most accurate (hence the term theory of relativity.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
> Part of their hypocrisy is that they do not attack all science, but only certain parts that they disagree with.
hmmm...
use the part of the bible that says homosexuality is bad, ignore the part that says wearing two different types of cloth is bad
use the part of the bible that says witchcraft is bad, ignore the part that says not to eat shellfish
etc, etc, etc
Dogma is what religions produce, the static belief that X must be true because the
powers that be tell you it is true.
People are not starting to question it, the purpose of science has been to question
it all along. And so far, it has stood up to scientific analysis, which is why
it is considered valid enough to be true.
"evolution as the reson we are here is not proven"
Evolution has nothing to do with questioning the reason we are here,
it is asking the much simpler question: "How did we get here". It attempts
to answer that question by looking are where we (animals) came from, and where
they are now.
I used to be very pro-science, but not so much anymore. I still like and support science, however what I no longer do, is I no longer let science define my worldview for me.
The problem for me was that science was teaching me that I was just a bag of meat, and not really a person. Since I am just a bio-robot, there is nothing in me that's any better than, say a chicken, or a clod of earth. If I have an issue, instead of thinking my problem through, I could theoretically swallow just the right kind of pill and my issue would go away, since pretty much any negative life perceptions these days are considered brain imbalance. Depressed? Brain imbalance. Unhappy? Brain imbalance. Solution -- "happy pill".
NO! I said, no, that's not what I am, and I refuse to seek solely physical means to solve every problem in my life. I am not a bio-robot. I am not a meat machine.
I am not telling you the whole story here. It's not that I just didn't like how science made me feel and rejected it based on some sentimental reason. Not at all. My feelings caused me to examine the issues seriously and I came to realize that the hinging point is the issue of identity and the nature of cognition. Essentially science and maths take identity as an axiom, but it's not an axiom. If examined, one can see how and why it doesn't make any sense. But this can be difficult to explain because most people are not used to questioning axiomatic beliefs, and so react negatively and aggressively to such ideas (thus no useful discussion can take place).
Briefly put, science is dehumanising. If scientists could somehow address that, I feel that science would experience a revival. However, I am affraid that it's not going to happen, because scientists pretty much refuse to challenge the "everything is matter and energy and mind is just an illusion" view of materialism.
(yes I am accusing the scientific community of being aggressive and hateful toward any non-materialists, with the possible exception of quantum mechanics people who are a bit more open minded usually, since they are not as stuck on the classic ideas of identity, matter and energy)
I don't have any hard fact to back this up (not that it's required on slashdot), but I'm pretty sure funding for physics research was pretty non-existant before WW-I and almost all money went into agriculture research. After the war, military arms races in the period between WW-I and WW-II really drove the interest in public spending for research in military areas (such as radar, munitions, ...) culminating in the ultimate physics experiment, the A-bomb.
In the aftermath of WW-II, public policy makers in all countries, worried about yet another war and seeing the real-world impact of esoteric physics experiments rushed to advance funding in for all sorts of physics research.
Funding of physics was never about finding a breakthrough that would impact people's lives, it is mostly about figuring things out before your enemies figured things out and gained an advantage. With the end of the cold war, the pressure is off to beat our enemies with esoteric physics so in a way we should be somewhat thankful that nobody is really pushing pushing esoteric physics anymore from a policy level. This is sadly, for you, the byproduct of the "peace-dividend".
The peace dividend factor is, however, probably only 1/2 the story.
Personally, one of the reasons I lost the desire to support the "big-sciences" is that recently, academia has decided that they aren't about "dicovery" anymore, but it all seems to be about how to "monetize" their research.
Now I'm not the type of person to deny a person the bucks that they earn, but lending money to people to buy lottery tickets and then charging me a fee for the privledge isn't my thing either.
If "big-science" wants to take public money and feed the research to the public, that's great. If a few of the researchers decided they want to leave academia to try to capitalize on their research by joining companies, that's great too. But more often these days, academic institutions have decided to "licence" their research back to companies which means they want to pick the winners and the losers. Of course nobody wants to be the loser, right, so the companies woo the people that are making the decisions and that costs money. Once the winner pays for the "license", they want to recoup their investment (who wouldn't) and indirectly we (the public) end up paying again.
That to me just sucks!
I'll gladly pay a little (in the form of taxes) and take the risk nothing comes of certain research, but when the research pays off, I really resent paying again in the form of monopoly taxes to the "winner" chosen by the academic institution.
Everytime I hear people talk about academics lamenting the fact that they have to go to get private money (e.g., corporate financing) for their projects instead of getting public money, I think to myself that there is a good case to be made that academia broke the previous contract and now are just crying over spilled milk. Academia chose their path, they have to live with the consequences.
If we were in the music business, we would call this "selling-out-to-the-man"...
You might argue that physics isn't the same as genetics or computer-science, but unfortunatly, from the generally uninformed public point of view, there's not much of a difference and the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. Just look at how research money is spent these days: "overhead" is one of the bigger ticket items in most grants. Nobody seems to want to isolate the spending on a project, but everyone wants overhead to go into a generic university "slush-fund" which gets intermingled with all that private money too. It's too hard to draw the line in most univeristy budgets on what is public and what is private (it's all just their money to spend however they want). If people thought Enron was bad, I'm not sure they'd be too pleased at the typical university accounting procedures...
If research wants to be monetized, then the money should pay for the research, right? Sadly there's not much money in physics research at the moment...
you seem kind of confused. the controversy comes from the fact that science has disproved many claims and suppositions about the universe (including claims about the word of god himself) that have historically been peddled by religious doctrineers. for example: that demons cause sickness, that sin causes sickness, that the world is a few thousand years old, that the sun revolves around the earth, that this or that woman is a witch.
science has helped us understand the world without using ghost stories, even though there's a lot we don't know. it exposes zealous claims about "the word of god" for the frauds that they are.
as you said, "science" doesn't "disprove god." it disproves various PROPOSITIONS about the world that god-fearing people have historically repeated over the years. science is a METHOD for investigating reality in a sensible way, not a collection of claims. if you oppose it, you're an ostrich with your head in the sand. you can oppose some of the claims that a scientist might make, and then make a counterargument. that's great. but opposing rational inquiry itself is something else entirely.
the "strident atheist" is a straw man. you can't test, prove, or falsify claims made about an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient entity. so theology doesn't belong in a science classroom. the only "strident" thing that fundamentalists are opposing is the TRUTH itself, and the acknowledgment of certain facts about the world, which is why their current goal is to dumb down the science curriculum in school. you should have noticed by now that the provocateurs DON'T go around saying "Hey, everyone, science does NOT actually disprove the existence of a god. let's be careful when we talk about theology." which would be theologically sound, and possibly even appreciated by many people. but instead of saying that, they say "Evolution? I don't believe it. We gotta stop teaching it, or, at least, it's just a THEORY, and it's mostly wrong". the whole controversy is nothing but a repeat of the persecution of Galileo.
and in due time, everyone will be so familiar with the basic facts of biology that the campaign against teaching evolution will be nothing but a historical absurdity, just like with astronomy in the case of Galileo. you can only keep people in the dark so long.
the truth comes home to roost. and it ruffles a lot of feathers.
You and natural law are really one and the same.
I can't disagree with that. But neither that nor anything else in your post gives any objective and measurable evidence of free will.
The difference in predation or competition and genocide is very clear. While animals engage in territorial squabbles as you mention, ants do not go out LOOKING for other ants to exterminate. Conflicts arise only out of expansion into neighboring territories--they only engage in warfare when their populations but up against one another. This sort of competition occurs throughout nature and is different than what humans practice, which often constitutes a concerted hunting and elimination of humans or other animals that has nothing to do with sustenance, and often nothing to do with competition, and everything to do with imposing our brand of order on the world. I do agree that a lot of human conflict arises out of contention for limited resources, but you have to also acknowledge that much of it does not. When we invaded Vietnam, for instance, there we no resources in contention that lead to that conflict: rather, it arose out of our will to test out some military toys and impose our order somewhere.
When the wolves hunt the elk, it is a negative feedback system that regulates itself. If the wolves eliminate too many elk, the wolves do not have enough food to survive, and thus the wolf population diminishes. Similarly, if the elk destroy their food supply, they die and rot in the ground, becoming feritlizer for more grasses to grow.
When humans deliberately eliminate species or groups of other humans, it is arbitrary and has nothing to do with this balance: it has only to do with a positive feedback system in which one group of people seeks unlimited growth. This is hugely different from anything else that happens in nature, and our ability to reason (and therefore, to be murderous and insane) is what facilitates this. Our ability to produce arbitrary amounts of food and to store this food facilitates unlimited growth, and it also has the side effect of making us exterminate other people and species in other to convert as much of the world as possible into food for us. This is unprecedented in the animal kingdom.
I don't need to go into torture, because while animals might occasionally play with their prey, they also play with one another. I see no reason to look upon these actions differently: I see both of the as being training and exercise of a sort. To put malice on those activities is to anthropomorphize animals with minds that are IMO too simple to derive pleasure from the pain of another being.
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The problem I have with this entire ID vs. evolution thing, speaking as a computational neuroscientist and a biologist, is that the entire framing of the argument is arrogant and flawed because it presupposes a definition of "intelligence" that is invalid at the level of basic neuroscience. Nobody can define intelligence adequately, but it's obviously something that (basically by definition) is a property of the human brain. The human brain is a dynamical system with a huge number of degrees of freedom and strong nonlinearities, but that's it. There isn't any magic, and there aren't any souls (and yes, I would argue that there IS scientific evidence against the existence of souls, and there has been since Galen's groundbreaking work in ~200 AD), there's just swirling masses of atoms inside peoples' heads. If you accept that "intelligence" is simply a property of the dynamics of a certain nonlinear system (e.g. the brain), then there's nothing to prevent other complex systems from displaying "intelligent" behavior. Like evolution, for example.
What bothers me the most is not that ID is fundamentally religious, but that it's based on a fundamentally anthropomorphic definition of "intelligence" that is impossible to define, and even proponents of evolution fall into supporting this false dichotomy. Instead of saying "No, evolution is not intelligent!" they should be pointing out that intelligence itself is not intelligent. There's atoms, they move around, and that's it. If there's even a shred of evidence to suggest otherwise, please point it out, because I've never seen it, and I've been looking for a long time.
No one has ever conducted an "evolution experiment" whereby the input was some lower life form and the output was a higher life form.
The entire idea of a "lower life form" and "higher life form" is grounded in the idea that humans, created in God's image, are innately superior to other animals, which are merely dumb beasts to be shepherded by Adam and his descendants. (Or any of a dozen other creation stories in which humans are created by a deity.)
Biologically speaking, a successful life form is one that survives. Some are more complex than others, but there is no evolutionary reason to conclude that a human is "higher" than a chimp or a paramecium. It is not necessary to have some function that transforms lower to higher...merely to have an effective transformation function resulting in a new species.
I'm sorry, did you read your argument?
If we do not have oil to use, as we do now, how have we not run out of oil. When I say "oh im out of milk", I don't mean the last cow has died and no more exists in the world, I mean I have no practically accessable milk until I resupply from the store.
Economically useful oil running out is a serious threat, because, well we kind of depend on it right now, hence the point. Technically the world is producing more oil as we speak, but so slowly and unreachably that it effectively does not exist to us.
Being philosophical about the existence or non-existence of a common economic commodity is like trying to prove God exists so you don't have to go to work tomorrow.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
So, part of the answer is, not just better science education, but education about the philosophy of science.
That would definitely constitute better science education, in my book.
There are serious drawbacks to this approach: many fewer students would pass a science class with a significant philosophical bent. Hell, most of them wouldn't even be able to spell "epistemology," let alone know what it is or how it relates to science.
It's much easier to train a bunch of uninterested students in facts and figures, rather than try to interest them in learning the significance of those facts and figures. It'd be an uphill battle.
But, I agree. Teach logic, then teach the philosophy of science. That'd be a damned good start.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Every time I hear the phrase "liberal intellectual elite" I know we are one day closer to electing somebody like pol pot into office. Once the supreme court gets dominated by religious fundamentalists it's all downhill from there and we are days away from that eventuality.
evil is as evil does
I hear that a large objection to Evolution is that it is "just a theory". Unforturnately, the people making that objection do not seem to know just what the scientific definition of Theory really is. In science, if you make a guess regarding something-or-other, the official terminology of "guess" is "Hypothesis". A hypothesis is always supposed to include ways of testing it, to determine its accuracy. So tests are made and evidence is gathered, and IF the hypothesis holds up as proven accurate, then it graduates to "Theory" status. Evolution is a Theory because we have an overwhelming amount of supporting evidence for it. Creationism, by comparison, is still only a mere Hypothesis. In all scientific truth, Isaac Newton's "Laws" of Motion and Gravitation are actually ALSO "only Theories" --but extremely well supported by evidence (and, nevertheless, superceded by the MORE ACCURATE Theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity, as it happens). The lack of supporting evidence for Creationism is its ultimate downfall, as far as the scientific community is concerned.
Here are two specific examples in which Evolution explains what Creationism cannot. First, consider Vitamin C. Lack of this in the diet causes the deficiency-disease known as "scurvy". All primates (monkeys, apes, humans) require Vitamin C in their diets. But various "lesser" animals, such as rats, can manufacture Vitamin C within their bodies, and so don't need any in their diet. The Evolutionary explanation is that as ancestors of the primates took to the trees and gradually became the primates, they found plentiful supplies of fruits rich in Vitamin C. Animals with defective genes (or missing genes) for making Vitamin C did not suffer scurvy and die; they survived and passed the inability to make Vitamin C onto their descendants. In terms of "biological energy", an organism that can save a little by using environmental availability instead of of internal manufacturing, has a slight evolutionary advantage -- as long as the environment maintains the availability of the nutrient, of course. In the tropics, where primates evolved, fruits with Vitamin C are available year-round. And so, over millions of years, primates became utterly dependent on Vitamin C in their diets -- and humans, of course, when described as evolved primates, continue the tradition. (Possibly to be FIXED, once Genetic Engineering gains wide acceptance, heh!) OK, NOW, The Creationism explanation, for why a loving God blessed us with the potential for scurvy instead of the dietary independence that rats have, is what, exactly?
Second example: Eyes have evolved in different ways among different branches of the animal kingdom. In the fish/amphibian/reptile/mammal line of evolution, the human eyeball has various superior traits to many precursor animals. Color vision, for example. Nevertheless, the human eye, like those of its precursors, share certain particular overall architectural features, which are: The back wall of the eyeball is covered with retinal cells. The nerves that transmit retinal signals are between the iris and the retina (the nerves are pretty transparent, but do reduce impinging light a little). At one place on the back of the eyball, all the nerve-strands bundle together to plunge through the eyeball, to connect to the brain. There are no retinal cells in this part of the eyeball, so every amphibian/reptile/mammal has a "blind spot" in the vision. You can prove it to yourself; just print this out and follow the instructions: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindh...ter/hack16. pdf One of the other branches of the animal kingdom, the molluscs, includes clams, snails, slugs, cuttlefish, octopi, and squid. They branched off from the other evolutionary lines so far back that the development of the eyeball (most well-known in the octopus, which also has color vision) took a different route. In this architectural design, the nerve-signal cells are behind the retinal cells,
Check for the brain, once it is fully formed you can be considered human, otherwise you are not capable of any humanity at all and can't be considered anything but a primitive organism. Derive an statistical measure of that to make it practical and define abortion limits based on that. Before a fetus becomming fully human a mother should be guranted pretty much whatever she wants in reagrds to the fetus. Once the fetus gets a fully formed brain and nervous system then it should enjoy msany of the rights all humans have, but remembering that the mother should have precedence since at the end she is a fully formed human been.
And lets use the correct terms, as long as a forming organism is not born it is not called baby, it is called fetus. Part of the problem dealing with people opposed to a real scientific discussion is the hijacking of terms using emotionally charged words.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'll start with a couple of disclaimers:
1- I am not American.
2- I am a Christian, and hold a Christian world view.
Having said that, it is really disheartening to see so many anti-Christian views being expressed because a "they don't believe in Evolution".
It is this kind of attitude that makes all things america look silly to an outsider. Science is not Evolution. Science is much much more than that. There's chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, astrophysics, you name it. Biology is just one part of quite a large field.
A statement that says: America is becoming less scientifically inclined, means that they are no longer interested in engineering, mathematics, physics etc etc.
Is this the case?
To blame christians for this percieved lack of interest is naive and misinformed. It also harbours an agenda. It's like saying the problems with the western world are all related to TV. Is this a valid statement?
When you bring things out to that level of abstraction, you really need to begin considering what all of those words mean. It seems that people, assuming I'm not imagining them in the first place, ascribe meaning to the world around them. That is to say that meaning is something we create, and the universe doesn't give meaning to itself.
When you describe "swirling masses of atoms inside peoples' heads" you are merely trying to assign meaning things that you've experienced. If some one else, when observing the same phenomena, see "intelligence", "souls", or "magic", is isn't wrong, it's just different. The important question is which meaning will allow us to make the predictions that will ultimately result in interaction with our environment in a way that is most beneficial to us.
So, as a neuroscientist, it may be the most beneficial for you to you to understand the brain as you do. That doesn't necessary mean that it is best for other people to view it that way. Indeed, a lot of what you've said wouldn't have meaning for someone outside the sciences. On the other hand, the idea of "intelligence" is pretty easy to understand. Basically, intelligence is just the process by which an object (something to which we have ascribed meaning) promotes a specific goal or set of goals. I'm not trying to say that this is a universal definition, but it works well for me. So in the case of evolution, one could see a particular class of organisms as the object, and survival as the goal being promoted. It's easy to see why people would ascribe intelligence to a number of "natural" processes. We are simply projecting aspects of ourselves onto the world around us so that we may better understand it.
The problem with the view you espouse (and, hopefully, you can tell from comment that I don't really disagree with you) is that people are gregarious. We are horribly afraid of being alone, and like to believe that there something fundamental connecting us to the rest of the universe. For this reason, people like the believe that the intelligence they've ascribed to other people, and to the rest of the universe, is real (whatever that means). I don't know if there's anything wrong with that interpretation. Indeed, if the natural processes going on inside your body (assuming the processes and your body are real) have given rise to your own (real) intelligence (such as you understand it) there's no reason to believe that the intelligence you assign to other people and objects is any less real.
Seriously...
I've lost track of how many lame Science vs. Religion / Evolution vs. ID / Modernism vs. Irrationalism pseudo-debates have popped up on my usual boards. It's the same thing over and over and over and over and over...
It's been done. For the love of all things holy, please stop posting stories like this and move on to something new. Just don't do another, "The RIAA & MPAA are hatching a plan to slaughter us in our beds" story...
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A very religious Person could argue : "God made the CPU, because he is the creator of everything"
Is a discussion about these differences growing anything good, except the fact, we are learning more about the other sides position?
Creationists can be scientists. But their unscientific ideas remain unscientific.
Yes, lots. And I mean LOTS: thousands and thousands of them. You really should try researching this a bit more.
Are there any animals living today that are half one and half another?
Presumably. Since the animal they are half-way to becoming isn't, by definition, here yet it's hard to know what they're between, but certainly whales, with their back legs now totally embedded in their bodies, must be over half way to some animal with no back legs at all.
The Law of Entropy states that everything goes naturally to disorder.
Universally, over all of time. Locally and in the short term entropy can be reversed with no problem. Once the sun dies, for example, entropy on Earth is going to start booming again. Until then, we can reverse our entropy at the Sun's expense.
How can the order that is life(on a molecular level that is), especially human life, by chance materialize out of nothing or out of a few base elements.
What's so special about "human life"? Once you have life at all humans are no big deal. Anyway, chance is involved in the broad sense but actually not in any important way. If a gambler backs a 1:100 chance a thousand times then luck is involved but you would not consider him lucky to have won. Life may be a tricky bet, but the whole universe has been placing that bet for the whole of time, so it's not very surprising that it came up at least once.
Actually, it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in a Creator.
Only if you're stupid.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I think his point is that you are compairing Christians to POL POT.
No, he compared *anti-intellectuals* to Pol Pot.
*YOU* just equated Christians with anti-intellectual.
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