Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further in the pursuit of the truth.”
–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Hymn of the Universe,” (Harper and Row, 1961).
It took the jury fewer than fifteen minutes to convict substitute teacher John Scopes of the crime of teaching evolution to Tennessee public school students in 1925. It was the last victory of Christian fundamentalists in their war against the disciples of Darwin, and a hollow one at that. Although the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law, it reversed the verdict because the trial judge had imposed a $100.00 fine on Mr. Scopes, contrary to a provision in the Tennessee constitution requiring a jury to assess fines exceeding $50.00. In sending the case back, however, the court made the unusual suggestion that further prosecution not be pursued. Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 SW 363 (1927). It was not.
Fundamentalists were emboldened by the Scopes verdict. In 1928 Mississippi and Arkansas adopted similar laws and in the ensuing years, the subject of evolution was effectively dropped as a topic in many high school science courses, a trend that was not reversed until the Sputnik scare in 1958 led to a revamping of science curricula. It was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court decreed that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. Epperson v. Arkansas, 397 U.S. 97 (1968).
With direct bans no longer available, fundamentalists pursued a new strategy, the adoption of “balanced treatment” legislation requiring that teachers provide time for the exploration of the Genesis story of creation as an alternative explanation of biological origins. In 1983 a federal district judge threw out Arkansas’ balanced treatment statute, concluding that creationism is “not science because it depends upon a supernatural intervention which is not guided by natural law. It is not explanatory by reference to natural law, is not testable and is not falsifiable.” McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1267 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Several years later, Louisiana’s balanced treatment statute was also found to violate the Establishment Clause under the Lemon test. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).
Efforts to recast creationism as science under the name “intelligent design” were rebuffed in the now famous case of Fitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp.2d 707 (E.D. Pa. 2005), in which the court succinctly stated that “[intelligent design] cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.” 400 F. Supp.2d at 765.
But the war is far from over. Creationists are once again in court, and this time they are urging that the teaching of evolution in the public schools is itself a violation of, inter alia, the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses because evolution theory incorporates the “core tenets of Religious (‘secular’) Humanism.”
Cope (a/k/a Citizens for Objective Public Education, Inc.), et al., v. Kansas State Board of Education was filed on September 26th in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The case seeks to enjoin implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education in June of this year. Those standards are objectionable under the First and Fourteenth Amendment, according to the plaintiffs, because they endorse the “orthodoxy” of scientific materialism, which “holds that explanations of the cause and nature of natural phenomena may only use natural, material or mechanistic causes, and must assume that, supernatural and teleological or design conceptions of nature are invalid.” (Complaint, para. 8) Plaintiffs contend that teleological and materialistic explanations of the natural world create “competing religious beliefs.” (Complaint, para. 75).
The allegations are absurd on a number of levels. First, Plaintiffs have adopted a definition of religion which eliminates any requirement for belief in a supernatural entity. Second, Plaintiffs’ reasoning, if pursued to its logical conclusion, would virtually preclude the teaching of science in the public schools because their objections go to the basis of what we understand as the scientific method. Third, Plaintiffs rely upon the same flawed dualism that taints most fundamentalist arguments, the false assumption that acceptance of the findings of evolutionary biology are incompatible with religious belief in general and Christian belief in particular. The great paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin, for example, who is quoted above, regarded evolution itself as part of the process of divine creation.
This latest assault on science is not the first time that creationists have relied on the Secular Humanism argument In Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution, 636 F.2d 738 (D.C. Cir. 1980), the court rejected the claim that a museum exhibit of evolutionary processes constituted a governmental endorsement of Secular Humanism. The court held that the Establishment Clause does not prohibit a science display which may happen to be in agreement with a tenet of a particular religion. And in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, supra, the court observed, “Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause.” 529 F.Supp. at 1274.
Fundamentalists have failed in their attempts to create science out of religion. There is no doubt that they will also fail in their attempts to create religion out of science. The only serious remaining question is why we must continue to have the discussion.
David sez, “I’m not religious, so I have no dog in this fight to protect religion…”
“I have never denied being a theist. I have faith in God.”
See, David, when you say things like this, you’re being disingenuous. Because you put forth a lot of effort into defending religion; in school, government and society. It’s dishonest.
Your strategy much of the time is to try and appear innocuous when putting forth your opinions, as if us dumb liberals are gonna say to ourselves, “That David’s just being objective. I guess maybe he’s got a point after all”. My gut tells me that this is a technique they teach in seminars on how to talk to “Anti-Creators”.
It’s funny, most people in your position might go ahead and get that PhD if only for the increase in earning power it could bring. You blame the politics, but it seems there’s always something or somebody to blame in the magic kingdom. Politics, govt, bureaucracy, poor people.
It doesn’t surprise me that you despise all religions, it really doesn’t. Because clearly, you’re of an authoritarian bent and your over-sized ego doesn’t allow you to tolerate authority over your own.
With a PhD, it might help you achieve the world renown and glory you so desperately crave, without having to climb up into a bell tower with a high-powered assault rifle
RTC wrote: “See, David, when you say things like this, you’re being disingenuous. Because you put forth a lot of effort into defending religion; in school, government and society. It’s dishonest.”
It is not dishonest. I’m just more objective than you are about theism. I am probably less objective about religion. Your method of stereotyping (something everyone does and is the source of bigotry) just doesn’t know how to put me in the right box, so you yell dishonest. The world doesn’t always fit into your neat little boxes. Get use to it.
RTC wrote: “It’s funny, most people in your position might go ahead and get that PhD if only for the increase in earning power it could bring. You blame the politics…”
I’m not blaming anyone. It is what it is. I considered pushing through for that piece of paper some people cherish, but I decided I would become a better person if people did not trust me because of my credentials. It makes me work harder at my current research and at life. I later built a career and a business from scratch in a field for which I had absolutely no formal education and no credentials. There is nothing wrong with that. After that I founded a non-profit charity. Life is interesting and life is fun.
The Torah subjected to peer review? Now you you’re the one who can’t be taken seriously. The Torah is dogmatically defended by believers who never questioned its validity in the first place. Having taken it as a matter of faith, they defend out of pure emotion, rather than with the objective dispassionate approach good science demands.
And who are you to speak for Jews and Arabs? If they’re offended, they can speak for themselves. You can’t prove he existed without resorting to the the religious texts, which are far more flawed than the authentic scientific research you dismiss.
Instead of proclaiming yourself to be the spokesperson for two religions, why don’t you just say you’re offended. At least that would be the respectable thing to do.
RTC wrote: “The Torah subjected to peer review? Now you you’re the one who can’t be taken seriously. The Torah is dogmatically defended by believers who never questioned its validity in the first place. Having taken it as a matter of faith, they defend out of pure emotion, rather than with the objective dispassionate approach good science demands.”
I don’t think you understand the process by which a text becomes sacred. There are many other texts, sometimes fraudulent, sometimes just bad translations, etc. The process is perhaps better documented for the New Testament. Debates over which NT writings are Scripture and which are not took hundreds of years to resolve. For the Torah, we have insight from the Talmud and various councils which met and debated the question of which writings would be considered authoritative and which would not. None of these scholars just accepted writings as Scripture on blind faith. You just show ignorance when you suggest such things.
RTC wrote: “You can’t prove he existed without resorting to the the religious texts, which are far more flawed than the authentic scientific research you dismiss.”
The aspect of texts being regarded as religious texts make them MORE trustworthy, not less. It means that they have undergone far more extensive academic scrutiny. The problem is that your prejudice against religion affects your ability to think rationally about this. You assume that a religious text is simply a myth that nobody questions. That is not at all what a religious text is. Being a religious text does not make it right, but it certainly does not make it false either.
Your attempt to claim Abraham never existed is similar to how some claim Jesus never existed because most of the references to him are religious. Upon scrutiny, the argument is seen to be specious foolishness.
David sez, “I’m not religious, so I have no dog in this fight to protect religion…”
That doesn’t pass the smell test, Davey boy. If there’s one thing you oughta know by now, if you want any respect here, you better be honest. As consistently as you refer to the bible and Torah, to claim that you’re not religious, but simply a dispassionate scientist researching historical evidence is offensive.
As Gene once asked, how is it possible to study anything for nine years full time and not come away with a PhD? Probably because you couldn’t defend your cockamamie theories.
Steven Jay Gould once spoke about the drain of energy it took defending evolutionary theory against Creationists, like you. He said the evidence was there in the fossil record, consistently arrayed in the geologic record around the world. A researcher’s career lasts for maybe twenty years or so, in which to do real research, yet, having to refute the claims made by bible idiots (my phrase, not his) time and again took valuable time away from research.
Religion doesn’t need any protection, society and science need protection from Talibani like you.
RTC wrote: “As consistently as you refer to the bible and Torah, to claim that you’re not religious, but simply a dispassionate scientist researching historical evidence is offensive.”
I have never denied being a theist. I have faith in God. But I pretty much despise religious institutions. They all seem to be a racket to me, little men building empires to boost their egos and create a job for themselves. I see the same thing happening around blogs. If I saw any religion actually practicing the teachings taught in the Bible, I would join it. Thus far, I have never seen it. So I am a man of faith without a religion. Sorry that I don’t fit into your stereotype so you can start making fun of me based upon my religion.
If I was religious, I suppose I would have to keep it private considering how unwelcoming this blog is toward anybody religious. I don’t see how anybody religious could ever feel comfortable admitting it around all the vitriol expressed here against religion. It would be better for the religious to stay in the closet. I assume some of them do. It’s safer for them.
RTC wrote: “As Gene once asked, how is it possible to study anything for nine years full time and not come away with a PhD?”
I have enough credit hours to apply for the PhD, but at that level of study, it all becomes very political. One of my questions on my written PhD exams had to do with how I would respond to a creationist challenging me while I was teaching Vertebrate Comparative Anatomy. One of my professors thought it was the best answer he ever heard, but another professor on my committee thought it was the worst answer he ever heard. It only takes one professor to block me. At some point I just realized that there was nothing else these professors could teach me. There were no more classes to take. It was all political and was about whether I would bow to political pressure to abandon my theistic perspective. My being a creationist meant some people there would do everything in their power not to let me get a Ph.D. They can’t have any creationists with Ph.D. credentials running around, and they certainly do not want their colleagues to get wind of the fact that they were the ones who signed off on it.
RTC wrote: “Steven Jay Gould once spoke about the drain of energy it took defending evolutionary theory against Creationists, like you. He said the evidence was there in the fossil record, consistently arrayed in the geologic record around the world.”
What you don’t mention here is that Gould brought this upon himself by pointing out that the fossil record shows more non-evolution happening than evolution. This prompted him and Eldridge to suggest an evolutionary model of evolution called Punctuated Equilibrium. This model of evolution is more closely aligned with Intelligent Design models of origins than it is with models focusing on Natural Selection as being the mechanism of speciation. It was only natural for creationists to jump on this. Such embarrassed Gould with his colleagues, and because science is not allowed to consider Intelligent Design, he had to come out strongly denouncing the creationists as idiots misrepresenting his theory. Science is much more political than many people realize.
“I have great respect for the Torah… The unique thing about this work is that it records a careful genealogy of people. Whose other history does this? If the Torah is not history, what are we going to then argue, that Abraham did not exist, that Isaac did not exist, and Jacob (Israel) never existed? Next we will say that Jewish people do not exist? Surely not! That seems laughable to me.”
What seems laughable to me is the slide down the slippery slope you take to denying the existence of the Jewish people. And it’s downright hilarious that anyone other than a rabbi would consider the Torah a careful record of anything. In a time before written records, you think anybody couold remember back for more than a generation or two?
Did Abraham exist? Probably not, more than likely some Middle Eastern creation myth. And one of the easier ones to believe. What father hasn’t wanted to kill his kid at time or another.
“What’s that, Dear? The boy? Oh, I was just…ahhhh, um…. It was God! He told me to do it, I swear!”
Elsewhere, you compare versions of the Torah, which is like comparing one translation of The Brothers Grimm with another – they’re both fairy tales! The fact that you want to treat the Torah as an authentic document of history – as told by God – puts you in the same category as the Taliban.
And just as an aside, you do seem to have a thing for Abraham (remember when you claimed he made his fortune without exploiting anyone?). You got a little “Father Knows Best” thing goin’ on. Authoritarian much?
RTC wrote: “Did Abraham exist? Probably not…”
With one snide remark, you just offended millions of Jews and Arabs. Both groups consider Abraham to be their great ancestor. How would you like someone to claim that a respected great grandfather of yours never existed? I cannot take you seriously.
“With one snide remark, you just offended millions of Jews and Arabs.”
DavidM,
I’m proudly Jewish and I’m not offended. There are many Rabbi’s who wouldn’t be offended about the question being asked. One of the little understood aspects of Judaism is the long tradition of questioning.
Mike Spindell wrote: “I’m proudly Jewish and I’m not offended.”
Surely you know that many would be. I have debated Jewish Rabbi’s many times. They can be quite passionate, and I like that very much.
So what is your opinion, Mike? Do you believe that Abraham of the Torah is a fictional character like the Easter Bunny? Have your people wasted a lot of time talking about him and his righteous example? Do you consider it academic suicide to believe he is real, and that the Jews who believe Abraham existed are like the Taliban?
I suspect most Jewish Rabbi’s would not give such uneducated questions any attention at all. Foolishness often does not deserve an answer.
“I have debated Jewish Rabbi’s many times.”
DavidM,
Really? What did you debate them about? Jesus? Religion?
Mike – Many issues over the years. I have taken up the issue of Jesus (Yeshua) a few times, usually about what was meant in the Nevi’im in certain places and how they might apply to him. But more often it involved their understanding of the Torah. I probably shouldn’t say debate because I would learn a lot about the Talmud too, and sparred mostly to spot areas where I lacked understanding. It usually is a motivation for more study more than anything else.
“But more often it involved their understanding of the Torah.”
DavidM,
Do you read Hebrew? They do fluently. One of the many indignities pressed upon the Jews for the last 2,000 year is having our Holy Book re-interpreted by people not capable of understanding it I see you use Yeshuah for Jesus. Interesting choice though valid on its face. What makes it interesting is that it is used mainly by Jews for Jesus, which from a Jewsih perspective is a pernicious outfit. There is no Judeo-Christian continuum. One is either Jewish, or Christian, the two faiths are incompatible to those that understand the issues separating them. For somebody with no religious affiliation as RTC has pointed out, you do appear a Christian apologist as is your right, but I do feel it is obvious.
I’m not sure if there is such a group of “my fellow atheists”
There is a common human that has walked out of caves, walked away from the fantastical fairy paintings, and began to look at the sky. These I would call my fellow Homo Sapien sapiens.
There does remain a large group in the caves, immersed in fantasy, lit by the fire of their hubris, chanting into the darkness, dancing to echoes of their ancestors false belief. … cavemen in cave shelters with cave brains in their cave worlds.
This article is especially for David:
Please read (brief passage below):
http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Theist/140019/
THE NEW THEIST: HOW WILLIAM LANE CRAIG BECAME CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY’S BOLDEST APOSTLE
By
Nathan Schneider
When, during a conversation in a swank hotel lobby in Manhattan, I mentioned to Richard Dawkins that I was working on a story about William Lane Craig, the muscles in his face clenched.
“Why are you publicizing him?” Dawkins demanded, twice. The best-selling “New Atheist” professor went on to assure me that I shouldn’t bother, that he’d met Craig in Mexico—they opposed each other in a prime-time, three-on-three debate staged in a boxing ring—and found him “very unimpressive.”
“I mean, whose side are you on?” Dawkins said. “Are you religious?”
Several months later, in April 2011, Craig debated another New Atheist author, Sam Harris, in a large, sold-out auditorium at the University of Notre Dame. In a sequence of carefully timed speeches and rejoinders, the two men clashed over whether we need God for there to be moral laws. Harris delivered most of the better one-liners that night, while Craig, in suit and tie, fired off his volleys of argumentation with the father-knows-best composure of Mitt Romney, plus a dash of Schwarzenegger. Something Harris said during the debate might help explain how Dawkins reacted: He called Craig “the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.”
David,
I will take peer reviewed science over the Torah, the Bible or the Koran any day.
rafflaw wrote: “I will take peer reviewed science over the Torah, the Bible or the Koran any day.”
I think you are forgetting how much peer review the Torah has undergone. No scientific publication has undergone such a significant peer review process. We are talking about thousands of people over thousands of years.
Peer review in science means that two or three scientists read the paper and thought it was worthy to publish. Just one scientist can keep a paper from publication. I have been a reviewer myself. Just because I would sometimes cause a paper to be rejected from publication, does that mean the work is no good? Just because myself and two others thought it was worthy for publication, does that mean the paper is the truth? No to both questions. And then consider the question of fraud. We have many scientific publications that are known to be fraudulent, from Piltdown Man to Cold Fusion.
We really need to have healthy skepticism of everything we read, whether a writing held to be Scripture by a religious group or a study published in a scientific journal. But skepticism is healthy only if it provokes more inquiry and investigation. A skepticism that rejects information out of prejudice, shutting down inquiry, is not a healthy skepticism.
Good article, Mike Appleton.
But I don’t think religious fundamentalists want to define or redefine religion in any meaningful or productive way. Rather, they seek to make any useful definition of religion impossible for fear of what that would reveal about the meaninglessness of religion. They do have a political program, however, which seeks to undermine the teaching of science in the public schools. They call it “teaching the controversy.” For, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained:
“Controversy equalizes wise men and fools alike — and the fools know it.”
No, religious fundamentalists don’t want any generally agreed-upon definition of religion such as science demands of its practitioners. They want a shouting match between zealots hawking insoluble pseudo-questions; deliberately constructed conundrums designed to reduce science to mere “opinion,” no more valid or persuasive than any other brand of barbaric nonsense. They don’t want science, period. They want to encourage ignorance and fear, as they believe these infantile animisms will make inevitable the return to power of priest and prince, an indentured subservience that they desire far more than any genuine freedom.
Michael Murry wrote: “They don’t want science, period.”
Ridiculous. What they want to do is practice a type of science, a type of empirical investigation, which is open to considering models of origins that propose an intelligent designer. Establishment science today wants to avoid the question or consider the question resolved without any empirical investigation at all.
My last post to RTC got lost in WordPress. Little help retrieving it perhaps?
“We don’t really have a real clear grasp of the aging process anyway, so without that knowledge about what causes aging, we really can’t be authoritative in claiming the long ages are impossible.”
But our grasp of the aging process is good enough that we can be very certain no one was living to be three hundred years old back then. There is nothing in line with our understanding of natural law, cosmic radiation, ETC. to make us think otherwise.
You’ve claimed that the Torah is a “careful” genealogy”. How do you know, and what does that mean? Some rabbi went to every living person and asked them who there father was? You take the bible and the Torah at face value, but evolution is junk science. Wow.
I suppose you believe in THE ATOM SMASHING POWER OF MIND, too
RTC wrote: “You take the bible and the Torah at face value, but evolution is junk science. Wow.”
I NEVER said evolution is junk science. It is a fact that biological systems undergo evolution. What is not a fact is that an organism came into existence by some unknown natural process of abiogenesis, and that the entire diversity of life that we observe today descended from that single life form through completely natural processes.
There are organisms today that are thousands of years old. I simply consider it presumptuous to dismiss the possibility that under significantly different environmental conditions, humans might have had a longer lifespan.
One interesting fact about the Torah is that the Septuagint version, which is the version that seems to have been quoted a lot during the time of Christ, has different ages for these patriarchs than the Masoretic version. That raises my suspicion that perhaps the ages are not accurate, but I like to rely on more than just pure skepticism before I reject a hypothesis.
Oh, it’s not “junk science” that is the problem here, Dredd.
It’s you not understanding what you read except in your confabulated Midicholrian fantasy context.
“Coherently”? That word does not mean what you seem to think it means, especially in physics. It means the light is harvested in a way that maintains a constant phase state. Not that algae are coherently (which you seem to mistake for “cogently”) using quantum mechanics as a directed tool controlled by a consciousness. Even the non-physics meaning of “coherent” doesn’t comply with your wishes. It just means logical or consistent. It says nothing about intelligent control.
Gene H. 1, October 28, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Dredd,
A natural system with quantum components? Is not purposefully utilizing quantum mechanics. But the underlying technology of cell phones does. Get back to me when plants build a cell phone network. That’s applied science. What you refer to? Is simply nature. But that has been explained to you before. By me. By Tony. By OS.
=========================
I suggest that you guys (assuming Tony and OS are implicated as you say) get together and do a peer reviewed paper like the scientists who wrote the paper I quoted did.
The reference to the paper is:
.
Once you get into the journal Nature like they did, I will re-consider your junk science.
Their paper is science, and I only like to quote published science, not opinionated junk science by bully jerks with a stupid axe to grind.
Oro Lee 1, October 28, 2013 at 6:37 pm
“[T]he term [scientific method] is usually interpreted to mean there is only one, step-by-step approach to science.”
“It suggests that algae knew . . .”
A whole bunch of fancy-shmancy, semantic antics going on.
Algae ain’t got no cognition, about like them that think there’s only one way to do science and then deride the idea of the scientific method — which as pointed out above is the quantization of natural phenoms.
===============================
You need to become aware of “The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis” if you aren’t already.
It was a decade long effort to clean up such teleological terms in science.
Likewise, check out “teleology”, if you haven’t already.
The greatest offenders in teleology are evolutionary and other biologists:
(Putting A Face On Machine Mutation – 4). In fact, the statement you quoted “It suggests that algae knew . . .” is a statement by a biologist in a published paper.
Dredd,
A natural system with quantum components? Is not purposefully utilizing quantum mechanics. But the underlying technology of cell phones does. Get back to me when plants build a cell phone network. That’s applied science. What you refer to? Is simply nature. But that has been explained to you before. By me. By Tony. By OS.
“[T]he term [scientific method] is usually interpreted to mean there is only one, step-by-step approach to science.”
“It suggests that algae knew . . .”
A whole bunch of fancy-shmancy, semantic antics going on.
Algae ain’t got no cognition, about like them that think there’s only one way to do science and then deride the idea of the scientific method — which as pointed out above is the quantization of natural phenoms.
Mike Spindell 1, October 28, 2013 at 5:13 pm
‘Mike Spindell wrote: “Christian Theology taught as a matter of fact the world was flat.”
This for the most part is pure myth.”
Tell that to Galileo:
==============================
Galileo’s problem was discovering that the Sun did not orbit the Earth, it was the other way around (Wikipedia, Galileo).
The flat Earth myth is overrated:
(Wikipedia, Flat Earth Myth).
I think some of the problem Galileo had was in criticizing the Pope on heliocentric issues when he did not have to.
The Earth as the center of the universe was secular as well as religious, depending on who “had the say” at a particular time.
Note that The Holy Roman Empire version of the Catholic Church had become a vassal of the feudal King during some of that time.
Thus, some of the Popes were more secular at times than at other times, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
(American Feudalism – 2). Sons of nobles are sometimes sons of biatches that can do no wrong, i.e., can become infallible.
The Pope ordered a Cardinal to inform Galileo of a committee of the Church having put the works of Copernicus on a bad list.
That Cardinal, however, was somewhat supportive of Galileo:
(Wikipedia, Cardinal Bellarmine). Later it got worse, but not because of Cardinal Bellarmine.
Lest we mislead those who think there is only “the scientific method” rather that one after another “a scientific method”, let’s ask a scientific or religious question.
Take your pick.
Which came first, religion or science:
(The Tiniest Scientists Are Very Old). OMG.
Somebody call the advanced gene.
Gene H. 1, October 28, 2013 at 4:39 pm
Dredd,
You cannot underestimate how little I care what you think about science or the scientific method, Mr. Microbes Practice Science.
======================
It was your use of “the scientific method” rather than “a scientific method” which threw me off and made me think you wanted more than anything to know what I thought of your one and only true scientific method of the one true science.
And if those mikeys practice as hard as you do, they will make perfect in their own eyes.
And oh yes, I do not misunderestimate you.
The real problem for our nation is the creationists have important allies in the world’s most powerful class. The most powerful people around may be capable of rational, scientific reasoning, they just don’t care about using their capabilities.
Plenty of world leaders are capable of understanding the gravity of global warming. They know how old the earth is, they know that fossil fuels will run out. They understand the earth has finite resources and that humans need clean air, earth and water to live. These are often people in the religious mainstream. These are people that make others comfortable because they are “civilized” and “scientific”. Well are they? Of course they aren’t either. What they are is dangerous. It’s a kind of danger that is difficult for many educated, mainstream religious people to see, because they appear rational at first glance. However, it is no less crazy to ignore reality one way (creationism) than to ignore it another way (refusal to grapple with the known science).
We have a convergence of action by creationists and those who are world dominators. Difficult to see, but no less there for the difficulty.
Dredd,
You cannot underestimate how little I care what you think about science or the scientific method, Mr. Microbes Practice Science.