When you were in school, you probably learned that we'd passed through the Dark Ages, sometime around the Middle Ages, enjoyed a Renaissance, and then, at last, phew!, arrived at the Age of Reason, after which it's been smooth sailing, thank God.
Whoops! Reason and God may be slightly incompatible, but why stir up trouble, is my maxim.
For awhile, reason and religion lived side-by-side, as long as religion thought God was responsible for science. But along came a devout bloke named Charles Darwin, who made some observations, drew some conclusions, and figured out that God must not have created all of the species at one blow 4004 years earlier, according to calculations made by the Bishop of Usher.
If I'm right, figured Darwin, these species must've evolved over millions of years through some mechanism that needs someone like me to discover what it is. Whatever could it be? Hmmm.....
What he figured was that the creatures themselves must've created themselves, just as they usually do, but with changes and variations that helped some survive and reproduce further while the others not enjoying those alterations died off and too bad for them. No room for God in there, was there?
Charles Darwin had Deep-sixed none other than God Himself, and this is very sad.
Darwin knew he was in trouble from the git. So he sat on his work for as long as he could and only published when someone else published first. Then he stepped up to take his share of the credit, or blame. The religious folk preferred to think that they had descended from God, instead of apes. Little did they know that their ancestors were far more ape-like than God-like, although this is a matter of opinion. God has caused far more damage, whether he exists or not, than all of the apes who ever lived, combined. This is a fact.
Because the Great Church of the United States is at risk of losing the benefits of the Age of Reason, so-called (why not the age of fundamentalist Christianity?), since so many of us seem to believe that God created the world and lives in the White House where he provides personal guidance to Pres. George W, we have a problem.
Bush and the Fundies are against abortion, condoms in developing countries to fight AIDS, stem-cell research, gays, gay-rights such as to serve in the military and marry, and other immoral things, in large part the result of religious attitudes. They also insist on teaching religion as science in the public schools. We're governed by a home-grown Taliban of our own.
Science is a series of testable propositions while religion is a series of untestable propositions. When something doesn't work in science, it is jettisoned as false. When something doesn't work in religion, we use it as proof that it is still just as true, it's just that God works in mysterious ways.
You can see why scientists and ministers have to be kept apart or they'll drive each other crazy.
A number of prominent scientists have announced the formation of an organization dedicated to electing politicians "who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy." And good luck to them.
The article is below.
Scientists Form Group to Support Science-Friendly Candidates
Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians “who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.”
Organizers of the group, Scientists and Engineers for America, said it would be nonpartisan, but in interviews several said Bush administration science policies had led them to act. The issues they cited included the administration’s position on climate change, its restrictions on stem cell research and delays in authorizing the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception.
In a statement posted on its Web site (www.sefora.org), the group said scientists and engineers had an obligation “to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interest ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.”
The group’s organizers include John H. Gibbons and Neal Lane, who were science advisers in the Clinton administration, the Nobel laureates Peter Agre and Alfred Gilman, and Susan F. Wood, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration last year to protest the agency’s delay in approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called Plan B emergency contraception.
“The issues we are talking about happen to be issues in which the administration’s record is quite poor,” Dr. Lane said. But he said the goal was to protect “the integrity of science” so that Americans could have confidence in the government’s science-based decisions.
Mike Brown, the group’s executive director, said it would be a 527 organization under tax laws, meaning that it could be involved in electoral politics, and that contributions to the group would not be tax deductible. He said it would focus its resources — Internet advertising, speakers and other events — on races in which science issues play a part.
The group is looking at the Senate race in Virginia between George Allen, the incumbent Republican, and James Webb, a Democrat; a stem cell ballot issue in Missouri; the question of intelligent design in Ohio; and Congressional races in Washington State, Mr. Brown said.
In what it described as a Bill of Rights for scientists and engineers, the group said that researchers who receive federal funds should be free to discuss their work publicly, and that appointments to federal scientific advisory committees should be based on scientific qualifications, not political beliefs. It said the government should not support science education programs that “include concepts that are derived from ideology,” an apparent reference to creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design.
And it said the government should not publish false or misleading scientific information, something Dr. Wood said occurred when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention briefly posted an item on its Web site suggesting that abortion was linked to breast cancer.
Comments