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Posted on 11/16/2006 6:07:08 AM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON – Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in culture, a group of prominent scientists and advocates of church-state separation on Tuesday announced formation of a Washington think tank designed to promote “rationalism” as the basis of public policy.
The brainchild of Paul Kurtz, founder of the Center for Inquiry-Transnational, the small public policy office will lobby and sometimes litigate on behalf of science-based decision making and against religion in government affairs.
The announcement was accompanied by release of a “Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism,” which bemoans what signers say is a growing lack of understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and the value of a rational approach to life.
“This disdain for science is aggravated by the excessive influence of religious doctrine on our public policies,” the declaration says. “We cannot hope to convince those in other countries of the dangers of religious fundamentalism when religious fundamentalists influence our policies at home.”
While the speakers at the National Press Club unveiling were highly critical of Bush administration policies regarding stem-cell research, global warming, abstinence-only sex education and the teaching of “intelligent design,” they said that their group was non-partisan and that many Democrats were hostile to keeping religion out of public policy.
“Unfortunately, not only do too many well-meaning people base their conceptions of the universe on ancient books – such as the Bible and the Koran – rather than scientific inquiry, but politicians of all parties encourage and abet this scientific ignorance,” reads the declaration, which was signed by, among others, three Nobel Prize winners.
Kurtz, a professor emeritus in philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a longtime critic of the influence of religion on public policy, said that the nation needed the equivalent of a “second Enlightenment.” He said the methods of science, which have led to much human progress, “are being challenged culturally in the United States today as never before.”
Several speakers also accused the media of distorting scientific consensus in the name of journalistic balance.
Lawrence Krauss, an author and theoretical physicist at Case Western Reserve University, said the scientific community has done a “poor job” of explaining its logic and benefits to the public. He also said scientists have a more active role to play in opposing faith-based governing, which he said the public often rejects once it understands the issues involved.
“In the current climate, there is an implicit, if demonstrably false, sense that if your actions are based on a belief in God you are good person, and if they are not you are a bad person,” Krauss said.
The goals of the non-profit group are to establish relationships with sympathetic legislators, provide experts to give testimony before Congress, speak publicly on issues when they are in the news, and submit friend-of-the-court briefs in Supreme Court cases involving science and religion.
I guess it was a good day for 'ole Beezelbub.
The notion that atheism or agnosticism is an enlightened viewpoint is inaccurate.
Sure. Right.
Indeed.
Worth repeating, in case the anti-God Darwinists find this thread and start spamming it.
I wonder what his FReeper name is.
Wrong. Ever increasing government funding -- with all the strings (PC and others) attached to it -- is eroding science.
Oh, excellent point!
Part of the reason is that there are certain elements of the scientific community who have used science to wage a jihad against society, notably religion, but also business interests.
If you start a war, don't complain that you are losing it.
Uh, yeah, right.
Stem-cell research itself is science; whether stem-cell research is good or bad, or deserving of funding, is NOT a scientific question.
The study of global warming is science; whether global warming is a good or bad thing, or worth addressing through public policy, is NOT a scientific question.
The study of human sexuality & its biological components is science; whether there should be an abstinence-only emphasis in sex education, or some other option, is NOT a scientific question.
From a scientific perspective:
1. Adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell research has generated over 70 viable treatments for various diseases while embroyonic stem cell research has produced ZERO (but has generated potentially dangerous tumors in some cases). It would seem that science would indicate the most promising area of research is not the embryonic route.
2. Global warming alarmism requires blind acceptance of wild and baseless assumptions and extrapolations. This is an area where dogma and ideology are driving the arguments in the name of science, and where any scientific analysis that questions the dogma of the algorists is decried as heresy.
3. The "scientific" approach that these people advocate (they hate the abstinence approach because it happens to fall in line with religious beliefs) emphasizes contraception and actually encourages earlier sexual activity among adolescents while downplaying (or ignoring completely) any of the numerous reasons why it is better to delay sexual activity until a more mature age. The "scientific" approach completely ignores the fact that the failure rate for condoms in preventing pregnancy (when used properly) is approximately the equivilent to the odds in Russian Roulette.
4. At one time the "scientific evolution" crowd argued that to teach only one view in the debate over origins was not scientific because it closed off areas of scientific inquiry. I guess now that their view has become more prevalent in the textbooks, they aren't as concerned about leaving all areas of scientific inquiry open.
As the Warmists make the sign of the hockey stick.
************
Translation: People are too stupid to realize how important we scientists are.
There is faith in science and in everything one does. There is no point studying something, if it is completely random or one does not have faith in being able to explain it. True science and true faith are sometimes the same thing.
I'll put them on my prayer list.
BWA HAHAHAHAHA
Of course the media is all too happy to put 'secularism' and 'science' in the same sentence.
The truth is that there is zero intellectual relevance between the two.
Science is the logical process of analyzing the natural world using evidence, testing and deductive reasoning.
Secularism is just another atheist movement in disguise.
The fact that secularists try to support their atheism through science is just another explanation of their mendacity - feeding off of the 'young-earth creationists' who dismiss science by confusing it with 'secularism'.
Science is 'religion-neutral', and only the most extreme secularist and young-earth creationists would try to use it to either support their view, or to discount it alltogether.
Both of them are essentially engaged in a political debate that misuses the disipline of science and does a great disservice to all of us.
Science and religion are completely separate philosophical dicliplines, one of which attempts to discovery the mechanism of creation and how things work, and the other one of which is concerned with setting moral principles for life and laying out a plan for the personal salvation of individuals.
The result of this debate is that the learning discipline of science is distorted or villified by both sides.
Scientists who happen to be atheists are just as guilty of this as the 'know-nothing young-earth creationists'.
Just goes to show that politics is no way to conduct scientific analysis, which relies on testable data and research, rather than a philosophical point of view about human nature and human existence which the secularists and creationists are at war over.
There is no contradiction with being a scientist and believing in a Christian God.
But there 'scientific young-earth creationism' is an oxymoron every bit as much as 'secularist science' is.
Science without religion is boring.
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