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Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science'
ndogg writes with news that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has counterattacked those critical of conservative views on science, saying that they're 'anti-science' themselves. From a CBS report:
"In his remarks Monday, Santorum went beyond his usual discussion of the importance of increasing domestic energy production to deliver a blistering attack on environmental activists. He said global warming claims are based on 'phony studies,' and that climate change science is little more than 'political science.' His views are not 'anti-science' as Democrats claim, Santorum said. 'When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment,' he said to applause, and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining."
America deserves him at this point.
I won't enjoy being in the blast radius, but my country has so many idiots and superstitionists in it we deserve to suffer horribly for letting it get this bad.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I like Santorum. He says what modern Republicans are thinking, as wrong as that may be. He does not hide the crazy behind a manufactured persona like Romney. Ron Paul has too many heart felt beliefs that are antithetical to the GOP. Gingrich is a dishonest retread from a previous era, pushing the same failed policies.
But Ricky is a true reflection what Republicans are all about, and proud of it. If there is any justice, Rick will win the nomination where he faithfully campaign for what the GOP believes in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Q8UvJ1wvk
Science funding goes up under republicans, and down under Democrats.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
Sorry, but Science fared a lot better during the Islamic Golden Age.
Isn't history great?
No sig for the moment.
I take a more extreme view of faith as a form of solipsism. If you fully separate faith from science, faith becomes an entirely personal matter: you can only gain faith by some kind of mysterious internal light inaccessible to the methods of science. OK, fine. From this view there's no reason not to believe that God created the universe five minutes ago, exactly as we recall it to have been five minutes ago, replete with another 13.7 billion years of back story (which can be boiled down rather succinctly to the big bang, QED, and self-organizing primordial goo--for which the exact mechanism in the last case remain a trifle mysterious). For some reason, God loves the evolutionary back story. No creation is complete without one. Either way, evolution is the minimum description length account of what we observe as the history of the universe in rocks and oceans and nebulae. This is true whether or not evolution actually happened. Even if God created the earth and human kind a mere 10,000 years ago evolution is still the minimum description of what we observe in the fossil record and the genetic heritage of life (an exploding data set which poses a looming and insurmountable challenge to 10,000 year literalism).
If you feel the illumination of faith from within, you can show it by how you choose to live. If you inner glow so moves you, you can reflect honour on the divine creator by living your life to a high moral standard however you perceive this.
Where I tend to draw the line is when two people get together who each feel an inner glow, who then compare notes and decide that they believe in the same divine spirit. This consensus is not achieved through a scientific process. Faith is not amenable to science. How do you really know you believe in the same deity as anyone else?
Here's how the slight of hand works in organized religion. You posit a sacred text, and then attribute authorship of the sacred text to a unique and singular deity. Yesterday's TED talk on the Cyrus Cylinder shows the Book of Isaiah attributing to Jehovah what had previously been attributed to the Babylonian god Marduk. One story, multiple originating deities. Fancy that.
I have a lot of problems when a group of 100 million people go around absolutely secure in the belief that they feel within themselves a sliver of the same divine flame, when most of them can't even agree on the right way to tie your shoe.
Santorum, to his credit, is not so secure: he views the Democrats as hewing to the wrong Christian god. Now let's repeat this bisection step until every believer is a faith until himself or herself. Faith as a personal matter. Wonderful.
I have no real problem with faith, but I have a deep problem with the aggregation of faith. Let's suppose Obama believes that he and Santorum both believe in the same god, but Santorum disputes this. How is such a discrepancy resolved? Remember, you can't use science. Faith is not amenable to science (or it wouldn't be faith). I guess you need a prophet of especially reliable connection to the Big One. Shades of Russell's type theory. And we agree on the nature of this prophet exactly how? Are we back to the aggregation of unique inner glows? I thought so.
There's no conflict between science and faith as such, but there is a conflict between science and the aggregation of faith (for some reason, faith tends to aggregate along racial lines, and never takes the last critical step to one world religion).
Message to Santorum: if you want to dis-aggregate the Christian granfalloon, by all means fill your boots.
In college I reproduced an experiment that showed this was possible. Combine a few gases (nitrogen, CO2, methane) with water in an oxygen-free sealed container and expose to electricity with a spark gap, and a few days later you have a variety of amino acids in solution. Others have performed slightly more complex experiments to create nucleotides (the precursors to RNA & DNA).
So I guess this either means that I am officially a God, or it requires a "Supreme Being" to guide it about as much as a baking a decent chocolate cake. I'll take Occam's Razor, at least I can use it to cut the cake...