Lizard

STONETOOLS
And I think you might be missing MY point. Everybody on this board seems to just go into anti YEC mode, when someone posts anything different from the STANDARD II POSITION. My point is that advocates of evolution are shooting themselves in the foot politically by letting Dawkins & Dennett and such types be the definers of the pro evolution stance.The truth of YECism and IDism is less important to this point. The point is that their political strength is fed by the anttheistic prounouncements of the so called evolution advocates.

Me:

I agree with Stonetools. Provine is much-loved by Phillip Johnson because he is a hard-core atheist who confirms everything PJ says about "philosophical naturalists." BTW, Provine is a philosopher, not a scientist, so I don't know why his comments on science would be valuable, but that's another story.

Dawkins, Gould, Provine, Lewontin -- these are the most visible spokespersons for science, via their popular writings. The general public knows little about science but what they read in popular books and magazines or hear from others (in the case of church-goers of certain persuasions, their pastor's judgments are more important than anybody else's). They don't know much about science, and they don't care. What they do care about is protecting their children from what they consider negative influences. Atheism being one for approximately 90% of the American public.

Now -- this same 90% of the American public is the voting public. They elect people to local school boards and state Boards of Education. Creationists and ID promoters are lobbying those groups very hard. Unlike scientists, creationists and ID promoters can propagandize the faithful from pulpits every Sunday. And they do. Using quotes from Dawkins, Gould, et al. to make their point that all scientists are engaged in a campaign to do away with religion by indoctrinating children in "philosophical naturalism," aka atheism.

This is the case Phillip Johnson has made in all of his writings and talks. The public is getting it, loud and clear. Where are all the non-atheistic scientists who could be speaking out on this false assertion? The prominent ones can be counted on one finger: Kenneth Miller.

There is no way to "rein in" Dawkins et al. for the sake of winning the hearts and minds of the general public. I would say the best goal would be to find the other Kenneth Millers out there, or at least agnostics, to make the point that not all scientists are atheists bent on "wiping out God," as PJ asserts.

Humanists and atheists tend to be rabidly against any concession to public opinion. Some tend to be confrontational and abrasive, dismissing people's religious beliefs with ridicule, e.g., Dawkins. He's a brilliant man, but if he thinks he's enhancing the public understanding of science by infuriating the very people he needs to educate, he's not as smart as he thinks.

Yes, science is right. Creationism and ID are wrong. That isn't the point. It's who manages to convince the most voters to put pro-science people on local school boards and state Boards of Education who wins. And you don't do it by ridiculing them for their faith. You can only educate them when their minds are open, not closed by hostility. I'm not talking about converting the hard-core creationists and IDers. They're already committed. I'm talking about educating the mainstream religious people who don't know much about the subject and might be open to education.

stonetools

Thanks Lizard. Couldn't have put it any better myself. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />
At least a few atheists on this board are seeing the point. Others... well, its now pretty clear to me that pigheadedness and ignorance are not exclusive to YECs

Oolon Colluphid

Pigheadedness... if you mean stubbornness why, thank you!

Ignorance... hmmm... I'd strongly advise you to substitute a different word there, pal

Oolon

DMB

Was Laplace promoting atheism when he allegedly replied to Napoleon's question about where god came into his system, "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis?"

Science does not deal with gods. The god hypothesis is not required or helpful in the development of science. If you want to see what a real disaster it can be to drag god into every aspect of science, take a look at Pakistan.

That doesn't mean that individual scientists aren't free to believe what they like about gods and religions. If you believe in free speech, then they are also free to talk and write about their religious opinions, and many do.

We are part of a culture that glorifies celebrity. Actors, sportspeople, famous scientists and others can use their celebrity to propagate their opinions on religion, politics, morality, whatever. Why should Dawkins and Dennett be uniquely condemned for doing this with regard to atheism? If some football star goes on about the importance of god in his life, should I as an atheist stop my children from going to football matches because they might be polluted by religion?

In the UK, unlike the USA, creationism is a bit exotic. Evolution is not controversial. Mainstream xians don't reject evolution. When deciding what science is to be taught in schools, it is surely irrelevant what the religious beliefs of the teacher are, so long as s/he sticks to the science. YECs simply don't. They try to teach religion as science. They are the ones who are muddying the water by dragging religion into the science classroom. Dawkins isn't. He is not ashamed of being an atheist, but he is a distinguished scientist who is quite capable of talking about science without bringing in religion at all.

stonetools

then by all means, lets see him do it then.He seems to be almost irresistibly drawn to attack religion every chance he gets, so I'm not convinced that he can do it.
Dawkins and others have a perfect right to free speech. Problem is , folks who are concerned about scientists teaching their kids atheism mixed in with evolution also have a right to listen to them, to draw the appropriate conclusions, and to exercise their political rights. Thats precisely what they are doing. Everyone is exercising their rights, and because of mutual pigheadedness, American science education is suffering.

Ragnarok

I gotta come down mostly with stonetools here. Dawkins is pretty over the top in a lot of ways. He doesn't offend me but then I'm an agnostic and an evil-utionist. I can see how a lot of more or less reasonable Christians in the U.K. would find his views repellant and might be driven to question the teaching of evolution to their children (based on some of the things they hear him say).

That said, I live in the US. Here, few ordinary fundamentalists and YEC types have heard of Dawkins. They still spend most of their time bashing poor old dead Carl Sagan (who was pretty conciliatory towards faith). I think what America needs is another good low-key science and evolution popularizer(s) to come along and counter the creationism of the Hovinds, Hams and others. Unfortunately, none seem handy and we are now in the midst (since 9-11-01) of the biggest wave of outright crack-smoking fundy craziness I've ever seen. I don't really know what to do and the future of this country is very unlikely to be at all bright if we can't turn this crap around soon.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: MoCk ]</p>

randman

"Unfortunately, none seem handy and we are now in the midst (since 9-11-01) of the biggest wave of outright crack-smoking fundy craziness I've ever seen."

"Crack-smoking fundy craziness"?...well, at least this board can be amusing. Why Falwell was smoking crack the other day with Guiliani, his recent convert, and they began to realize that outlawing athiesm was the way to protect us from 9-11.
Is that the kind of thing Mock that you really beleive is going on?

By the way, Stonetools, has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason atheism is pushed via evolution so much is that evolutionism is as much a religiously oriented, political movement as good science?
I can tell you that my reaction to evolutionists here on this board, as far as my voting pattern, will be to keep them as far away from schools as possible. I think the preferred methods of teaching evolution has more to do with indoctrination than educating people to think for themselves.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: randman ]</p>

hezekiah jones

Do you have anything to support this assertion other than your own obvious pigheaded ignorance and collection of incredibly stupid internet links?

lpetrich

Philip Johnson accusing certain people of "wiping out God" is totally absurd; if there was one, I'm sure that It would strike him with lightning for making such a stupid remark.

Ragnarok

Not exactly, but I have noticed that the number of "Biblical America" types and adherents of "<a href="http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisrec.html" target="_blank">Christian Reconstructionism</a>" has skyrocketed since then as naive Christians have become increasingly militant in their desire to see their religion exalted above, especially, the Islamic faith that motivated the terrorists.

I also see a lot of these people doing an "I told you so" and claiming that they were right all along. You see, they will say, America is God's chosen nation but has drifted from its (imagined) Biblical moorings just like Israel in the OT. We are now being "chastized" by God for our apostacy and need only become a "Christian Nation" again to have our sins forgiven. Sound familiar randy?

And along with all this goes accelerated YEC and attacks on evolutionary science in favor of the 3000 year old myths of illiterate bronze-age fuck heads.