Apple: The Computer of the Devil (TM)
Posted on 10/28/2005 3:29:36 PM PDT by Crackingham
A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is under assault. In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.
"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.
Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be identified as God.
In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other research. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including Bush, can afford to ignore their views. This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo earlier this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to keep a woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her husband's wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture of life."
The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the country. The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered schools to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps exist in it. The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory and recommended students to read a book that explained the theory further.
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist Christianity and science.
"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not at all true," he said.
On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.
"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at a forum on the issue last week.
More-clown-princes-of-ignorance placemarker.
I listened to the Mars Hill interview with John Polkinghorne this morning. How 'bout that: one of the premier physicists of the century quit his tenured spot to go back to school and become a parish priest (Church of England)!
Unfortunately, I had many instructors who laughed at any creation "myth." We've seen far too many public media articles concerning the "meaning" of evolution, and I, at least, remember my science texts from high school that taught more about the primordial soup than about what an amino acid actually is.
The hostility came first. In fact, it was the hostility of Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Huxley - and then their Grandsons - toward a belief in God that started the absolute belief that science and religion are incompatible.
"Unfortunately, I had many instructors who laughed at any creation "myth.""
The idea that in the modern era someone could claim the the world is 10,000 years old and the earth was created word for word the way it is stated in Genesis is laughed at, I agree.
Much the same way my Baptist friends laugh at those who believe that when Jesus said to "take up the serpents" he meant to literally handle snakes.
1. Lots of the brilliant overseas science students like it here and stay.
The high level folks are gypsies today. They come into a company, work for 36 months on a project, take six months off, and land another gig in France, Camrbridge, NYC or Switzerland for another 36 months.
2. Venture capital is the new R&D
Venture capital is business. They're not interested in science for science's sake.
3. Biotech has become enourmously profitable
Yep. But the leaders in the future may not be American.
4. Darpa is a major force for research
Look at the number of threads on FR that mock gubmint funding of science that sounds a bit looney with no immediate pay out.
5. The universties are very strong... just one floor of the artificial intelligence lab at MIT has produced more tech comanies than many entire countries.
The universities like MIT and Caltech remain strong, for the time being. What happens when the feeder systems of high schools begin to discourage science? Even putting that aside, look at how universities are mocked on FR for being too liberal.
I don't want to sound alarmist, but I think we're at the beginning of a major crisis here in regards to science. And some of it doesn't even have to do with anything concrete, such as funding public education. Just in terms of choosing students or distributing research dollars.
"Religions is not killing American education - decades of irreligion and worship of the "State" is what is doing it. Modern secular education is robbing children of the character and self-relicance necessary to be intelligent and productive citizens!"
that is just not an argument the scientific community needs to be involved in as scientists exept for the part about education and self reliance. Science education needs to stredd think for one's self. It certainly did at the schools I attended and the labs I worked in.
***A) Public education is falling apart and under attack. ***
Under attack by who?
Under attack by tax payers who don't want to pay for it. Under attack by folks who want it dismantled for economic or ideological reasons.
***C) There is the general idea in the air that science is in conflict with religion. ***
Religions is not killing American education - decades of irreligion and worship of the "State" is what is doing it. Modern secular education is robbing children of the character and self-relicance necessary to be intelligent and productive citizens!
I didn't say religion is "killing American education." I said there is an "idea in the air" that science is in conflict with religion. This is perception. But perceptions count when distribution of grant dollars are in play or acceptances to top flight universities are being considered.
You say that religion is under attack by secular education. I can't argue the point, but be aware that many of the corporations, foundations etc. that fund science don't care. They will just take their dollars and offer them to someone else. They don't even care about character, self-reliance, etc. etc. important as those things may be, they care about the next big discovery. Call it the Turing Syndrome. Not for nothing, Apple Computer's logo has a bite out of the apple.
J. Budziszewski (Natural Law proponent, author of "Revenge of Conscience," "What You Can't Not Know," and tenured philosophy and law professor at UT Austin) comments on those infinite universes - he says that's an awful long way to go to explain what could be explained by believing in God. Primarily, he says the whole creator-less universe(s) teaching is designed (excuse me) by those who need to justify euthanasia -- (and I agree).
The US has been generally hostile to science for the last couple of centuries. There are a few exceptions (who drag the rest of the country up from the mires of ignorance.) The rest of the world is no better.
Apple: The Computer of the Devil (TM)
You believe the bite out of the apple is a religious reference?
I take your post seriously but i had to laugh at the part wher treat Cambridge and NYC as if they were foreign. :)
How can you minimize both DARPA and ventrue capital - one is about pure sciuence that may or may not be practical and one is about science that has to be practical -both approaches cannot be wrong.
I love Free Republic but they are wrong if they minimize DARPA - I have seen large companies come out of that as well as key military technology far larger than DARPA's cost.
***that is just not an argument the scientific community needs to be involved in as scientists exept for the part about education and self reliance.***
My friend, it is the worship of the "State" that is robbing Americans of their character and self-relicance! No need to work hard and make your own way - the cradle-to-grave nanny-State will provide for you, hear your prayers and protect you from offense.
We have replaced the God of the Bible with the "god" of the State.(And evolution is the State's creation myth.)
Your in entitled to your opinion... except a pretty f***ed up interpretation of the establishment clause I think Christians are doing fine. Christianity has historically thrived in the face of adversity and this is nothing compared to what early Christians faced.
Lumping Cambridge and NYC in with foreign capitals was intentional. I think it shows just how far apart our country has drifted.
DARPA is swell, but it's nowhere near enough. We need twenty or thirty DARPAs, aside from the national labs.
Slyentists would be acting more sincerely if they worried about the >50% of people who don't know what a molecule is, than about the 10% who profess a 6*24 hour creation.
Why are you disparaging a whole group of hard-working folks with such a disgusting term?
It does not bring credit to you or your position.
If by "guiding" it is meant that God thinks and acts in a linear fashion within time, it does.
When you don't know, you don't know. Teach both sides, the truth will someday be known.There are more than two sides. Personally, I think they ought to be teaching Wolfram's New Kind of Science.
Taxonomy. The entire program of classification of living entities is bound up with evolutionary theory. One of the basic principles of classification is to group together those with common ancestors.
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