Why is the public becoming so hostile to science?

I started thinking about this in the context of our evolution battle here in Kansas. Conservatives have the majority in the board, and they're in bed with the ID people, the state Attorney General, and 40 members of the Kansas House (who just signed a resolution promoting "objectivity in science," which is code for ID, which is code for creationism). This column is heavy on satire, but it does make some good points:

Board members aren't likely to know a whole lot about science, and with a 6-4 conservative majority after last fall's elections, it won't take much to convince them to go along with Harris' slick pitch for "objectivity" in science standards.

Sometime in the next couple of months, the Strip imagines that the board will approve Harris' suggested changes to the state's science curriculum, allowing nonscientific attacks on evolution to become standard fare in the public schools.

Not that anyone will be able to tell the difference.

Al Frisby just retired after teaching science for 30 years in the Blue Valley School District, and he tells the Strip it's already impossible to talk about evolution's concepts to today's Kansas teenagers without getting a lot of eye-rolling in return. He's now teaching across the state line in Liberty, and he says in recent years, students' outright hostility to science has made it difficult to do his job.
http://www.pitch.com/issues/2005-02-17/news/strip.html

So, where are our scientists and logical thinkers going to come from??? Does this hostility come from religious attitudes, the Bush brand of "don't need no stinkin' evidence," or from somewhere else? And how can we even begin to combat it? I really find this worrisome.

STUPIDITY

CHURCH

Laziness would be a close second.

Stretching the explanation out a bit:

I firmly believe that the modern world has become too complex. Even persons of considerable intelligence have a difficult time putting all the pieces together and understanding the world in a multi-diciplinary fashion. Quite simply, everyone has become such a specialist in their respective fields that they have no time to understand other fields. As a result, persons who are "doing the right thing", as their particular field defines it, wind up confused. They think "I am doing the right thing, but everything is going to hell in a handbasket." And they are right, but the explanation is that they have no concept of how their acts are impacting others. People fail to make the conceptual connections that are more than one degree of separation away. Example: people fail to realize that the McMansion they want requires more driving, and thus more gasoline, exacerbating the trade deficit, devaluing the currency and making it harder to acquire oil for dollars, thus requiring a diplomatic / military intervention against countries which refuse to denominate oil sales in dollars or who refuse to build pipelines. To admit this takes 1) a good bit of information 2) a willingness to shed the moral superiority that seems to be part of the American identity, and 3) a bit of intellectual effort.

Rather it becomes simpler to explain the situation away in terms of evil muslims who hate us for our freedom. Science is withering on the vine for similar reasons. First, it takes a good bit of information to understand - you have to understand different diciplines of science and how they interact. Second, science challenges persons in that it suggsts that a human is an animal rather than god's chosen being. Everyone wants to think that god smiles on them ("jeebus loves me, this i know..."). Subscribing to objective scientific inquiry requires shedding such a supposition and being willing to look at the facts in a way that may demonstrate that god doesn't exist, or worse, God might even hate you. Third, Science requires intellectual effort - it is much easier to watch American Idol than it is to study biology, chemistry or anatomy. Quite simply, there is little instant gratifiaction in science and academic pursuits.

Religion, like pop culture, provides instant gratification. Want an answer - see the book. Don't want to think - the book will do it all for you. Want to feel like you are at the center of the universe - have a relationship with God.

People have become soft and lazy - religion suits those type of people; Science and academic inquiry do not. There's your answer.

Hands down. We have gone from the Greeatest Generation who defeated Hitler to the Worst and Most Cowardly Generation, who accurately replicate the caharcteristics of those who allowed Hitler into power.

Full circle.

... as RPM intimated...

It's cuz we have stupid parents who create little versions of themselves...

Precious little has happened in the last 50 or so years - of the pardigm-shifting variety - that requires any additional intellectual gifts (either pre- or post-birth).

I guess some things in computer science are the closest I can think of....

they are synonymous

And they are not ready to let go of that fantasy.

The same people who are saying that Democrats are not Christian are also saying that if you are Christian, you can't beleive anything science tells you.

scientist, but was in a fundie school. I remember agonizing over this - literally pacing around my room - could I study science and still believe all that fundie stuff? Yes, science literally is degraded by fundies in religion.

...are going overseas.

Somehow RW talking points have become the order of the day...in the same way that college is being associated with snobbery, or New England elitism, science is being derided as wasteful, dubious (as with global warming), and the realm of geekery.

Welcome to High School America.

Science, Technology, and Democracy-its pretty interesting. edited by Daniel Kleinman

The right is not the only group hostile to science-they just want to eradicate it. The new social movements arose from hostilities toward technological risks associated with scientific discover, but have demanded seats at the planning table rather than demanding to censor it-hence the democracy part. Its a crisis of social organization and meaning of expertise.

Dorothy Nelkin wrote a good book in the 70' as the creationism movement started to build steam. Also a good one to read if you can still find it.

that it's not just a bunch of whacko reightwing fundies doing all of this. I've had plenty of problems with my fellow-travelers on the left who profoundly distrust science.

Science is knowledge and change. Both of them are threats to those who hold certain cherished beliefs that they refuse to change, and there are "believers" throughout the political and theological spectra.

Besides, science is hard work. Lots of facts and math you have to deal with that get in the way of frat parties. It's not nearly as easy to bullshit your way through a hard science major as most of the others.

Stanford, MIT, and some other top tier schools say that as much as 70% of science and engineering grad students are foreign. They used to stay here and work for places like Bell Labs, but now there are a lot more openings overseas, so it bodes ill.

I think however that most people on the left have valid reasons for distrusting scientists. Its not science they distrust its merely the absence of boundaries they fear. This fear is grounded in experience. Atomic bombs, nuclear power, molecular biology, mechanical engineering etc. have introduced unforeseen risks to the planet as a whole. I for one am happy to see a dialog between citizen's and scientists. It will make the oxymoron scientific citizen less of an oxymoron and more of an actuality. on the one hand the public can be more informed (there have been studies to indicate that scientific literacy is possible and very quickly if an honest dialog is maintained-something muddied by political communications wishing to obfuscate the issue to protect the interests of the parties). Even a fundamentalist can turncoat if they are able to see through the thickets and find the honey pot. Take stem cells: Discuss the difference between pluripotent and totipotent cells and introduce them to the functional metaphor and how the differentiation of stem cells evolves into a functioning organ. How various organs are regenerative will demonstrate how stem cells work. The pluri and toti distinction even though overly simple for a scientist is adequate as an introduction to why embryonic have such a wide open future and why biologists are excited about it. Then explain to them that the difference between an embryo and a zygote is that, unlike the zygote, the embryo can not differentiate into a fully organic system like a human. It neither has a soul or the capacity to develop one. They might change their mind and, with certain vulgarizations, the reasons for reconsidering were summarized in one paragraph.

It doesn't take a huge effort to create a competent scientific reader or critic, neither does it to create an incompetent one-that's why the attack on primary, secondary, and higher science education is so disconcerting. We have been distracted from the business of socializing such citizen's. However, the effort is huge collectively.

But there is the opposite problem equal in proportion to the illiterate one-at least they go hand in hand. The scientist as responsible citizen remains a delicate balance. Mary Shelley pointed this out very well in Frankenstein. She was deeply embedded within the natural philosophy community and the emerging progressive community given who her parent's were. She saw both the necessity of and the moral limits of scientific progress. How far will the community let it go? It took the public to hold the scientist accountable for breaching the boundaries of human dignity. It takes the public to remind them that scientists too are citizens. Otherwise there is no accountability and we have an open market keen to unethical experiments (as a long history of human and animal "testing" attests to, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the now emerging NY State hospital case that infected young children with Hepatitis so that they could track its course).

Can the public understand the inner workings of science? Sure, the scientists had to learn this stuff too. But that remains largely a counterfactual.
Scientists aren't a special class or race of people that hold a natural right to a monopoly on expertise. That's something built into the organization of science and its relationship to society. Its a monopoly the scientists held until a more populist notion of governance started to invade its space (see above referenced book). Now we have IRB's that check ethical standards, consensus conferences that involve community participation, and a whole host of "public education" campaigns designed to inform the public. The trick for us will be to ensure that people see through the thickets (the continued attempts to block a free flow of information to the public) as well as ensure that scientists don't indirectly blow up Nagasaki again. That will involve beating down the intelligent design movement-which by the way is given legitimacy by many of the shoulders the scientists must stand upon. Some key actors believed in intelligent design as well; as they believed they were writing the book of nature-the final gospel.

I think realizing the enlightenment always had a counter-enlightenment, or as some European theorists might say, reflexive modernization, that was both progressive (the new social movements would be the modern examples) and regressive (the intelligent design movement, the business interests etc.). It will be easy to discount the progressive critics of science as mere sophists because their objects of critique are extra-natural and often times moral. most often their critique isn't an integral one, though it can be and often should be (the stranger always points out the elephant in the room obvious to most any outsider), its much larger and more worldly. It will also be easy to overlook these people as potential allies with valid tales to tell, as was done by the reactionary science warriors. This will only weaken science against its real adversary, the regressive movements that keep the public in the dark on introduced risks or even seek to return us all to the dark ages. Without the progressive reflection on science there would be no search for renewable energy at all, no Kyoto protocol, etc. These things have forced the scientists and engineers (if they are that distinct of labels) to be more productive citizens beyond being purely productive scientists who as history shows have been blind to the consequences of their work. I say let them rewrite each other. Plato was wrong to let Socrates assume a special place for the philosopher king. S(he) has his/her own chains and shadowmakers to come to terms with.

I think we can all agree that this is a complicated world, and nobody has a real handle on all issues, much less some of the more obscure science.

The problem is essentially over the uses of science, not science itself. When it gets to our level, many of us grew up with commercials for "Better Living Through Chemistry" "Atoms for Peace" and the like. More recently-- the internet will solve all of our problems.

Well, chemistry gave us Love Canal, and the peaceful atoms gave us Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Kind of makes you cynical of progress, and makes you forget the good things that come out of it.

Since few of us are engineers and know how these things really work, we get news and impressions from somewhere. At first, we got the impression that nuclear energy would give us free electricity forever. Then we got the impression it will kill us all. Both are wrong, of course, and knowledgable people in the industry know both the advantages and limitations of nuke plants.

But, the debate doesn't center where it should-- the proper design and operation of the plants, but over hysteria about what "could" happen in the worst case. The two worst cases that did happen happened because of rotten (and cheap, btw) design and more cost "savings" in operations.

So, we'll just eliminate nukes because we "think" they'll kill us all, and ignore the safe plants running all over the world. We'll trash the chemical industry, and ignore simple and effective methods of cleaning things up. We'll trash the oil and timber industries, and all the rest of the "bad guys" without alternative plans to get the fuel or plywood we use.

On the other hand, we might support these things, because we ignore the safe and efficient alternatives for making the things we use.

Propaganda from all sides drives these debates, and the loudest mouth, often the deepest pocket, tends to win.

There really isn't much in Judeo-Christianity to deny evolution, stem cell research, or much of the other crap that some are spewing. There are some very devout astronomers out there finding that 10 billion year old galaxies colliding don't make them question their beliefs, but reinforce them in some ways. Same with some biologists and others who delve into the deepest mysteries of life and find that the more they learn, the more they respect the designer. But, they won't get into the popular "intelligent design" debate, because it makes no sense at all, and doesn't fit well with either science or religion.

I also believe that the self-correcting function of the scientific process is also a contributing factor to the distrust of science. People want stability and "truth" that withstands time. The ever evolving knowledge created trough the scientific process occasionally reveals the ephemeral character of "knowing." many people aren't comfortable that their beliefs have to evolve with the material evidence. Certainly this affliction is more common in the dogamtically religious, but it is not unique to those communities.


Add to that an orchestrated campaign to undermine intellectualism and you have a recipe for disaster.

how many people have just tune out the latest health&diet news because it changes almost daily.

Carbs-- bad yesterday, good today.

Fat-- good and bad at the same time.

Red wine, coffee, green tea...

I keep hearing comments like "They don't know what the hell they're talking about. Why don't they just make up their minds."

Frustrating, isn't it? Not the changing knowledge, which is exciting, but that mass refusal to deal with change.

with regards to science, information and knowledge. We have new tools that are remarkably more powerful than the tools we used only a few decades ago. These tools are yielding quantities of data undreamt of before. But we are also realizing that raw data doesn't necessarily allow one to open the door to a complex problem-- perhaps only peak through the keyhole.

I think as we advance in science we realize that EVERYTHING is more complicated and perhaps chaotic than we might have believed just a few decades ago-- the universe, biology, climate, electro-magnetism, particle physics-- in every field it seems that the deeper you go, the less you know, or thought you knew.

At some point we come to a level that appears untestable-- string theory for instance. A beautiful theory and quite possibly true, but I seriously doubt that we will advance the theory to the realm of fact in my lifetime-- if at all.

Suddenly you enter the realm of faith.

which is the future orientation of faith. Some hope one day to make string theory observable and testable, just like the microscope confirmed and expanded micro-biology. Now some hope that those discoveries lead to a biological revolution in cell regeneration. Perhaps string theory will lead somewhere more than the textbook as well. What's the bumper sticker say, "Imagination is more important than knowledge" I guess that's true in cases such as these.

There is no "Clear Channel" (pun intended) that exists to get the masses engaged in a dialogue about science so that they too can understand its hypothetical processes. As a previous poster mentioned, sometimes one finds it hard to revise their thinking when the material conditions of the lab don't fit the theory. That "refusal" runs pretty deep. Hard to let go of a life's work when a youthful hunch doesn't pan out in old age. Perceptually and emotionally.

science brought us the atomic bomb (in a sense... politicians really brought it, but the theory of relativity was a necessary ingredient), but also cars, bridges, microwaves, airplanes, vaccines, phones, organ transplants, cell phones, computers, the internet(s) and hence also ultimately democratic underground (and etc, etc, etc, etc)

If you're willing to stop or coerce or impose limits on science, I hope you are also willing to sacrifice all the uncountable and huge improvements on quality of life that also steam from science.

I would prefer to hold politicians and companies accountable, rather than scientists. Especially theoretical scientists.

not some 2,000 year old fairy tale.

We really need to round up all rightwingnuts and inter them in camps. Enough with their fringe minority bullshit already.

They've more than proved ya can't work with the stupid bastards, so for ours and the world's good, it's past time to do to them what they've said for years they want to do to us.

:wtf: :wtf:

Let us not become what we hate.

We ALL have the impulses inside of us to commit atrociites.

I would not supporting doing to them what they plan to do to us in some form.

That is what seperates Civilized People from nazis, even the Kinder and Gentler Bushevik variety.

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

No need for worry. No I wouldn't support doing to them what they would happily do to us. I think my whatever # of posts on this board clearly show that.

But some days, oh yeah some days when I was being cyber-stalked and rightwignnut bastards were trying to find out who my soldier hubby was so they could "get at him in Iraq", I dream about being done to them exactly what they so badly want to do to us. A true Twilight Zone episode; remember the racist that found himself a Jew in Hitler's Germany?

Who want to "get your husband" who is serving in Iraq?

Are you serious?

(I ask that question knowing you are, it's more a prefunctory ritual when confronted with atrocity, I know)

Go ahead, then, let it out. But be sure you mention that its your Cyberstalkers and people threatening your husband you would like to do it to, not all Republicans.

Not everyone will understand where you are coming from unless you tell them, as is evidenced by this exchange.

For the past 2 years. Since October 2002, actually, when I first posted that bush was lying his arse off about Iraq's "wmd" and ties to 911/al Qaeda.

Then hubby got sent to Iraq for 14 months and they really went to town, that was in that incredible "fog of war" period when the US majority opposed bush's war and the rightwignnuts went insane, December 2002-summer 2003; cyber-stalking, following me to every board I posted to on the net, some truly nasty name-calling which is no big deal, but I gotta tell ya, to be told by "fellow Americans" they want you to be dragged through the streets of your own country being kicked and spat on until you're dead...not something I ever ran into before and it was damned shocking to me.

Then they started trying to find out my snailtrail address, and what unit my hubby was with because they "knew people in Iraq who would take care of" my husband. They started on about how they knew people in Texas that could "take care of traitors".

There I was, all alone in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, hubby facing death every frigging day in Iraq, (he knew before he went it was all bullshit; his entire unit knew) and I was so TERRORIZED by these rightwingnut "LADIES" that I'd known online for several years that I had a bench wedged against my front door for several months.

And if & when I ever come face to face with the bitches, I will show them what Jesus DIDN'T mean when he said turn the other cheek.

I dislike ALL republicans because the Party platform is a mean nasty greedy one. If they're too ignorant to know what the party they vote for stands for, tough for them; ignorance is no defense. The fact that over 80% of republicans still support bush's slaughtering of innocent men, women & kids in Iraq -theirs & ours- is enough evidence for me to say I hate em all.

But no, I wouldn't support doing to any of them what they would love and support and openly discuss wanting to do to us.

I do usually add *sarcasm* or rolling eyes etc to my post but today I just didn't feel like it. I am ANGRY today, dammit.

so they denounce it as they listen to religious music on their I-Pods.

that civilization will grind to a standstill.

Frank Zappa, "Flakes"

running around the world invoking terror --- when no one can see them, identify them or capture them, they're bound to believe the lies laid on science or the discredit laid on scientific issues, such as global warming and the cancer epidemic.

People are morons.

our curriculums and passed kids on who never learned how to learn. Without encouraging intellectual curiosity and treating school like a daycare center, we have lost the opportunity to set expectations for excellence from a whole generation. Add to thatthe corresponding slide downhill sholastic endeavor in our institutions of higher learning, some of which is attributable to lowered thresholds for admission to accommodate the child who's just graduated having not learned essential materials.

There is also the undeniable fact that scientists are expected to produce marketable ideas at most universities these days to help cover for disappearing public funds for higher education. Seeking corporate donors to underwrite studies creates a conflict of interest and many intimidated or unscrupulous scientists not averse to publishing studies of dubious quality.

In a climate of ignorance and disregard for ethics, superstition and fear rush in to fill the void. Magical thinking replaces critical thinking. We are all to blame for this current state of affairs.

Go way up would be my guess. When Bush's war crippled oil production in Iraq crude jumped way up. Crippling Iran's production will do the same. Iraq and Iran have the third and forth highest reserves. Saudi Arabia is first then Russia. We would have to kill every Muslim in the Mid-East before we could peacefully steal their oil. Hey Bush! This plan LOL of yours will not work. If we nuke them the whole area would be contaminated so no one could use the oil, and a sudden oil shortage crisis would result. Please Bush, except the fact that we cannot win with war.

Of course if the Bush family has large oil holdings the price increase would be a win for them.

is the single greatest threat to our nation and to our freedom. They want to control everything that you think , see and hear. They want all information and data to be passed though a biblical filter.

over the past decades, in both schools and media. News broadcasting has moved for reporting facts and investigation to info-tainment. Michael Jackson's trial will get factors more coverage than the casualties returning from Iraq. :dunce:

Dumbing down the populace makes them easier to control, like the bread and circuses of Rome.

Strangely, intellectualism can be just as anti-science. For an excellent (and funny) expose of this, read Sokal and Bricmont's "Intellectual Impostures". You can find a review of it by Richard Dawkins here:

Dawkins reviews "Intellectual Impostures"

Most of the practitioners of that variety of bullshit identify themselves as politically on the left, so let's not blame all of the hostility to science on the right. The left po-mo crowd promote a relativism which claims that science is just one more way of looking at the world, with no more claim to rightness than any other. Though, paradoxically, they're more than happy to borrow the language of science to lend their thoughts a spurious air of rigour.

He blamed them for not understanding HIS science but he couldn't grasp the form of objectivity developed by social philosophers in the 19th century used by the people he mistakenly thought were critiquing his work. They were rediscovering something lost by the real po-mos. And in Sokal's reaction, have illuminated what has become the secular totem that renders critique taboo. Read Emile Durkheim's Rules of the Sociological Method and then read Bruno Latour's Pandora's Hope: On the Reality of Science Studies These are neither relative nor po-mo, nor nihilist. Latour claims to be neither modern nor post-modern. And they are very similar in their ontological assumptions and they are both French where the po-mo kings have most often sprung from.

Sokal, came off like Bill O'Liely in his cherrypicking of quotations and boorish behavior. For those who actually read some of the work he thought he was satirizing he looks like a ferile child who believes he is king (one whose clothes were amusingly absent and reinforced by his snickering allies-sounds familiar to me). His "hoax" was a troubling affair for one non peer reviewed journal, but he did nothing but solidify the view that various wings of the scientific community are dangerously anti-democratic and anti-intellectual in their own right. If you take the time to read the work he obscures in his footnotes you will see what I am talking about. Nothing like a wedge between would be and should be allies who have much to learn from one another.

Same place as always from among those kids who are curious.

Curiosity is damned difficult to stop because learning is a fundamental part of human nature.

if the schools' presentation of science sucks. (I would have been one of those kids ... I was born a science geek and a compulsive reader.) But it still concerns me that so many people don't have even a morsel of scientific literacy now. We need those skills as a society.

We are a long lived species, and our lives present us with many risky, unpredictable, rare events. Such a life favors learning as opposed to dumb instinct.

I have faith that our innate capacity to learn will drive "some" to intellectual lives. They may suffer the slings and arrows of the deliberately stupid, but in the end, like a single candle burning in the darkness they will attract the attention of the masses.

There's a vast shortage of American kids interested in science by the time they get to college.

Women are not built to be able to understand Math and Science so we must give them something they can understand.... God........:shrug: IOW Freepers are just "girly-men"

So I reject the "feminization" argument. :P

There are more and more films which depict supernatural events, battles of good and evil, God and the Devil and the relentless attempt to roll back the Age of Enlightenment by Republican Religious fanatics and the old culprit, TALK RADIO.

But apathy is also a factor. In Kansas, I guess we're both residents, the Board fanatacism was reversed once but then moderates went to sleep and these fanatics took over again.

Live show on-line sounds interesting.

9:00 AM Central


Kathleen Dunn - 06/23D
Cults, quacks and gurus -- that's what characterizes today's era, according to Kathleen Dunn's guest, after nine. Join in the conversation about what he calls: The Epidemic of Idiocy.

Guest: Francis Wheen, author, "Idiot Proof." (Public Affairs) REBROADCAST FROM 6/23/04



http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/

R A P T U R E

An author talking about the attack on Enlightenment values (by right & left)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3128673

This paragraph appeared in the latest TIME magazine cover article "What teachers hate about parents." A science teacher in Baltimore was talking about anatomy when one of the boys in the class claimed "There's one less rib in a man than in a woman."

The Time article:

"The teacher pulled out two skeletons -- one male, the other female -- and asked the student to count the ribs in each. 'The next day,' the teacher recalls, 'the boy claimed he told his priest what happened and his priest said i was a heretic.'"

and it is not stressed anymore. We need to require more math and science at every level of school. When people don't learn about it, it becomes the Unknown, and when there are people out in the world with an anti-science agenda getting into the media all the time, the fear of the Unknown grows.

On a side note, I find it disappointing that in order for a scientist to be "well-rounded," he or she has to read a lot and such, yet someone in the liberal arts disciplines does not have to learn about organic chemistry or fluid dynamics. Another problem with our society.

Luckily for me, my sons are quite curious.

They aren't really introduced to science in any meaningful way until 3rd grade. That is wayyyy too late for me. And we're in one of the best school districts in the state.

buy caterpillars, set up tadpole tanks, take them on nature walks, make models of the solar system ... fun, godless, liberal stuff like that. ;)

Just yesterday 3 of our 5 butterflies emerged. It is so much fun for the boys to see the process. Plus, they've been keeping notes in their scientific journal. Since they're only 5 and 6, their observations are very simplistic.

I picked up a set of Young Scientist encyclopedias last year for my oldest. He is a strong reader, so it was really the perfect match for his curiousity. They have some wonderful basic experiments too.

Are things that DON'T happen in the public schools -- takes too much time away from preparing for testing. I've always thought that the U.S. school system could take such advantage of children's natural curiosity in this way, to teach science. I remember growing sprouts in a jar and then in a milk carton, looking at tadpoles in the fetid water back behind the school, passing around fossils found in a nearby slate dump, etc.

situation wasn't quite so alarming.

It's always been present, but with the rise of the Talibornagains into power, they're making it their mantra. After all, their religion can only exist if people lack critical thinking skills; questions and curiosity are not allowed.

depends on a public that won't ask the hard questions. Scary.

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other countries in science. I'd have thought they'd want us to advance.

A good synopsis of the strategy and performance is here:

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/ConstitutionRestorationAct.htm

"



Editor's Note: February 28, 2004 Update: This article omits one fact that should have been included: the bill was drafted by former Judge Roy Moore's lawyer, Herb Titus. Those who have read The Despoiling of America will know that Titus was the first Dean of Pat Robertson's School of Public Policy and is a known Dominionist who has advocated the abolition of the government's licensing powers. He has argued that government oversteps when it licenses lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc. Also, an earlier bill titled "Religious Liberties Restoration Act," S. 1558 dated July 21, 2003, specifically authorizes the display of the ten commandments and other religious references and exempts such items from judicial review by the U.S. Federal Courts. Our question is: What is actually intended by the Constitution Restoration Act of 2004?]

We wrote about it before it happened, we called them by their own name, Dominionists, and we told you that Dominionists in Congress were about to fire their first guns for reformation of the American government.

On January 6, 2004, the Yurica Report published “America Stands on the Edge of a Grave Constitutional Crisis Linked to Pat Robertson.” In that article we reported that televangelist Pat Robertson devised a number of ways of limiting the power of the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of America. To quote from the article, Robertson said as early as March 24, 1986, “Congress could say, ‘There’s a whole class of cases you can’t hear’ and there’s nobody can do anything about it!” "

Now...about those class action lawsuits...

see our own Sam Brownback right in the middle of it... :eyes:

Train them, then send them out on their own.

Sheesh.

1. You get studies that make claims and then are contradicted by later studies; the idea that both can be right, or that the truth can be hard to get to, isn't palatable to the people fed science the way the public schools do. People also have few clues as to statistics. And can't accept that a study with statistically valid results can actually be fatally flawed.

2. Technology doesn't always turn out well. Look at the recent problems with drugs. You succumb to pressure to fast track them, and then there's pressure not to fast track; you do a trial with 10,000 subjects, get 3-4 death higher than expected and you can't tell if it's significant. But with 10 million people on the drug, it's significant, the drug's pulled. That it may save more lives than it takes doesn't enter the picture.

3. People don't trust what they don't understand. I've had too many people say microwaves were bad. Try to explain it to them, and it doesn't sink in. Those buggers stay in the food and come out later to cook your stomach. :-)

4. People don't understand (often) what they think they understand. Argued with one guy who thought the earth was hollow and some other species (origin of flying saucers) walked on the inside. Tried to explain how gravity worked, and that there would be no gravity felt by people on the inside of the sphere. No, he understood gravity ... just not the way it actually works.

5. People want to believe. Whether it's gasoline pills that transmutate water, or psychic phenomena, desire to believe outweighs boring facts.

Yep. Take it to it's final phase, and you have Witch Burnings.

No, I don't think there will be witch burnings in Imperial Amerika 2100 (althohgh if there were I would not be in the least surprised), but 2200 and beyond...more than possible, probable!
Or perhaps it will be some new kind of Church/State oppression.

Glad I won't be alive to see it.

Government can promote certain attitudes toward science and can set the tone of debate. My hpyothesis is that throughout most of the 20th century science was promoted as a means of progress and this met perfectly with the goals of big business. In the early 60's environmental problems began to come to the public attention and governemnt responded (eventually) with scientific fixes in the EPA, clean air act, etc. The Reagan administration had a huge debt to the fundamentalist right and big business and began using tobacco industry tactics to counter environmental and energy science. We've always had fundamentalists, but they didn't have enough politcal clout to do much damage. Now any industry group that has sufficent funds can create the impression through the media that 'science' has no consensus on any issue they oppose.

I thinking that attitudes toward science could be artificially broken into eras:
1900-1940 - great advances in healthcare, transportation, energy distribution, flood control, communication. Edicon, Westinghouse, Ford, Salk are popular figures heralded by the media, self made, all-american.

1940-early 1960's Science & Technology builds the arsenal of democracy, better living through chemistry, Plastics, the green revolution. We've got ICBMs and the space race at the end and the government and media propaganda machine developed during WW2 is in full force promoting science.

early 1960's-1980 We're starting to recognize some serious problems - pesticides, smog and traffic, industrial water pollution, lead. These problems were there before, but there is governmental action to do something about them.

Reagan era until present - Reagan has a dismissive attitude to science. Acts like he doesn't understand it, and therefore can't make decisions about the validity of claims himself. Here the big business and fundamentalist causes are getting their payback. Ozone depletion is questioned with greenwash tactics, fuel economy stagnates and then declines...

never found the general public to be hostile to science. The number 1 reaction I get from people when they ask what I do for a living is "man I wish I knew more about that I always was interested in science".

You wake up one morning and we are cloning sheep and adding parts of human brains to mice and people say to themsleves and watching movies on their cell phones and people say, "Whoa....I still haven't really come to grips with tv yet."

... and that's good enuff...

I'm pretty sure that my standards on what constitutes a "basic education" are somewhat higher than what others in this thread might think, however....

they just feel emboldened after shrubya's reelection

Intellectualism is being suppressed while religion is encouraged, as seen in Fascism. This supports the Radical Right Wingnuts in gaining control and creating an alternative reality. Cults use these same tactics to brainwash their followers.

Christian fundamentalism is the perfect fit for the Rightwing rulers since it is a Conservative religion that strictly controls behaviors, creates hostile intolerance of anyone who is different, discourages intellectualism, and demands a blind allegiance.

Call it what you like:
Bush's Culture of Hate
NeoNazism
Right Wing Mythology
Religious RightWing Reich

I agree with the comment that they aren't concerned about falling behind because they will ship in foreigners. Currently, 60% of our top researchers are foreigners.

...what they want to hear.

Why listen to scientists warn you about environmental degradation, and think about all the very hard work solving it would require, when you can listen to some religio-hack tell you that we're all gonna rapture outta here any day now to be with Jesus, so we really don't need to worry about the stupid planet anyway...

by ignorance and anti-intellectualism in the Christian list of the Seven Virtues.

that the public is hostile toward science today in greater numbers than "yesteryear?"

You may be correct in this assumption-- but until we see some numbers, an anecdotal reference isn't of much use.

Personally, I have not seen a notable shift in how the general public views science-- but I am absolutely willing to concede the point provided some compelling evidence.

and you're correct that this is an assumption. It's an assumption based upon what I see happening in regards to science education, and, at the national level, in *'s stifling of science that doesn't say what he wants to hear. I'm looking for hard evidence now, but am not sure I'll find it, given the fuzziness of the concept we're talking about. Chip in if you've got some good insights to share.

many pages with anecdotal articles that all seemed to support your conclusion. But the only actual study seemed to indicate that public trust in science for the last 25 years at least has been neutral.

http://governance.jrc.it/publicperception/ipts.pdf

I only scanned and sifted thru the info for several minutes-- there's probably more out there....

If atheists were to simply say "I don't believe", that would be one thing, but they don't. They have to make out like those who believe in God are somehow stupid or not willing to look at all the facts.

So, as a backlash, you get those wanting to go the other way.

I've seen it here. How many threads have been started at DU by atheists who say something derogatory towards belief in God compared to believers in God who start threads about the faults in atheism? In fact, I've never seen a thread here when a believer in God started a thread on the mis-logic of atheism.

I think this is what most Christians have a problem with in this country. Atheists are not content to simply disbelieve. They pride themselves on scorning religion in general and ridiculing those who choose to have religion in their lives. It's downright insulting and arrogant.

I'm an atheist, and I feel toward Christians just as you say. Religion has been called a crutch for weaks minds. I believe that, but I don't want to ban religion. Most organized religion do want to ban my beliefs.
Christianity has a horrible history, and we can right now see what it will do when it gets it foot in the door. Organized science is not trying to ban religion. The opposite is true.

>Religion has been called a crutch for weaks minds. I believe that,....

My point was there's a backlash, and it's comments like that which cause the backlash. It's human nature that if someone pushes on something you hold in reverence, you're gonna push back. That's what's happening to some degree, not all, but some.

See, I believe in God. For you to say what you did makes me not want to listen to you, in the same manner that if I were to say "If you don't believe in God you're going to Hell" isn't going to endear you to listen to me. And I see these "crutch for weak minds" comments all too often at DU. The atheists say things here like "God and the Bible are a fairy-tale", and it's an instant turn-off. In fact, if I see that person say something on another thread, I'm less likely to listen to them because of it, I just figure they're a jerk. The same would be true if I said to you the remark about you going to Hell, and I wouldn't blame you. Thing is, I consistently see the "fairy-tale" remark here and never the "going to Hell" remark. Guess what? It causes backlash, which was my main point.

That is my point. I understand(or believe is a better word) that God and relgion are inventions of man, not the other way around. You blame the messinger for the message. Even in atheistic societies, there was nothing to compare to the Spanish Inquisition. No science society banned a saint, but Gallileo was excommunicated by the Chatholic Church and remained banned untill the first part of the 20th century. What religion is not intolerant? Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson blamed gays, feminists, abortionists for 9/11, but ignored an Act of God(the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean). If an undersea earthquake is not an act of God, how would you define it?
I was not born an athiest. I arrived at this state in my life, by (in my mind) logical examination of history and what I believe to be the most likely explanation of events. I suspect you weren't born with an inate knowledge or belief in Christianity, but were (in my way of thinking) brainwashed into believing as you do.
Religion prospers the most during good times. Europe is no where as religious at the US because it has a terrible history of what all powerful religion can do.
Once again, I don't deny your right to believe as you do, but I do sincerely believe your flag bearers would deny me my right to believe as I do.

Maybe the fundamentalists would, but the mainstream churches have no problem with science, and many religiously based colleges (the ones based on the liberal varieties of Christianity) have superb science departments.

The Lutheran college I graduated from produced a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and prides itself in getting all of its premeds into medical school. Its faculty members get NSF grants.

Your statement is simply ignorant.

Atheists equate the two. I just wrote it in their language for them to better understand my point.

I don't equate atheism and science. Are all the scientists in your world atheists? Because they sure aren't all atheists in mine.

As an atheist, I have to say I don't buy your point at all. The various subjects under the "science" umbrella are largely non-religious but that doesn't mean that there is a movement within the scientific community to turn all people into atheists. Which is essentially what you're suggesting: that scientists are atheists and trying to cram atheism down everyone's throat and therefore these people are to blame for the backlash against science. It is an interesting connection to make, and one that I disagree exists.

I must've missed that section on converting people through science in my Atheist Manifesto. :shrug:

>but that doesn't mean that there is a movement within the scientific community to turn all people into atheists. Which is essentially what you're suggesting

So, in other words, you missed my whole point.

Let me rephrase for you:

There's the perception by some that atheists are trying to cram atheism down everyone's throat. Some atheists may be trying to cram it down people's throat, others may not. Regardless, the perception by some that they are is causing a backlash, or at least is a portion of the issue.

Which, within the context of a discussion on science read the way that I described above.

When you wrote:

"They have to make out like those who believe in God are somehow stupid or not willing to look at all the facts.

So, as a backlash, you get those wanting to go the other way."

then there wasn't really any other way to interpret your words.


As long as you're not trying to say that all scientists are atheists with an agenda to spread atheism, then hey, say what you want. :shrug:

The Church was crusading against science back in ye olde medieval days, long before an atheist could proclaim themself as such and not be immediately put to death.

There have always been and always will be fundamentalists of any stripe that will be opposed to one technology or the other, or one branch of science or the other. For many on the farther left, it's genetic modification of crops. For the right-wing Christians, it's evolution. Et cetera.

As for loud and proud atheists, I treat them like loud and proud Christian fundamentalists - ignore them.

-

Of course because we are constantly in the public eye with our coordinated picketing of your churches and demands for equal access to your sunday school programs specifically to create a rapid reaction force of church-goers who will strip the public schools of scientific information.

You got us, it's part of our great secret plan (code named: Operation Moron) that we atheists have with the crop circle makers, lizardmen from the center of the earth, sasquatch enthusiasts, and loch ness monster hunters to create a society of idiots solely so we can improve our dating prospects.

Supernatural WooWoo has no place in any public school science classroom.

One of the guiding principles of the Enlightenment -- the period that helped produce the scientific revolution that allowed us to create the world we live in today for better or worse -- was empiricism. 17th Century thought was still based on starting with certain assumptions toward a problem or theory and working forward. The Enlightenment in the 18th Century rejected this line of thought, and embraced the teachings of Newton, which stated that we should have absolutely no assumptions whatsoever, and instead base all our theories on simply what we OBSERVE.

That was the basis for empiricism, and empiricism is the antithesis of religion. This isn't saying that scientists and empiricists can't be religious people. What it is saying is that when it comes to science, a person cannot operate from a point of view that immediately assumes that there is a God directly behind everything around them. That assumption only serves to cloud all their observable phenomena. That is why the majority of the Founders were deists of varying forms -- because they were direct products of Enlightenment thought, and while they did not necessarily deny the possibly existence of a God, they believed that He had little to do with the goings-on in their universe.

The problem isn't a backlash against atheism. The problem is willful ignorance. The ideas of the Enlightenment required thought and discussion. But thinking is just too complicated and hard for many people, especially when they can just have someone tell them what to believe and not to believe. Therefore, they are apt to simply embrace things that fly in the face of all scientific convention, regardless of what you shout at them to the contrary.

by Carl Sagan. He discusses this issue in depth, with some humor, with facts to back him up, and without being as condescending as science opponents probably deserve.

The title of the last chapter -- could be the name for an effort to promote scientific literacy among Americans. Or, a great bumper sticker.

LAZINESS and STUPIDITY.

And in answer to your question... logical thinkers and scientists will find a way around religious ineptitude- it's not like it's an entirely new concept, though I agree that it's becoming more than a petty annoyance.

I don't understand why society would shun science after living through the information age, but it seems to be happening. I guess for some, ignorance truly is bliss.

elaine pagels draws this contrast in her "history of god" (i'm paraphrasing):

there is one god for the masses, and one for the intellectuals. all the fairy tale virgin birth rose from the dead BS? for the masses. the kabala, sufi mysticism, cistercian monks, gnosticism, etc.? intellectuals.

modern physics, at least, isn't disproving any concept of god as an animating spirit of existence, along the lines of Pantheism or native american's "great spirit". indeed, in my mind, the more we know about it, the more mysterious is becomes. for instance, what animates the strings in string theory? what makes them vibrate at different frequencies? god? if you can give up your dumbfuck preconceptions of god as grampa on a throne in the clouds, you could grasp it.

and that's the point, isn't it? to know the mystery?

There was a time when lower middle class kids could actually go to college very easily.. That is no longer the case. They have two choices now:

1. skip college and join the military or get a dead-end job
2. work full time , borrow as much as they can and spend 5 years in college, only to graduate $40K in debt...then move back to Mom & Dad's spare room and hope you can get a job..

They are trying to convince themselves that something they probably cannot attain, is actually not necessary.. (Takes the sting out of it)

Anyone ever see "Breaking Away"? The local "stonecutter" had nothing but disdain for the "rich" kids who went to college in their town.. I think it's this mentality that has crept into the public mind..

...where leaders had the sense to set up a system that provided higher education for the rise in enrollment that occured as the GI Bill took effect post-WWII, but out here in the rest of the world that's not the case.

First off, college education altogether was pretty much the domain of the privileged and wealthy until the last half of the 20th Century. "Everyone" wasn't expected to go to college; they were expected to learn a trade.

Secondly, most institutions with any esteem remained, and still do, almost prohibitively expensive. In fact, left to their own devices to fund their higher education (sans loans, grants, scholarships and aid from others), modern students would not be able to do so and enrollment as we know it would plummet.

Thirdly, colleges do bear an air of elitism, but it doesn't emanate from the faculty. Based upon my experiences and observations, I would feel confident in saying that most schools are little more than playgrounds for children of upper-middle class privilege. Granted, there are institutions out there who try to make "accessibility" their hallmark, but they are derided as "commuter schools" and the like, places unfit for the "true college experience."

Coming from a working class background (let's just say I've got some sharecroppers in the recent lineage), the people I was surrounded by in college seemed as if they were from another world altogether. Their values and mores were from a different place than mine. It was easy for me to see why the "townies" viewed them the way they did.

I'm not saying 100% of students are like this, but an uncomfortable margin certainly seem to be. It has grown worse as we have turned our universities into little more than "high-dollar tech schools" rather than what they were intended to be--a place where people went to be exposed to a universe (hence the name "university") that would open up their minds and teach them how to think via a liberal arts education.

Nowadays, you just have Biff going off for a few years to party at the frat house, go to some football and basketball games, get drunk and laid, then graduate with a very specialized degree before his familial or fraternal connections land him a job somewhere. He doesn't want to learn, he just wants to go through the process that will enable him to make the bucks; that's it.

Granted, some of what you mention is jealousy, and some of it is a reaction to bratty attitudes displayed toward others whose biggest mistake in life was emerging from the wrong womb.

As a society we worship our entertainers. Be it sports or music, it's what we vote for with our time and money.

When was the last time you heard a morning water cooler conversation aboyut last nights Steven Hawking lecture?

As far as I can tell this site is for real...

I'm going to apply to be a Tracker in the great Pterodactyl
hunt.

http://objective.jesussave.us/creationsciencefair.html

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

My pissed-offness may require the starting of a separate thread! :argh:

My favorite was the kid who stuffed rats into a small
space for months to prove Noah's Ark.

Wanna bet that kid will be on top of a roof with an
automatic weapon in a few years?

Its been fairly well debunked by now. Move along. Plenty of Fundie craziness out there without having to make it up. Go look up Dr Dino if you want to laugh at fundies.

I try and debunk these things.

Do you have any links to the debunkery?

by looking at the links and other side material. IIRC such was the case for this site. Its been a while since this one was taken apart so I don't have any links handy right now. But it surfaces every once in a while and gets pulled apart again.

The further I read, the more I laughed. I guess I'll have to take my pissed-offness elsewhere... :shrug:

I'm still not convinced this is totally a fake.

And neither are most of the other fourms I've found
which discuss it.

Just for starters... Check out the links page.

The Cross in Space - A mission to make sure the Cross is above every nation of the world by launching it into space in a Polar orbit.
GetTheKidsOut.org - Alerting parents and pastors of the loss of faith and morals of children of Christian families who attend America's officially neutral "public schools".
Rat Out A Church: Big Brother Church Watch - Liberal "churches" are using their tax-exempt status to promote Liberal politicians. Learn how to report their abuses to the IRS.
Christian Exodus - Non-profit organization dedicated to creating a Christian homeland in North America via the secession of a US State from the Union.
The Foundation For Moral Law - The official website and organization of former Alabama Chief Justice and Presidential Canidate Roy S. Moore.
The Constitution Party - Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundation.
American Family Association - America's largest pro-family action site.
Marriage Protection Rally - Rally to keep the Secularists from outlawing Christian marriages.
"In God We Trust" Poster Campaign - Put a poster with the official motto of our nation in every classroom.
The Chalcedon Foundation - Exposing the bankruptcy of all non-Christian (and alleged but compromising Christian) systems of thought and practices and dedicated to providing the tools for rebuilding this Christian civilization with a devotion to maximum individual freedom under God's law.
The Institute for Theonomic Reformation - The ITR is a Christ-centered, non-profit organization, which seeks to empower the Christian, and the church, so as to fulfill God's cultural commission of Christian responsibility: the restoration and application of Biblical Law and Biblical Ethics so as to faithfully encourage an explicitly Biblical Christian rule for both a national and global Theonomic culture.


I mean to think *THIS* is a hoax stretches the imagination....

http://www.chalcedon.edu/

Far to elaborate for humor... or somebody has way too much
time on their hands.

Better safe than sorry as far as hoaxes go.

Take care.

-

as though that discredits it should remember gravity is a theory and go jump off a cliff.

The idea that species evolved over time into the biodiversity we have today is not a "theory". It's a scientific law. It's been proven beyond any reasonable doubt over and over again.

The part that is still debatable is Darwin's idea of natural selection. It has been proven in many instances, but not to the point that it can be accepted as a scientific law.

In short, it's scientifically accepted that evolution is pretty well undeniable on scientific principles. The questions come in on exactly HOW evolution occurred.

But in no place does "intelligent design" come into play on this. That is nothing more than a religious belief that has not been proven through any scientific means whatsoever. Those who believe it are little more than superstitious fools who should be forced to live with only their lower brains and have their upper brains distributed to people who might actually USE them.

Reading through this thread, I think that many people are on to the reasons to this, but it can't simply be summed up in one word or phrase.

Basically, what we have done is started the final rejection of the Enlightenment. We jettisoned the metaphysical side of it some time ago in our rush to embrace the scientific. Now, we're starting to reject the scientific as well.

If you've ever read any Max Horkheimer, you'll know what I'm talking about. In our race to embrace technology, we lost sight of our philosophy. We adopted mass-media transmissions as entertainment (i.e. TV) that only served to dumb-down and coarsen the culture. Where the Enlightenment grew out of a time in which people would gather together in coffeehouses, taverns, and meeting houses during their free time to discuss and debate politics, science, philosophy, and the like -- we are now in a time in which we go to work, come home, and plant ourselves in front of the television to receive our slow lobotomies.

Embrace of science and philosophy requires thought and discussion. The vast majority of the populace in the US doesn't willingly engage in either anymore.

This also shows up in the way that we've come to define "freedom" over time. It used to be that freedom was all about free expression, free thought, freedom to live one's life in accordance with one's personal beliefs. That was the definition of "freedom" in the days of the Enlightenment. Now, "freedom" has become little more than the freedom to shop and consume. People could care less about taking away freedom of speech or assembly anymore -- but by God, you take away their ability to buy a big-screen TV or a gas-guzzling SUV, and you'll have them howling like banshees. Hell, it's even been shown on these boards!

The United States has become a largely decadent culture, because we have, over time, cut off our connections with the Enlightenment principles upon which this nation was actually founded. The rejection of science and re-embrace of religious myth and superstition is just one of the latest chapters in this slow downward slide into the trash-heap of history.

Almost an article in the making there

It's actually in reference to a History course I'm taking right now, "Age of Enlightenment". It just all seems to fit together -- especially when you read the pronouncements of Emmanuel Kant talking about how many people are reluctant to really think or do anything for themselves, because thinking is just so damned HARD!

And I think it just gave me an idea of what I may write my final paper on for the course!

...Humanity and other animals are like water in that they always seek the lowest level via the path of least resistance.

Since our country is populated with a good number of stupid people, movements of stupid people seeking simple answers when there are none often sweep like wildfire through us, especially in the Midwest and South. Creationism, blaming video games for youth violence, blaming music for child suicide, the popularity of Dr. Phil, and support of the republican party are all examples of stupid people seeking simple answers where they don't exist. As the stupid arguments of these movements inevitably unravel, the stupid people in them become fearful, irrational and violent. Since scientists, by their very nature, are often the first to step up and point out an unravelling stupid argument, science is a favorite target of stupid people movements.

The problem isn't stupidity, or inability to handle and process facts. The problem is willful ignorance on behalf of a large part of the population, because thinking is just so damned HARD, and it's much easier to simply be told what to believe and not to believe by someone else.

Read my post above on the decadence of American culture.

stupid - 1. slow of mind. 2. given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner. 3. lacking intelligence or reason.

I would argue that anyone who is willfully ignorant is also stupid, given the definition.

People who are willfully ignorant often POSSESS intelligence or reason, they just choose not to use it because it's too difficult. It doesn't mean they're slow of mind -- at least those slow of mind have an excuse. The only excuse the willfully ignorant have is laziness. I consider that to be much, much worse.

What part of "acting in an unintelligent or careless manner" isn't exactly applicable here? You're trying to argue with me over semantics when we're both essentially saying the same thing, and I don't really get it. However, I will gladly continue to argue with you, if you so desire.

I make certain I characterize these people not as "stupid" but rather as "willfully ignorant" for a specific reason.

If someone is "stupid", that means that they don't innately know any better. That means that their stupidity lets them off the hook for doing stupid things.

However, if someone is "willfully ignorant", then they are consciously avoiding thinking about these things. They have the ABILITY to understand them, but they'd rather not try because that might mean they would have to think. In this sense, they're not let off the hook because of some innate defect -- but rather opened up for condemnation for being so damned lazy and slothful.

Furthermore, when you call other people "stupid", it carries with it a certain amount of condescension in the sense that you believe you're superior to them. Which, although possibly true, usually only tends to make you look smarmy while it makes them look worthy of sympathy (i.e. able to play the victim). However, if you refer to them specifically as "willfully ignorant", you're not saying you're better than them, but rather just making them look bad because they refuse to acknowledge reality, even in the face of all the facts.

I'm not looking to argue with you here, I'm just looking to frame this in the best possible way.

If you weren't looking for an argument, you wouldn't be implying that your opinion is better than mine. Also, you wouldn't have responded so many times with basically the same thing to say. We're just going to have to agree to disagree, I suppose.

Sometimes my students who couldn't be bothered to study for class and carefully avoided all potentially enlightening or mind-broadening experiences on campus (hearing visiting lecturers such as Helmut Schmidt, Elie Wiesel, Studs Terkel, and Jimmy Carter, listening to composers in residence, seeing foreign films or productions by the theater department, reading non-required books, meeting foreign students, going on study abroad programs) were capable of learning amazing details about their favorite sport or their favorite TV show or the world of fashion or their favorite genre of pop music or current scandals or how to repair a car.

But if asked to expose themselves to anything that wasn't part of the current pop culture, their immediate reaction was invariably, "That's so BORING." And if something was labeled "boring," they felt that they could safely ignore it.

By this time of century, we were all supposed to be flying around with jet packs, cancer and paralysis would be cured, and the inconvenient over-population would be relocated to colonies on Mars and the moon.

Inconvenient facts of real science and gravity mean that we haven't done this. The planet is dying and individuals are dying, not just of the oldies but goodies like cancer but of new ones like AIDS. Science has let us down. Made promises it didn't keep. People's hearts are broken. They have lost hope. So they are easy targets for skilled con artists in certain religions that boldly promote lies and false hope.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

They reject science because it requires THOUGHT. Thinking is hard. It's just much easier to go through life willfully ignorant, having someone tell you what to believe and what not to believe.

Disappointment has nothing to do with it, IMHO.

The following exchange occured in our school newspaper. The first letter is from a chemical engineering student who claims to be able to disprove evolution using the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Letter from ignorant student

The second letter is a response from some faculty at the university.

Response from faculty

It is distressing that a student who is pursuing a scientific career can be so ignorant.

Nothing personal against intelligent engineers out there.

Oh, and premed students. Jesus Christ.

would wear t-shirts that proclaimed that they didn't descent from apes.

While they were technically correct, it was still plain ignorance and all that.

I found that the fundamentalists avoided biology and astronomy, two fields that challenged their simplistic beliefs, and concentrated on engineering, where they could mostly stick to applied physical science. It's all cut and dried. The application either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, you either start over or tinker with it.

The engineers were surprisingly good at learning Japanese, probably because they were accustomed to thinking in terms of systems, and the language does have its own internal logic. But they almost all supported Reagan, thought it would be "cool" to work for a military contractor, and included a high percentage of fundamentalists (one of whom left a Chick tract in his final exam with the handscrawled notation in Japanese, "Professor (Leftcoast), please read this." (Well, at least his handscrawled notation was in correct Japanese. :-) )

It's no great leap to assume he's homegrown that stupid. All the smart Iowans teach or get the fuck out.

The truth is OK, but lies are better. All children should be lied to regularly so they will not get over stressed by the government's lies This is essential for peace of mind. We need Children to grow up gullible so they will make good obedient soldiers. Sarcasm.

Good Consumers don't trouble themselves with all those facts out there when they can rely on an Authority to tell them what to believe. It's a good thing, too, because there are those out there who are trying to confuse and deceive Consumers into purchasing inferior product at inflated prices, such as those who question Authority. Why, some of them even question the Word of God as interpreted by Authority. So, it's in the best interest of the Good Consumer to listen to Authority for the correct interpretation.

Sadly, this is more true than sarcastic.

...there was a sketch on Saturday Night Live that might explain this better.

Bill Murray was the alpha male in a group of "cavemen." Bigger than the rest, he walked around the set declaring, "Bandar is strong." He led the hunts, the women of the tribe flocked around him and he enjoyed the perks of his position.

Enter Steve Martin as a rather erudite tribal member. He imparted a more efficient, less dangerous method of hunting, and exhibited other talents. The tribal members declared him "smart." Some of the females were taken with him and his esteem within the group rose.

"Bandar"'s face clouded at the turn of events.

After the hunt and feasting were over, Martin lay down to rest not far from the communal fire. Murray crept in and bludgeoned Martin to death with a rock.

Murray threw his shoulders back and confidently said, "Bandar is strong...and now he is smart, too."

It isn't just America. It isn't just religion. "Nature is red in tooth and claw."

in schools. The schools don't teach it, so when the kids are faced with a problem that requires critical thinking, they whine that it's "unfair." I saw this many times throughout my schooling.

It's the standardized test mentality, where every question has one right answer, and all the other answers are wrong and earn zero points.

Which isn't to say that that's not often how science and math are taught too, but it's the big picture concepts that seem to elude people.

Towns inhabited by idiots who've never been outside their county are going to elect school boards of similar idiots, and this conspiracy of idiots is going to design a school curriculum that doesn't "give the kids ideas." In other words, such parents feel threatened by any school coursework that makes the kids more well-informed than their parents.

Computers are the exception, because even idiots realize that computers are pervasive in modern society.

In general, the idiots are opposed to any curricular elements that they can't see as leading directly to a job. If the school district is strapped for funds, out go foreign languages, the arts, and funding for the science lab, because "our kids don't need that stuff."

The more centrally controlled school systems in other countries require everyone to take science classes (on a fairly high level) through whatever the upper age limit for compulsory education is, and the university-bound students in Continental European countries may take biology, chemistry, and physics, all at the same time. (The Japanese take twelve years of science, but it's just called "science" and not differentiated as to type.)

The biggest obstacle to quality education in this country is idiots electing idiotic school boards.

Yet.

But going back to the 50's there was a big push on for science to beat the Russians who had put a Sputnik into space.

Then fast forward to the phrase "You don't have to be a rocket scientist."

Somewhere in between things changed and no-one was watching, or no one wanted to watch.

In the end we all know what happens when people become ignorant.

I have many ideas on the topic but can't solidify them into a complete picture.