America's Turn From Science, a Danger For Democracy 900
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Here's a good article about how playing politics with science puts our country at risk — a review of Shawn Otto's book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. Today's policy-makers, Otto shows, are increasingly unwilling to pursue many of the remedies science presents. They take one of two routes: deny the science, or pretend the problems don't exist."
U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:3, Interesting)
Now here's a crazy question to those of you believe in god. The whole world is full of lunatics, alcoholics, drug users and pathological liars, and has always been. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a "bad" thing. Many people have great amount of imagination. What makes you think those stories weren't made up by either drunk persons, someone who wanted to tell a story or someone who just wanted to play with people?
On that matter, stories always change when they are passed from people to people. This is like 1-2th grade stuff. I still remember when my first grade teacher demonstrated this by whispering something to a student, who then whispered it to next person and so on. After all of us in the class had passed it forward, the meaning was completely different with added "fun stuff" and things that didn't even make sense.
Why do you think the bible is a good representation of how things actually went? Why do you think it's even true at all? It could just as well be based on some old stories that have changed when going from people to people, or better yet, some drunk or drug using guy just wrote it 2000 years ago. Just think about it.
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All good points. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Funny)
All good points. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into.
Agreed. Atheists can be very stubborn in their beliefs.
Oh, wait, did you mean...
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Insightful)
I reasoned myself in to atheism. I grew up as a Catholic.
Seriously, anyone with half a brain will realise that the religion they once believed in is full of inconsistencies as soon as they develop critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen for everyone.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah Catholics... I never quite understood why adulterers (a man that remarries when his first wife still lives is adultery under ancient Jewish law and biblical law, which share the same source, but the modern meaning of the word adultery has changed) are excommunicated, but thieves and murderers are not. Murderers are even blessed by a priest and have their final rites read to them before they get executed.
I realize "classical" adultery was one of the worst sins in biblical times, punishable by stoning to death (I remember it by "marriage or stoning... it's a death sentence either way," which was a Bible school joke).
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Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
There's a number of problems with this straw-man argument:
1. Religon does not have monopoly on morality, in fact the vast majority of the moral philosophers don't invoke religous ideas whatsoever.
2. Religon does not have a monopoly on breeding. The birth rate in Australia mirrors that of the USA, however only a minority of people there subscribe to religon.
3. Religon does not have a monopoly on good parenting.
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Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Atheists are generally much less arrogant than the religious. Most religious people will tell you their beliefs are the only truth and way. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored. The complete lack of evidence for the existence of any gods is also ignored.
Atheists on the other hand often are knowledgeable not only about the religion they grew up with, but many others. They generally are willing to admit that they could be wrong, you just have to find some strong evidence and they will change their mind.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason is simple. Many if not most atheists (and what you really mean by that word, agnostics) do in fact "reason themselves into" that state.
Religion, specifically the religion of the masses such as major variations of Christianity on the other hand is often the thing you're taught from small age and taught to never question beyond the surface.
For the record, I do know of ONE person who came to religion himself personally (as well as dosens of "average" religious people of several religions and I'm from Nordic Europe). He's very different even from priests of local churches in his passion about religion and views mainstream religion and all mainstream Christianity (as well as all other religions) as "heretics" openly. He's Christian.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Full disclosure: I'm an ex-christian so I know how it is on both sides of the issue. There are lots of us out there.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd imagine it was modded troll because it was a complete fallacy, designed to get an emotional response i.e. a troll. Pretty much every atheist I know has at least some logical backing for why they're an atheist, and is more than willing to discuss evidence to the contrary.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
If you post an argument in favor of religion, it does not get discussed. It gets mocked and downmodded
That's because the argument in question seldom deserves more than mockery. There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of religion (please feel free to provide any, if you can), or there would be no atheists. Even many organized religions are aware of that, which is why they insist so much on faith.
Philosophers have devised, over the years, a number of relatively complex arguments for the existence of God [wikipedia.org]. None of them is unarguably true, and, unfortunately, the usual pro-religion post on Slashdot seldom rises to that intellectual level. The usual pro-religion post is a rant, or is completely and utterly subjective, or is riddled with obvious logical errors (and often all three). When somebody posts such a thing, they shouldn't be surprised so many respond with mockery.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Philosophers have devised, over the years, a number of relatively complex arguments for the existence of God. None of them is unarguably true...
I'd like to really emphasize this point by noting that in contemporary philosophy of religion, the pro-theist side of things isn't even trying to argue that God must exist. They're not even trying to argue that God *could* exist. The strongest point any practicing philosopher attempts to prove these days is that it's not irrational to consider that it might be possible that God exists; that, even though it might actually be false that God exists, even though it might even by physically or even metaphysically impossible that God exists, it is at the least not completely logically impossible that God exists, and so atheists can't win the debate a priori.
It's the equivalent of saying "Look, I'm not saying that I can prove there's a tea kettle orbiting the Earth one mile above my house; I'm not saying the evidence is in favor of the position that there's a tea kettle orbiting the Earth one mile above my house; I'm not saying I have any evidence at all that there's a tea kettle orbiting the Earth one mile above my house; I'm not saying that there *is* a tea kettle orbiting the Earth one mile above my house; I'm not even saying that there physically could be a tea kettle orbiting the Earth a mile above my house; but you can't prove with logic alone that there isn't one there, so it's not completely crazy to believe there is."
The debate is no longer between "God exists" vs "God does not exist"; it's between "We can conclusively prove that God as you construe him does not exist", and "N-not *conclusively*!"
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Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the thing. Science is hard. Thinking is hard. Most people would rather live a comfortable lie than facing the cold, hard truth.
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To cite a quote whose origins are muddy at best (and at any rate, I've forgotten them):
"A statesman is a dead politician. Heaven knows we need more statesmen."
In ancient Rome... and modern Washington. (Score:5, Insightful)
This quote sums up all you need to know about religion:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger).
Back then, the religions he spoke of were different to today's, the cultures of the people were different to today's, and the nature of education was different to today's, but nothing has changed. Not even the hypocrisy of the rulers/politicians.
BTW, regarding your extraordinarily generous assessment of statesmen:
"Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen." – Bob Edwards.
What You're Dealing with Is Ancient (Score:5, Insightful)
This quote sums up all you need to know about religion: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger). Back then, the religions he spoke of were different to today's, the cultures of the people were different to today's, and the nature of education was different to today's, but nothing has changed. Not even the hypocrisy of the rulers/politicians.
BTW, regarding your extraordinarily generous assessment of statesmen: "Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen." – Bob Edwards.
Religion or spiritual belief is fine when it's individual and personal. Like with so many other insanities of mankind, the problem kicks in when it becomes an organized corporate activity. Then it appeals to the need that insecure, weak people have to feel like a member of something greater than themselves because they do not have the courage to be individuals. Or you could say that courageous people satisfy the same need by being in this vast Universe; they can handle the vastness and the unanswered questions and do not need membership in a club of like-minded sycophants to give them self-worth.
Either way, that weakness and neediness is the exploitable vulnerability that rulers (cloth or crown, and lately media) have always exploited. I know some of you hate the term "sheeple" and for those I say, suck it up and learn to deal with it. Print it out and read it a few times until you desensitize yourself if that's what it takes. When you can handle a simple term, even one you wouldn't use yourself (the horror!) like a calm dispassionate adult, read the rest of this.
They are sheeple not because they join a group. They are sheeple not because they happen to do what others happen to do. They are sheeple because they need other people to define their reality for them, to give them a framework within which to interpret their own lives. That's how fundamental this is. It's about levels of consciousness arranged by framing of information. The need for this is so strong that almost any framework will do. It may be organized religion, it may be professional prestige, or nationalism, it may be hatred of a rival sports team, or it may be presented in terms like rich and poor, black and white, left and right. It doesn't matter -- they are all interchangeable flavors different prepackaged flavors appeal to different people who share this sick need.
It takes real strength to actually think for yourself, to not be deceived into falsely believing you know what that means, and to truly know the difference. It takes a certain kind of real purpose to observe all the frameworks and -isms, learn what you can from them, accept the tiny kernel of truth they often contain without hating them for the way they mislead, and move on without ever getting stuck in one.
The people with that unhealthy need get stuck as soon as they find one they like. The promise of acceptance and affirmation and fellowship lulls them into a slumber. They now have a loyalty and an interpretation to which everything else must be related no matter how much of a forced fit it requires. Almost everyone is so compromised. You could call it Satan or a thousand other names. I personally explain that it is to mind what viruses are to DNA. Either way, it's nothing less than the single principle which is wrong with the entire world.
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That quotation is spurious [wikiquote.org].
Disputed [wikiquote.org] is not the same as spurious.
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Sadly I agree that the first two apply to an awfully large portion of the population, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Your third point is often true but that isn't what is always at work. Often what is going on is that people become exhausted with argument and just want an answer - any answer. I watched a small group of people who thought they had a problem argue for years abou
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. I have Ph.D in physics and I am observing Muslim. The dichotomy is false and its enough that your Christian right-wing crazies are perpetuating it. Don't join the bandwagon from the science side.
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While I do indeed believe in a creator God, that does not cause him to exist- while I am completely confident that I am correct, I may not be
While you do not believe in a creator God, that also does not cause his existence to be a false premise.
While I totally respect others who don't see things my way, I just find it ironic that most of the people whining about there being folks out there who believe in something are using t
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Interesting)
the onus is on the religious to provide infallible proof.
I believe the onus is on whoever states something as a fact. That, to me, implies that you somehow know something, and if you know something to be true, then you probably should have evidence to prove it. Otherwise, how could you know?
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Insightful)
This demonstrates the problem Science and Religion have communicating with each other - Each is saying to the other "Prove to me I'm wrong"; and then standing there, with their arms folded, ignoring the other one.
Incorrect.
People who advocate a scientific approach to life are dedicated to the process: Investigate observed phenomena, formulate explanatory hypotheses, test them, and when those hypotheses match observed phenomena, they tend toward scientific acceptance as explanatory theories. Many theories are observed to be successful for explaining questions that did not even exist when they were originally formulated. Evolution (as a general concept), quantum theory, relativity, etc. are all successful theories.
The scientific process is hardly "standing there with their arms folded, ignoring the other one". People practicing hard basic science and people applying the lessons learned thereby are engaging in a constant process of observation, discovery, explanation and invention. That's why I wonder what's going in the minds of those who reject science as a way of informing their actions. Science works.
Contrast the scientific process against Faith, whether it's deeply held and closely attended, or simply the acts of charlatans. Either way, the most common response to a challenge from anywhere outside the faith often boils down to "it's a test of faith! Resist it!" On rare occasions, the faithful actually try to discuss the question, but ultimately such discussions end up with believers standing with their arms folded, demanding proof. Or, more often, writing their demands while sitting in their air-conditioned houses, often having received medical treatments informed by evolutionary biology, typing on computers whose existence results from scientific study of quantum mechanics, information theory, and myriad other principles.
I am 54 yrs old, been studying electrical engineering and software development for 42+ years (both parents programmers; it was possible though not easy back then). I've had the opportunity to experience directly and first-hand, the many many orders of magnitude of increase in the power of the stuff we use so glibly every day. This is only one small part of the result of "scientific study".
The phrase "science stands there with arms folded" is diametrically opposed to the truth, which is that those who apply scientific principles to their life's actions are racing to meet an inevitable future as well prepared as possible.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the one difference, the people concerned about Global Warming are actually quite diligent about providing evidence.
Of course, the anti-GW people refuse to even give them an iota of credit, and act as if they were proposing something without any shred of thought, logic, or evidence.
That is not true.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if you are using the word "debate" in a broad sense to mean something like the scientific process used to reach a consensus (or at least to advance the science) then going on the Internet, news or "hiring" a politician is not a "scientific debate". I would like to see published peer-reviewed studies as evidence for their claims. I haven't seen any and I've looked for it.
Probably you will claim that there are no publications (or very few) because AGW proponents don't let the skeptics publish. Or maybe they don't let the skeptics have access to any funds that will allow them to prove their point (now there is a new problem: if they can't do any research why are the skeptics so sure of their claims?).
This sounds more and more like a conspiracy theory where any evidence against the conspiracy is another proof of foul play.
Someone might argue that the system is so skewed that this conspiracy is not only possible but likely. But the idea of AGW grew slowly before any economic interests were important: a possibility in 1960, a few guys working on it in in 1970, small groups doing lots of work in 1980, large percentage of researchers in 1990 and consensus in 2000-2005.
I'm sorry but the only attribute of a skeptic that these AGW "skeptics" have is using the word "skeptic". They sure sound like 911 truthers or alien conspiracy theorists.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Informative)
Good thing we've got it then.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
One side is pouring millions into research, the other side is pouring millions into PR "thinktanks" like the Heartland Institute.
Let's be very clear here. The oil companies are not doing AGW research. The closest they get to that is finding a few shills with degrees, a small number who may even in fact be experts (or more often, were experts) into fields related to climatology.
It's precisely the same scam that the Creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute have been pulling for decades.
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False alternative. Lack of design does not imply mere chance. The formation of solar systems is not by chance, but happens according to physical law.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats not begging the question.
That seems to be a profoundly unscientific outlook. Science is making useful, falsifiable predictions about the likely outcome of future experiments and observations using some kind of formalized universal theory. You can do endless science about the orbits of planets, geology, evolution, genetics.
One example from your unscientific post was "can science explain how the world began?" and you claim no. Horribly wrong. A geologist can gin up some weird model of geological plate tectonics or the temperature of the earth vs depth of crust. Then you run the math, meanwhile a dude digs a hole and drops a thermometer in, and the math and the thermometer seem to match up... "We have not been able to falsify via experiment or observation that the earth congealed out of flying sphagetti or WTF" Furthermore after enough experiments and observations fail to disprove something, you may as well "believe" in it and expect all future experiments to fit the model.
It doesn't really matter in an abstract sense if "evolution is true" or not. All that matters is every time you apply the magic box of the theory of evolution in the future, it seems that each time, observations and experiments seem to result in experiment matching the magic boxes prediction.
What science aka falsifiable predictions about future experiments and observations can you do about christian creationism... Well I guess I could dare your god to strike me down with lightning, which certainly hasn't happened yet, or ... um... Seriously, can you run statistically relevant verifiable falsifiable experiments on religion? No.
Now that fact that religion is not science, doesn't mean its wrong or evil, in fact I'm kind of a distant fan of Christianity, at least in theory although not so much how its practiced by sinful people, and some of my best friends are christians which also predisposes me to like it, but being non-scientific merely means it has no relationship at all WRT.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to Creationism vs Evolution, it's really a battle of religions, because Evolution is a religion.
From a fellow Christian, please take this as nicely as possible:
Please stop trying to defend us; you are making it worse. Spend some time actually understanding your opponent's views (you've mischaracterized both science and the evolutionary process while demonstrating some pretty poor logic.) You sound like you've been reading a Bob Jones University biology textbook as your sole source of understanding of evolutionary process. I know this because I've been there before.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not believe in pink dragons that fart nerve gas, although this does not cause their existence to be a false premise. The testable evidence for both god and pink dragons that fart nerve gas is identical.
Nice one on the rational acceptance of the difference between your religious belief and whether or not your religious belief is factually correct. If the world is going to have religious people then it needs a higher percentage who think like you.
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Many other countries in the worl
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Informative)
Many other countries in the world have heavy religious influence in their founding or building of their culture. name one that doesn't.
Australia. We were founded on sending prisoners as far away from Britan as possible. While the US is similar, you guys had a revolution to install god as your mascot.
deists (Score:3)
I thought most of the founding fathers were deists. With respect to religion, people remember that the purpose of the law was to keep one particular brand of christianity from becoming the offical national religon, but seem to forget that some various states had various versions of christianity as their offical state religion, even until the early/mid 1800's.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
Actually this is a misnomer. The US was established on freedom of and from oppressive religion. Many of our founding fathers were atheists/Deists (For the pre-darwin time I would consider deism pretty close to atheism, considering they more or less believed that god takes no active part in the world today). In god we trust was added to our money, and "under god" was added to our pledge in the 1950's. Both spit in the face of what the founding fathers had intended with separation of church and state.
this post is 100% spot on. to claim a christian foundation for the USA is blatantly rewriting history
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
In god we trust was added to our money, and "under god" was added to our pledge in the 1950's.
"In God We Trust" first appeared on the penny and 2 cent coins in 1864, as a result of religious sentiment around the Civil War. It was adopted as an official motto for the country in 1956.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust [wikipedia.org]
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion.
Sorry, this is just a myth. The founding fathers were deists, as secular as you could be in their day. The Constitution contains one reference to deity, in "the year of our lord". The Federalist Papers have equally few mentions of any sort of god.
You are falling for the revisionist history perpetuated by the very people you are afraid of. "Under God" wasn't even added to the pledge of allegiance until 1948. The real philosophical basis of the United States are the ideals of the Enlightenment, which we have progressively lost as we slip into a modern dark ages.
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.. which we have progressively lost as we slip into a modern dark ages.
I sadly must agree this is what seems to be happening. Everyone wants to be a "big picture" person. No one wants to be concerned with details or actually doing anything.
Any blame on religion is rubbish anyhow. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. There are some religious people who think that is the case, but that's just ignorance. The real issue is putting ignorant people in positions of power. Of course in a democracy that says something about the voting population (or at least the ones tha
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You are correct that the problem fundamentally is ignorance. However, religion promotes ignorance by encouraging people to believe without proof.
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Yes, but you do see dishonest or ignorant religionists claiming that the use of the term means the founders were establishing a Christian nation. Which makes about as much sense as claiming that swearing via blasphemy makes one a believer.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that the US is established on the idea of God and religion. The Religious Right wants to rewrite history and make the US a Christian nation, but we were founded on religious freedom. On the principle that the government shouldn't dictate to you which religion you practice (if any) and how you practice it (again, if any). A Catholic can go to Church at the same time as a Jew can go to Temple and a Muslim can attend services in a Mosque. Please don't confuse the Religious Right's agenda of turning the US into a theocracy with the normal religious person's agenda of practicing their religion without someone telling them that they can't because the government outlawed it.
For the record: Yes, I am religious. No, I don't want to push my religious views on anyone else and I just ask that others don't try to force their religious views - or lack thereof - on me. I'm fine with a friendly conversation on the merits and/or pitfalls of religion, but name-calling, insults or threats have no place there. (This goes both ways. I'd expect that religious folks talking with atheists refrain from any "You're going to burn in hell, heathen" talk. Not that the atheist would be scared, but it's just not polite.)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that the Founding Fathers were a mix of religious men, humanists and deists. For them the horrors of the Thirty Years War was just over a century old, and the abuses of the Test Acts and of the whole established Church of England still very much a reality. They realized that the very best way to guarantee a man his religious freedoms was to create a barrier between church and state (Jefferson's "wall of separation"). This idea foisted by some evangelicals that the First Amendment has been misinterpreted or that somehow the government being barred from advocating a particular religion is somehow an attack on religion is in complete defiance of what the Founding Fathers were intent upon, which was to make sure that the state could never persecute a man for his religious beliefs.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (not) (Score:4, Interesting)
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The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion.
There's a fairly large body of evidence that despite the constant mentions of "God", the founding fathers were all secular.
The separation of Church and State is one of the founding principles. As well, religious freedom is specifically addressed by the Bill of Rights, and even prior to that when the second constutional congress thought it unnecessary to enumerate what rights the State may not violate because it was so obvious.
So no, the United States was not founded on religion specifically, though religiou
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting digression: there never was division in the government about how to treat Native Americans.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee could not be evicted from their land. President Jackson simply did so anyway. Sounds like a disagreement to me.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the funny thing is no, it wasn't.
Most if not all of the founding fathers were very leery of religion ("a lighthouse is more useful than a Church"...).It's fascinating how the original, free-thinking US have been turned into such a bigotted a state that politicians have to fill stadiums with prayer meetings. And all the more so since the bible say that worshipping publicly is the devil's work, so not only bigotted, but in a false (the higher-ups) and idiotic (the lower-downs) way.
And the way out of this ess is not even to argue that logic and reason should win over religion, but that the politicized, public, for-pay version of religion that has evolved is evil per se, and denounced as thus in the bible.
Don't try to reason with a bigot. Scripture him into shame.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. The US is founded on science. It's founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment. It's only the current religious whackjobs who constaly insist our nation was founded on religion, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, that have made this into a "fact".
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The former is based on the observable world, and the latter is based on the spiritual (human conscious) world.
Right, science is based on the observable world, religion is based on things that go on in people's heads.
Our forefathers knew it was important to have both spiritual observance and material observance. Spirit was associated with the individual, and material with the whole; thus, they needed to separate the individual from the whole for independence to be feasible in the first place.
That's
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Insightful)
How about immigrants that continued their work in science here? Joseph Priestly, Alexander Graham Bell, Vladimir Zworykin, Nikola Tesla, Charles Steinmetz, all before WW II.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:4, Informative)
1998 Science article of a survey of the members of the National Academy of Sciences [stephenjaygould.org]
Belief in personal God
Personal belief: 7%
Personal disbelief: 72%
Agnostic: 21%
There was another more recent survey of the Royal Society that found similar results.
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In any event, this is more about politicians than preachers.
I beg to differ, religion was politics before leaders had other means to control their people. How do you get the masses to obey the laws if you can't threaten them with immediate repercussions (law enforcement, imprisonment, capital punishment)? That's right - threaten them with unfathomable suffering should they not obey "thou shall not kill", "thou shall not steal" and so on. And nobody, but nobody likes to lose the control they once had over their followers.
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Baby or not, I think they're just parasites ...
Tongue-in-cheek humor aside, this does summarize something that biologists consider an important scientific/medical question: Since a mammal's fetus is genetically different from its mother, why doesn't the mother's immune system recognize it as a "foreign" parasite and kill it?
Part of the answer is that sometimes this does happen. It's part of the explanation for miscarriages and stillbirths. There is also a conjecture that the mother's immune system is able to recognize some classes of defects, and
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If they can safely remove the baby without killing it, then I think they should go that route. If they can't, then continue with the abortion. I don't care how developed it is. If the mother wants it gone, then I think she should have the option to get rid of it.
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The lean upon convention. Stillbirths did not get birth certificates in most Common Law jurisdictions, and indeed recording of them before there was seen to be some use for the statistics was sporadic at best. The law was pretty simple; there is no person until birth.
Re:U.S. is established on religion, so (Score:5, Informative)
Thank god there is no religion in china.
Sure, there is. The latest version has its own sacred scripture, known to us as Mao's Little Red Book. It's followed by China's current leaders about as well as the Bible is followed by America's oh-so-religious leaders.
Of course, China had (and still has) other religions before that. One derives from the writings of Kong Fuzi (Confucius). And older one derives from that Indian fellow that we call Buddha. None of these three writers considered themselves to be founders of a religion; they were all trying to teach people how to Live Right. As were many of the founders of Western religions.
But it's all to no avail. As someone else has already quoted: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. [Seneca]".
Hmmm ... I wonder if I punctuated that last sentence correctly. ;-) Anyway, China's leaders have been as good as European and American leaders at turning their wisdom into holy texts that are followed blindly and unthinkingly, often producing the opposite of what the religious "founders" were trying to achieve.
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Why does something have to be real to have an impact on your life? My life outlook has been changed for the better by many works of fiction. I learned about morals, honor, integrity, what it means to be human, etc from works of fiction. I am not a buddhist nor do I believe buddha was a living person, but my life has been directly changed for the better by thinking about buddhist koans.
Even if the bible is all a made up story, would it really change any differences made by your belief in it? This is why I do
Danger for which democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm.....
- about 30% voter turnout ....
- Election looser becomes president (2000)
- You need a billion US$ campaign funds to have a chance
- Heriditary tendencies for seats in congress/senate
-
So not much left to endanger IMHO. Sorry!
Re:Danger for which democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even mentioning that there are no discernible differences between the policies of the only two parties: both are pro-big business, pro-military and pro-police state.
Re:Danger for which democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not quite. Almost all of the military spending goes to producing the same products over and over again, a process contributing nothing to tech knowledge (and thus, science). As George Orwell explained in 1984, totalitarian states like big military, since it grabs a large portion of the state wealth while not improving the society's wellbeing (bombs cost money to produce, but all they can do is blow up). People that struggle to stay alive are obedient people.
Re:Danger for which democracy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every single elected president - INCLUDING Barack Obama, has a genealogy related to President George Washington.
Note I did say Elected President. Gerald Ford is (as of yet), not known to be related to George Washington.
Barck Obama is George Washington's 9th cousin, 6 times removed. Yes, this is through his white mother.
From what I can tell, the least connected elected President was Martin Van Buren - 17th cousin thrice removed.
Also, President William Henry Harrison was related by marraige, not by blood.
my source [geni.com]
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If you go back enough generations, everyone is related to everyone else. The claim I found (but couldn't confirm) is that Obama is George Washington's 2nd cousin, 9 times removed. Their common ancestor is 12 generations back, George Washington's great grandparents. Do you know how many 2nd cousins, 9 times removed you have? I estimated it to be nearly 300,000. The population of the US around the time George Washington was born was less than 3 million, giving Obama a 10% chance of being related to him.
Those
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No, we didn't come from a single, common ancestor. However, that doesn't mean we aren't related to each other.
Think about it this way: You have two parents, four grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc. If you go back just a few dozen generations, you will reach a number that exceeds the population of the world. Obviously, you couldn't have that many individual ancestors at that generation. Instead, some of your ancestors were related to each other.
Geneticists have done a study of the smallest possible popu
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
- about 30% voter turnout
In presidential election years it is more like 58%, twice your claim. And better yet the turnout numbers have been trending up.
- Election looser becomes president (2000)
The 2000 results have been the most studied in US history, and guess what the studies have shown Bush really did win.
Here's one:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html [pbs.org]
- You need a billion US$ campaign funds to have a chance
So? The US is a big country. It takes a lot to get your messa
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Al Gore had more votes nationwide. Bush won because we have an archaic, balkanized voting system.
I strongly disagree! (Score:5, Funny)
"They take one of two routes: deny the science, or pretend the problems don't exist."
First, the analysis presented by the author is fraudulent, nonsensical, and just a creation of the liberal elite. Second, there's simply no issue with how politicians deal with scientific facts, I don't know why anyone would say something like that.
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The "liberal elite"... who is that? (Honest question; I hear people who tend toward socially conservative views calling out this mystery group without specifying exactly who they are.)
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*BLAH* *BLAH* Liberal, is the boogey man of all radical conservatives. It can be used to just any decision in an argument regardless of which side they start. The fact of the matter, they do not exists, yet they are there to scare people so they can win an argument without logic or reason.
I should be able to do whatever I want, but *BLAH* *BLAH* liberals want to government to regulate society.
The *BLAH* *BLAH* liberals want to legalize gay marriage which is affront against god and we need to make laws to
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The problem with your sarcasm is that it is indistinguishable from the actual position of some people on Slashdot. I was scratching my head at your post, trying to figure out if it was real or not.... Then went with sarcasm just because it's easier to be wrong when giving people the benefit of the doubt.
nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
It was sputnik that that put science and math back in vogue in the US, and even then it has been touch and go. I don't imagine that many who read this can imagine how hard it is to actually set up an advance math of physics class is school that are controlled by ex cheerleaders and english majors. They cannot understand the importance or the complexity. They think that the computers just magically appeared one day. They don't know the physics and engineering that was required.
Some of this comes from the religious fanatics, and some of these believe that the US is a christian state. While it is somewhat true, the beliefs of our founding fathers were not necessarily the beliefs of the christian fundamentalists and terrorists that want to divert tax a money from the public good to funding their mansions and sports complexes and terrorists cells. One example of this difference is the Jefferson bible. This bible is used by many christians as it focuses on the teaching of Jesus for those who follows his ways and habits, rather than the mysticism which is often used to tell poor people that they are poor simply because they have no faith.
Our founding fathers understood that religion was used to oppress them, which is why the fought against the aristocracy of England. It was understood that the aristocracy was no more chosen by god than a CEO is chosen by god. It was understood that the work of a person, not the lineage, should determine if a person was successful. Just because one was born into a place or a family should not determine if one was blesse by god. The blessed were the ones who would have faith and work. So the US was built on faith, but not the idea that we in the US were more blessed than other simply because we were born in the US. We had to work for the blessing.
This then is problem with math and science. If we are simply blessed because we are born in the US, then we can simply stay on our sofas and watch TV. But if god demands that we act, that we honor the creation, the Math and physics takes on a much greater importance, and one is not blessed simply because one watches Joel Olsteen on a 42" tv in a mansion. It is then required that we take an active role in exploring and expanding the good that the creation can do, which means that we have to get our lazy asses off the sofa and produce something useful, the antithesis to what is taught in too many churches.
Because we can't solve climate change (Score:3)
Even if we accept the science of climate change, the problem is too hard to fix.
No politician is going to tell its people to stop driving cars. It is much easier to deny the problem than to deal with the reality. Even the pro science politicians are only proposing ideas that are mostly for show.
If someone comes up with a solution to fix climate change without requiring major sacrifices from its citizens, then all the politicians will be conveniently pro science again.
There is a third option... (Score:3)
For example are they referring to the OECD exam results? I downloaded and wrote that math exam and I found it to be weird. In some cases I'm not sure the questions were even about math and very often not the kind of math you use in science (there were huge numbers of graph reading questions). Not to mention that the purveyors of the exam themselves only recognized three statistically significant groups (those working at, beneath and above the median). Not to mention when people start throwing ordinal values around it often makes me wonder how much they actually know about science or math. Ordinals provide zero information about the distance between ranks which is far more important than being 1st or 17th.
Sciene/Religeon is a 'We' vs. 'Them' issue (Score:4, Interesting)
At the core of the religious and science differences is a very humanistic (and fallible) trait of 'we' vs. 'them'. It's what drives the whole diatribe of debate on both sides of the fence and what makes the problem irrational and unsolvable.
Neither science nor religion are based on 100% total fact. A scientific theory, (as is much religion), is based on what appears to be known about something from a given set of data. Can you explain Dark Matter with 100% certainty? No. Can you explain Intelligent Design with 100% certainty? No. You can make a lot of guesses but in the end those guesses are subjective.
Seems to me one set of weakly glued hypothesis and conjecture should not be insisted upon over another set of weakly glued hypothesis and conjecture. We are on one planet of zillions of galaxies. We have not seen all there is to see and cannot explain much of what we have.
the pretense of fairness (Score:3)
"I don't blame corporations because they are stuck in a system we have created and they can't solve it all themselves," he said in an interview. "I don't blame the Republican Party for going anti-science because there are a lot of factors that led to that socially, and I don't think it's a decision of Republican Party leadership to one day say, 'oh, we're not going to accept science anymore.' And it's not just because evangelicals got involved in politics. There's a lot of complex reasons."
I notice he doesn't blame the Democrat Party, progressives, labor unions, etc either for their "anti-science" positions. But in those cases, he doesn't mention them by name either. I don't know who did this, whether it was the author, Otto, or a bias of the reporter of that particular interview, but any discussion of "anti-science" shouldn't be taking sides else it falls into the trap it purports to study.
For example, perhaps the number one, serial abuse of science is in the field of economics. Everyone with enough money to hire a pet economist (the modern version of the chicken entrails-equipped soothsayer) can find a credentialed someone who can economically rationalize the wants of the client. Medicine is a close number two. Their saving grace is that they're a bit result driven. Past that, it depends on the stakes. Nobody is going to throw string theory, because nobody gains or loses (whether money, power, or some vaguer notion like firmness of conviction) no matter what happens. Climatology and ecology are different stories since someone stands to lose and gain by what conclusions are drawn.
When you get to the weird religion based anti-science arguments against the sciences having to do with Earth's and the universe's past, these tend to be high profile and low impact. For example, I know of no case where some US school board passed an anti-evolution curriculum which didn't result in the overturning of the school board.
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An example of this is the recent stimuli, which weren't awarded on the basis of a cost-benefits analysis. As such, they are barely any better than hiring a bunch of people to dig holes and fill them back in again.
Now that we've established that both the Republicans and the Democrats discard scien
Lobbyists (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not about religion vs. science per se. In the U.S. it's all about getting enough money to run a successful election campaign. Either you are independently wealthy, or you need big-time campaign contributors. These big-money donors have agendas that are often at odds with scientific opinion. I am old enough to remember when tobacco officially didn't cause cancer, despite overwhelming scientific evidence otherwise. The same thing can be said about the U.S. position on climate change, health care reform, banking system reform, military spending, etc... In all of these cases, scientific opinion requires making a change in how money is spent, taxes are levied, or on how regulatory burden or liability are allocated.
Science Debate Rocks (Score:3)
I am bothered by one part of this article, the idea that Science Debate 2008 was only moderately successful. True, they were unable to get the candidates to debate science topics live on television, but the organization DID succeed in getting the candidates to debate science. The organization gave the candidates a list of questions and then posted their answers online side by side [sciencedebate.org] for comparison (I wrote up a score card on who I thought gave the best answer to each question [ideonexus.com]).
This was more than the Federation of American Scientists [fas.org] or Union of Concerned Scientists [ucsusa.org] have accomplished in their decades of activism. This was HUGE for an organization that had just come into existence. This success is why I abandoned my memberships to these other organizations and committed my donations to Science Debate [sciencedebate.org].
(Side Note: Newt Gingrich is a scumbag, but if he gets the nomination I can't wait to see him and Obama throw-down on Science... I've seen Newt destroy John Kerry on how to tackle Climate Change [factcheck.org] and I believe his nomination would bring scientific issues into the spotlight since Obama is something of a science geek himself.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here: Fact 1) The climate has changed and always will. Fact 2) We can't keep it in a solid sate (unchanging). Fact 3) Mankind directly affects the climate, and we KNOW this - we can see the Ozone hole above the poles. It was directly created by aerospray cans we created. Fact 4) Besides a static, unchanging thing, there is stomething called DYNAMIC STABILITY. Fa
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Not much. I am more concerned with doing something about the climate change that IS IN OUR CONTROL
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Or simply affecting that change. The climate is always changing, but human activities might be making it change faster, or to a greater extent, than plants or animals (including humans) can adapt without severe stress or hardship.
Re:Climate Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Check your budget numbers first, fool. The US government gives huge amounts of cash to oil, coal and nuclear power - far more than we give to solar powers.
As for 'uncompetitive' solar power plants are only uncompetitive if we let people dump garbage into the air for free. Wind power is now the cheapest power - assuming we enforce existing pollution laws. Water and coal are the cheapest if we don't track pollution. If we charge every company HALF the price to clean up air pollution then Wind, Solar and Nuclear are the only competivie plants.
The question is not 'which is cheapest', but "how much are we going to charge them for the right to poison our air".
To make it even more complicated idiots in the midwest like to pollute the air and don't care that their pollution gets blown east by the wind into the East.
If you want to claim "I can live with the pollution" that's one thing. But to stand and insist "its the cheapest" is just plain STUPID.
Re:Here we go again with the "Climate Deniers" (Score:5, Informative)
The Canadians walked away from Kyoto; shall we ask if they, too, are anti-science?
Your unspoken assumption that Canadians walked away from Kyoto for scientific reasons is a neat summary of all your other unspoken assumptions, and a neat proxy for how wrong you are on them as well. There's a nice summary of the actual situation here: http://www.politics.ubc.ca/fileadmin/user_upload/poli_sci/Faculty/harrison/Canada_US_august.pdf [politics.ubc.ca]
Re:Here we go again with the "Climate Deniers" (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we don't; you just made those things up.
Re:Here we go again with the "Climate Deniers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Scareduck asserted:
"Over and over, we read of hidden, manipulated, and cherry-picked data, refusals to abide with having outsiders vet their work, and allowing naked advocacy into the IPCC reports on climate change as if they were peer-reviewed science. "
To which nomadic responded:
No, we don't; you just made those things up.
Actually, he didn't just make those things up - and he does read of those things "over and over."
The thing is, you and he read completely different sources: he reads anti-AGW blogs, and you read reasonably objective reports. So somebody else made those things up, and he reads them "over and over", because those fictions are endlessly repeated by the sources he reads.
It's something like a self-fulfilling prophecy, except it's more of a wingnut trope, instead.
I hope that clears up that little misunderstanding.
Re:Here we go again with the "Climate Deniers" (Score:4, Interesting)
Natural climate fluctuation is pretty much indisputable, even with human historical periods (medieval warm period, Little Ice Age, etc). Likewise, the current warming trend is also indisputable, and it's fairly certain that even if it's NOT human caused, it's probably at least human exacerbated.
The US didn't ratify the Kyoto treaty because, if I recall correctly, China and India among others were exempt. The US would have taken an economic hit as a result of the treaty while China, which has only gotten bigger and bigger as a major industrial country in the years since Kyoto, would not have been saddled with the same regulations. This is a legitimate economic issue, but the political argument shifted away from the arena of economics, where perhaps it might have been a bit easier to arrive at an agreement or way forward. The political argument shifted instead to one about the scientific validity of the research. Skeptics deny the science as a way of trying to preempt the political conversation that necessarily follows. I think this is a disingenuous approach. If someone (or some organization) has an issue with the proposed political remedies -- as I sometimes, perhaps often, do -- then they should make THAT that their argument, not the underlying science.
Conservatives in Power in Canada (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is my understanding that experts and scientists opinions are not respected when making policy decisions. Our scientists are frequently muzzled. The long form census was recently changed. We have new crime policy that is unsupported by experts. Environment Canada has been cut drastically. I believe that our science minister does not believe in evolution. Experts, statisticians, and scientis
Re:Here we go again with the "Climate Deniers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem here is, Eisenhower was wrong.
The image of a solitary investor, toiling in some basement laboratory is, for the most part, a fairy tale. It has very seldom been true. A huge percentage of inventions, even through history, are funded by government. That includes many of those scientists who are iconized in pop culture as solitary inventors, like Ben Franklin and Leonardo DaVinci. These two were heavily funded by the government and would not have been able to complete their research and fund a
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This book is clearly proof of a huge conspiracy by high school science teachers. By pretending science should be important, they hope to keep their jobs and to be able to garner higher wages.
Won't that backfire on them, when the money is used to hire people that can actually teach science?
Re:Who died... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not particularly that scientists should make all the decisions, but rather, than we need an informed population and a very informed government in order to deal with modern problems.
In congress:
And quite a few are career politicians who moved up from state legislatures/etc.
In short, we're a nation run by lawyers and politicians, and have a tiny representation by engineers and scientists - people who have a demonstrated interest and capacity in how things actually work.
This is problematic because there simply isn't enough knowledge in congress to go around. Quite a few Americans, likewise, are voting from a position of complete ignorance and, instead of selecting a candidate who is very knowledgeable on the assumption that that candidate will make better decisions, quite a few Americans vehemently "vote their ignorance"; that is, they're looking specifically for a candidate who reflects their own biases and uninformed viewpoints.
As Isaac Asimov said: