Posted on 03/14/2006 6:34:30 PM PST by Heartlander
The signs of this are everywhere. The attacks are coming at an accelerating pace, and include frequent interventions by powerful forces, in and out of the Bush Administration, who seem all too willing to deny scientific truths, disrupt scientific investigations, block scientific progress, undermine scientific education, and sacrifice the very integrity of the scientific process itself -- all in the pursuit of implementing their particular political agenda. And today this dominant political agenda is profoundly allied and intertwined with an extremist (and extremely anti-science) ideological agenda put forward by powerful fundamentalist religious forces commonly known as the Religious Right. These fundamentalists now have extensive influence and representatives in major institutions of the U.S. government, including Congress and the White House. This itself goes a long way towards explaining why science itself is under such unprecedented attack.
It is commonplace under the current Administration for the government to deny funding, censor scientific reports, or in other ways undermine scientific research which might turn up facts which they don't want to hear; to manipulate, distort, or outright suppress scientific findings they find objectionable; to attempt to reshape government scientific panels to obtain policy recommendations on issues ranging from health to the environment, based less on actual scientific findings than on the requirements of the Administration's agenda.
The situation is so serious that more than 6,000 scientists have already signed the "Restoring Scientific Integrity" statement of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which denounces the Bush Administration for "abuse of science"; and Scientific American published an editorial under the title: "Bush-League Lysenkoism: The White House Seeks to Bend Science To Its Will."
CONSIDER THIS:
* Particular Christian fundamentalist "moral codes" are increasingly imposing restrictions on what kinds of questions can be investigated by scientists and what kinds of answers scientists can come up with. HIV-prevention studies have come under attack for even attempting to study prevalent sexual practices. Funds have been cut and researchers have faced intimidation and harassment from fundamentalists inside and outside of government who insist that scientific study of HIV/AIDS begin and end with the demand for "abstinence-only" programs - regardless of the human and social cost. Research into human sexuality in general has been suppressed and faulty studies and outright disinformation about the effectiveness of condoms and other birth control methods have been promoted and disseminated by the Administration. The Department of Health and Human Services is known to have deleted from its web site scientific health information which conflicted with the Administration's "abstinence-only" approach to sex education...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Entire new fields of scientific inquiry, like stem-cell research, with potential for path-breaking medical breakthroughs, are denied federal funds because of fundamentalist religious objections...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Scientists whose findings conflict with corporate interests or policies of the Bush Administration face threats of retaliation or denial of funding. There have been "gag orders" forbidding government scientists from talking publicly about important scientific questions and, at times, even mentioning terms like "global warming." In studies by government scientists on global warming and its potentially devastating consequences for the planet and humanity, titles of reports have been changed and whole sections deleted by high political officials. There are repeated efforts by government officials to over-rule scientists on such things as which plant and animal species to include on the "Endangered Species" list, which natural habitats are in critical need of preservation, how to set air and water quality standards, and so on...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* In a practice many have denounced as "Scientific McCarthyism," scientists who are candidates for scientific advisory boards and panels have been asked how they voted or whether they support particular policies of the Administration, and some have been denied appointments because of their political views...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Official government-run bookstores at the Grand Canyon have carried books promoting as fact the literalist Biblical notion that the Grand Canyon was formed only a few thousand years ago by "Noah's Flood," in direct contradiction to the overwhelming geological evidence and scientific consensus that the Grand Canyon contains rocks that are billions of years old and that the Canyon itself was carved out by a river, over a very long period of time, millions of years ago...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And that is not all: Here we are in the 21st century, and the head of the government himself, George W. Bush, refuses to acknowledge that evolution is a scientific fact! THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
The President claims: "On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth," and then sits smugly by while Creationists carry out an assault against evolution in classrooms, museums, libraries, government bookstores, and even IMAX movies and science theaters.
No, Mr. President, the verdict is NOT out on evolution. EVOLUTION IS A FACT -- IT IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-ESTABLISHED AND WELL-DOCUMENTED FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE. TO DENY AND ATTACK EVOLUTION IS TO DENY AND ATTACK ONE OF THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL FACTS ABOUT ALL OF NATURE AND REALITY AND ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL FOUNDATION STONES OF ALL OF MODERN SCIENCE.
Evolution is not a matter of "controversy" in the scientific community: It is recognized as a fact by the overwhelming majority of scientists in the U.S. and throughout the world. Evolution is just as well-established as the fact that the earth goes around the sun -- a scientifically-demonstrated truth which, several centuries ago and for some time, was also opposed and even viciously suppressed because of a religious inquisition, resulting in great harm to science and to humanity. We cannot, and will not, allow the same kind of thing to happen with the scientific fact of evolution.
Therefore, we, the undersigned scientists and members of the scientific community, are issuing this urgent call to everyone in society to take up the challenge to DEFEND SCIENCE.
To be clear: Many who continue to hold religious beliefs can and should rally to this call to DEFEND SCIENCE. This is not about science trying to destroy religion. It is about defending science from a specific right-wing political agenda which, coupled with a fundamentalist, Biblical-literalist religious ideology, is setting out to implement a program that will fundamentally pervert and undermine science and the scientific process itself.
Individual scientists may be atheists or agnostics, or may hold various religious beliefs; and their politics range over the full spectrum of political views. But one thing the overwhelming majority of scientists have in common is their understanding that, when conducting scientific investigation and applying the scientific method, it is essential to use as a starting point previously accumulated scientific knowledge -- the storehouse of well-established scientific evidence about reality which has previously been arrived at through concrete and systematic scientific observation and experiment and has been subjected to rigorous scientific review and testing. This is what we scientists stand on as our foundation when we set out to further investigate reality and make new discoveries. This is how science has been done and how it has advanced for hundreds of years now, and this has allowed science to benefit humanity in countless ways.
Genuine science never proceeds from, or uses as its starting point, any set of subjective "beliefs," "opinions" or "faith-based edicts" handed down by religious or secular authorities and proclaimed to be beyond human questioning, testing and investigation. To bring into the scientific process assumptions, religious or otherwise, which were not arrived at by scientific methods, and which by definition cannot be tested by scientific methods, would destroy science as science.
In conclusion: We must refuse to accept a situation where scientific inquiry is blocked or its findings ruled out of order unless they conform to the goals of the government, to corporate interests and to the ideology of religious fundamentalists; where dogma enforced by governmental and religious authority takes the place of science; where the scientific approach of seeking natural explanations for natural phenomena is suppressed. We must insist on an atmosphere where scientists are allowed to seek the truth, even when the truth conflicts with the views and policies of those in power, and where the scientific spirit is fostered, where science education and the popularization of the scientific method are valued, where people are encouraged to pursue an understanding of how and why things are the way they are; where all that has been learned by humanity so far, all that has repeatedly been tested and found to be true, serves as the starting point for further investigation of reality.
IT IS UP TO US. IT IS TIME TO TAKE A CLEAR AND DECISIVE STAND IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE. THIS IS OF CRUCIAL AND URGENT IMPORTANCE NOT ONLY FOR SCIENTISTS BUT FOR PEOPLE THROUGHOUT SOCIETY, FOR HUMANITY AS A WHOLE AND FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Scientists and Members of the Scientific Community:
Sign and Circulate This Statement. Help Raise Funds to Have it Printed in Newspapers Across the Country, and Internationally. Get This Statement Adopted by Scientific, Educational and Other Associations and Institutions. Urge Others to Become Involved.
Members of the General Public: Reprint and Circulate This Statement, Help Spread the Word, Contribute Your Ideas About How to Wage This Crucial Battle & Join With People in the Scientific Community and Others to Wage This Battle.
Read Defend Science Statement Sources...
More is at stake in the ID issue than science education, though that’s important enough by itself. ID creationists must not be viewed in a vacuum. The insidious feature of ID is not only its attack on public education, but the fact that ID creationism is another column in the Religious Right’s decades-old attack on secular, constitutional democracy. And ID proponents are plugged into the conservative political and Religious Right power structure. As most people now know, their supporters include the president of the United States. They also include U.S. senators (Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, John McCain, Judd Gregg, and Sam Brownback) and congressmen (e.g., House Majority Leader John Boehner). Three state governors, Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, and Rick Perry of Texas, have announced their support for teaching ID in public school science classes. The Discovery Institute creationists are the most politically well-connected creationists with whom we have had to deal. This is what makes ID a significant and dangerous phase in the history of American creationism. Their attack on evolution symbolizes their contempt for public education, modern science, and ultimately the Enlightenment ideals on which American constitutional democracy is based. The Wedge Document clearly shows that ID creationists want to overthrow secular culture and public policy, to which the only alternative is some type of theocracy.
HT to MikeGene
So let’s sum this paranoia up… If you think that there is more than just purely natural causes that caused our human intellect to come into existence - you are a creationist… part of the Right Wing Conspiracy… and you want to make the entire world into a theocracy…
Hey, I think some people on this forum actually peddle this same crap.
I could also quote other experts including Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker, et al…
But I prefer to point to the Bright Movement .
And the celebration of Darwin Day :
Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations
Darwinism refutes typology; i.e., that the world is stable and invariant
Darwin's theory of natural selection made any invocation of teleology unnecessary
Darwin accepted the universality of randomness and chance throughout the process of natural selection
Darwin developed a new view of humanity and in turn, a new anthropocentrism
Darwin provided a scientific foundation for ethics
Occasionally inclinations would get mixed up and you'd find a political type just 10 hours away from his doctorate in Chemistry when he'd discover his true calling, and vice versa.
Looks like that's what we've got here.
College career guidance counselors should be encouraged to do a better job before this sort of disaster happens to others.
(((ping)))
Is this true? Who in the world is stupid enough to believe that the Grand Canyon was made by Noah's flood? I just can't believe that anyone with half of a brain would even believe this nonsense? Can someone confirm or deny this is happening?
Geez, they have all but directly claimed to have proven a negative.
I'm still trying to figure out how Noah got at least one pair of each of the 30, million species on his ark.
It is true. Next point...
Piltdown man has been proven a hoax.
Scientists now state: " a study published in the current "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Recent computer analysis of skulls from modern humans, Neanderthals,... show enough physical differences between them to indicate that Neanderthals should be considered a separate species from Homo sapiens, not a subspecies." We are not descended from the Neanderthals...
Darwinism is full of holes...but still taught as "scientific fact."
New 'scientific facts' are discovered every day that disproves former 'scientic facts'
This is one of the Democratic talking point: trying to scare the puublic with
the spectre that Repubilicans/Christians are going to dismantle the US
science establishment.
Actually, the screams are really the concern of many scientists that
their jobs might not be essentially entitlement programs.
This scare-mongering is also useful for selling books to the Air America crowd,
such as
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy,
and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House
by Esther Kaplan
(oh and you can get a package deal with "The Republican War on Science"!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565849205/sr=8-2/qid=1142390908/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-9381754-1528955?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Confusing morality with morals. The moral codes might better be called ethical codes.
My email to them:
I would like to help you but lets be honest. Science is manipulated by advocates every day. Your organization is concerned about Conservative Christians manipulating science. To be honest, they have had a rather poor record trying to manipulate it.
I would be curious for your reaction to the following manipulations:
1. Misrepresentations of DDT as dangerous so as to impede the eradication of Malaria-- a disease which every year kills more than nine times as many people as AIDS.
2. Representations by climatologists in the 1970s and 90s saying fossil fuel burning must be stopped because it would cause an ice age (Lowell Ponte-- in case you really want to know).
3. The founder of Greenpeace now works for a logging company because he argues such groups are antagonistic to the very purposes they were founded upon.
4. Fabricated stem cell research in South Korea that was heralded as 'good science' because it fit the political agenda of stem cell activists.
5. Fabricated cold fusion research by Pons and Fleischman.
6. AIDS research and treatment conducted far beyond the bounds of all other medical research-- creating resistant virsues and dangerous health regimes.
7. The promotion of condoms without warnings that they provide NO protection from HPV-- one of the leading causes of cervical cancer in women.
8. MTBE being added to refined gasoline at the behest of enviro-scientists and then being discovered to be a destroyer of the environment. Now activists want to be able to sue the oil companies for adding the expensive treatment to gasoline. [I have an idea lets start holding activists liable for their suggestions. I bet that would clear up some of this nonsense].
9. Scientists argued that acid rain would denude all the forests of the American east coast.
10. . . .
I guess I would like to know why it is Christians that constitute the unique threat to science. My brother who works at NOAA tells me they regularly cook the data for global warming government grants. I really would like an explanation about why certain other deadly misrepresentations of science are not only tolerated but encouraged.
Some scientists were convicted at Nuremberg because of the questions they investigated. So what else is new?
The best way to answer that is "don't think about it".
Don’t tell me what to think. That is partially the point of this post.
You could write this whole thing off as a leftist rant with no substance, but then they get to the evolution part, and that gem of truth IMHO, gives this screed more weight than it deserves. Shame..
I am sorry... this is nonsense. To believe the Grand Canyon was made during the great flood? You can't possibly believe such made up stuff. Who in the world would be foolish enough to think this? And to push off this nonsense in a government run bookstore? Well there is no wonder why scientists are alarmed.
I know the muslims are living in the 15th century but I find it hard to believe that modern day Americans purposely want to live in the 12th.
So, what they're saying is that scientific research cannot happen without federal funding. They are demanding more money from the taxpayers and they want all that money to arrive with absolutely no strings attached. Sounds good to me. Please, Mr. Government, send me a few million so I can do some important research on the effect of Ferraris on the environment.
BTW, I am not a creationist.
You know one of the things I hate about the liberal school teachers is that sometimes it seems they want to keep our children ignorant so that they are easier to control. Teaching that the Grand Canyon was made by the great flood is the flip side of the same coin. If people want to believe that then fine... but put that trash in a bookstore in a national park.... no way. It is junk science.
What other people believe in terms of religious thought or tradition is actually none of your business.
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