liquid

An interesting little piece here on the Scientific American webpage. Nice to see a major publication speaking out openly about creationism and ID.

<a href="http://www.sciam.com/2002/0202issue/0202skeptic.html" target="_blank">SciAm</a>

Do you agree with the statement that advancing science is better than attacking religion? I'd have to say I do. It seems to me that destroying an established religion often leaves gaps for more extreme or odd ones to jump in, whereas the advancement of science has constricted the domain of all religions very effectively.

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[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: liquid ]</p>

scigirl

I tend to agree--to a point. I think that emphasizing the positives of science without sounding elitist or attacking religion is key to advancing scientific causes.

And scientists just have to be patient. For instance--the stem cell research debate. Many of my friends who actually do stem cell research are infuriated at the current policy regarding human stem cells (and well, they should be infuriated). But I tell them, "work even harder." Since mice have no "souls" , their stem cells are fair game. I predict, when scientists cure a disease such as diabetes or MS in mice with stem cells, the religions may conveniently become "inspired by God" and say, Oh, I guess it's ok to use stem cells.

Equally with evolution. If we discover some pathway in chimps that leads to a treatment for a human behavior or disease, the creationists will be much more inclined to believe.

I say, use their selfish "humans are the pinnacle of creation" crap to our advantage, so that everybody wins.

scigirl the eternal optimist

Asha'man

No, I don't agree. Advancing science is important, and must continue. But very few people are able to actively participate in this. The rest of the world will continue to ignore science, and believe whatever superstition or fairytales they grow up with.

If the human species is to survive, it must learn to think. At the moment, only a small minority seems capable of rational, skeptical, logical analysis. The rest are apparently unable or unwilling to see the contradictory and irrational claims made by the religions of the world. Somehow, therefore, we must teach critical thinking to the rest of the world.

How do we do this? I don’t know.

Attacking religion directly seems doomed to fail. (People appear willing to abandon rational thought entirely when their religious beliefs are threatened. This forum seems to demonstrate that quite clearly to me.) But we must at least attack the stupidest of the religious claims. (Biblical inerrancy and creationism seem like easy targets.) And we must continue to attack those claims until the religious salesmen move on to other claims. And then we must attack those new claims. Eventually, we may win some minds.