# Richard Dawkins says American religion holds back science **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2015, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595 "2015-10-05T10:03:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/61 "2015-10-05T23:44:01Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Richard Dawkins & the [BBC](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+dawkins+bbc) Robert, this is both an insult and a violation of the “no altering text inside quote boxes” rule. Warning issued. Don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/62 "2015-10-06T01:12:32Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > And I respectfully disagree with **John Mace** on the critical importance of federal funding, which is influenced by political factors which are in turn influenced by the religious vote. No individual(s) could possibly hope to match, either in dollar amounts nor in the expertise with which – and long-term goals for which – federal funds are allocated to such institutions as DARPA, the NSF, NIH, and NASA, to name a few. You’re reading more into my post than is there. I never suggested that individuals could match federal funding. However, in the one area where many people have ethical problems funding something federally (embryonic stem cell research), as long as the government isn’t making it illegal for individuals to finance the research, it’s probably a good model to go that route. There are more non-controversial things than the federal government can fund anyway, so use those funds there. > [@](#): > > All that said, I agree with the numerous posters here who consider Dawkins’ observation to be a relatively trivial matter. Does religion tend to set back science? Yes. How much? In the US and throughout the first world, not much. > > Dawkins is a brilliant scientist, an interesting and often provocative thinker, and sometimes annoying in his stridency. Maybe I’ve not seen him all that much, but those “sometimes” seem to be really rare, and get blow out of proportion because, OMG, someone said something bad about religion. I’ve seen much more stridently anti-religious folks out there than him. Bill Maher, for instance. He made an anti-religion movie. Personally, I like them both, and Dawkins was the first guest on Maher’s show last Friday. _The Ancestor’s Tale_ is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s brilliant. Also, Dawkins is out pimping a book right now, so maybe a little controversy doesn’t hurt so much…? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/63 "2015-10-06T01:30:26Z")
What’s the ratio of public and private spending on research? My WAG is that private funding dwarfs public spending. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/64 "2015-10-06T01:49:00Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You are referring, of course, to embryonic stem cell research. Other types of stem cell research have no restriction on government funding. And even the embryonic kind is not illegal, so you are free to fund it as much as you like. Great. Religion wasn’t holding back science as much as it might. Should we be thankful? In 2001 Bush banned federal funding to start new embryonic cell lines or conduct research on newly derived embryonic cell lines. Obama over turned it in 2009, allowing scientists to use cells from IVF for study. Do scientists want embryonic cell lines for kicks? Will religiously minded tax payers benefit from advances in medicine curing diabetes, heart disease or parkinsons? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/65 "2015-10-06T02:46:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Maybe I’ve not seen him all that much, but those “sometimes” seem to be really rare, and get blow out of proportion because, OMG, someone said something bad about religion. I’ve seen much more stridently anti-religious folks out there than him. Bill Maher, for instance. He made an anti-religion movie. Personally, I like them both, and Dawkins was the first guest on Maher’s show last Friday. _The Ancestor’s Tale_ is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s brilliant. > > Also, Dawkins is out pimping a book right now, so maybe a little controversy doesn’t hurt so much…? Well, yeah, but that’s because Maher is a horrible human being who gets off on pissing people off. I do think that Dawkins, as misguided as he is, thinks he’s helping. Maher doesn’t. He’s in it to crack jokes. Though, since he can be funny at times, Maher is more tolerable. You just have to avoid his smug bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![CatastrophicFailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@CatastrophicFailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatastrophicFailure)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/66 "2015-10-06T03:03:19Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Well, yeah, but that’s because Maher is a horrible human being who gets off on pissing people off. I do think that Dawkins, as misguided as he is, thinks he’s helping. Maher doesn’t. He’s in it to crack jokes. > > Though, since he can be funny at times, Maher is more tolerable. You just have to avoid his smug bigotry. You also have to avoid his [anti-vaccine, anti-germ theory, and HIV/AIDS denialism views](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/oh-come-on-superman-bill-maher-and-western-medicine/). Maher is living proof you don’t need religion to be against science. I really enjoy Dawkins when he is writing or speaking about science, but generally wish he would shut up the rest of the time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/67 "2015-10-06T04:11:48Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Well, yeah, but that’s because Maher is a horrible human being who gets off on pissing people off. Eh. He’s a comedian. If he pisses you off, then maybe you’re just not into his kind of humor. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/68 "2015-10-06T04:41:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You’re reading more into my post than is there. I never suggested that individuals could match federal funding. However, in the one area where many people have ethical problems funding something federally (embryonic stem cell research), as long as the government isn’t making it illegal for individuals to finance the research, it’s probably a good model to go that route. There are more non-controversial things than the federal government can fund anyway, so use those funds there. That sounds plausible but it isn’t. This is a huge area of research – “the one area” potentially offers hope for Parkinson’s, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and countless other serious illnesses as well as accidental injuries like those to the spinal cord. But it’s research that may take decades to come to fruition and requires large, coordinated research programs to be effective. Private investment, interested only in risk-averse short-term gains, has neither the money nor the interest in funding such ventures. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Maybe I’ve not seen him all that much, but those “sometimes” seem to be really rare, and get blow out of proportion because, OMG, someone said something bad about religion. I’ve seen much more stridently anti-religious folks out there than him. Bill Maher, for instance. He made an anti-religion movie. Personally, I like them both, and Dawkins was the first guest on Maher’s show last Friday. _The Ancestor’s Tale_ is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s brilliant. > > Also, Dawkins is out pimping a book right now, so maybe a little controversy doesn’t hurt so much…? I saw Dawkins on last Friday’s show. I never miss Bill Maher, and I go into withdrawal when he takes his summer or holiday-season break. I thought Dawkins was pretty tolerable on the show, but as I said, some of his stridency at other times is annoying. > [@BigT](#): > > Well, yeah, but that’s because Maher is a horrible human being who gets off on pissing people off. I do think that Dawkins, as misguided as he is, thinks he’s helping. Maher doesn’t. He’s in it to crack jokes. > > Though, since he can be funny at times, Maher is more tolerable. You just have to avoid his smug bigotry. Really? Bill Maher’s mission is to “crack jokes”? Is that why the initial interview guest on his shows, his panelists, and his mid-show special guest are always intelligent, informed people with strong points of view – some of which run counter to his and mine, but which provoke interesting discussion? Is that why I find Real Time one of the most informative shows on television? Is that why Real Time has been nominated for a Prime Time Emmy every single year over its decade-long run so far? Is that why Maher – not by any means a wealthy man by the standards of celebrities – donated a million dollars to the Obama campaign? Because it’s all a big joke? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/69 "2015-10-06T04:48:46Z")
> [@CatastrophicFailure](#): > > I really enjoy Dawkins when he is writing or speaking about science, but generally wish he would shut up the rest of the time. You know, for once I would like to see him in a laboratory surrounded by test tubes and microscopes actually performing a science experiment. Or since he is a zoologist, take some students out into a forest and discuss the various ways the insects and animals interact. Or even maybe see him dissect a frog and explain the various organs. These are things scientists and science teachers do. If he is truly a scientist and wants to show how awesome science is, lets see him do some. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/70 "2015-10-06T05:01:34Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > 1. He says while the United States has a huge religious majority he cannot figure out why the US still leads the world in scientific progress. BUT he doesnt say which other countries without such strong religious people are that much better. The simple answer is that the US is a very wealthy and very big place with a highly variable culture; fundamentalist anti-intellectual, anti-science attitudes in certain areas of the US are probably not helping but they’re also not hindering too much in somewhere like California or New York. I would expect that Dawkins knows this very well and he’s being hyperbolic. ---
**Author:** ![CatastrophicFailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@CatastrophicFailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatastrophicFailure)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/71 "2015-10-06T05:40:55Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > You know, for once I would like to see him in a laboratory surrounded by test tubes and microscopes actually performing a science experiment. > > Or since he is a zoologist, take some students out into a forest and discuss the various ways the insects and animals interact. > > Or even maybe see him dissect a frog and explain the various organs. > > These are things scientists and science teachers do. If he is truly a scientist and wants to show how awesome science is, lets see him do some. He does this. He does science workshops and lectures for students that are great. He just doesn’t get mainstream press for it. If you search “Richard Dawkins science” on YouTube, you can find several examples. His passion for science really comes out in these, and I enjoy them immensely. I wish he would focus more on what he loves and less on what he hates, but, like I said, he doesn’t get much press for that. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/72 "2015-10-06T06:27:14Z")
I’m not even sure how this is controversial. You don’t generally find a lot of religious fundamentalists in the sciences. Engineering, yes. One could argue there are bigger issues, like anti-intellectualism in general or math aversion or poor teaching of math, but anti-science views are a factor, especially in the South and Midwest. > [@wolfpup](#): > > I thought Dawkins was pretty tolerable on the show, but as I said, some of his stridency at other times is annoying. I like when mild mannered guys like Chalmers Johnson, Chomsky, and Dawkins are called strident by their opponents. Now Hitchens, that was a strident dude. > [@](#): > > Is that why I find Real Time one of the most informative shows on television? It’s funny as hell, but it’s mostly celebrities and stuffed shirts yelling at each other and the same stories the rest of the news media is doing. Oliver is better for actual investigation and reporting of facts on things that actually matter, especially issues affecting the poor. I really doubt Maher would ever talk extensively about, I dunno, the [plight of chicken farmers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wHzt6gBgI) Doesn’t help that Maher himself is a kaleidoscope of leftist woo. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/73 "2015-10-06T06:39:32Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I’d guess it’s because its much easier for Dawkins to come to the US and badmouth us horrible Americans, that work within his own country and continent. > > Some Americans, especially those on the left, are so damn stupid in the way they soak up what someone says as long as they have a British accent. Darwin is on British money. Imagine if someone suggested such a thing in the US, not Darwin obviously but perhaps Gould. So maybe he is badmouthing us from England. I, as an American, think he is totally justified. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/74 "2015-10-06T06:44:43Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Then Dawkins isn’t being a scientist when he made the allegation in the OP, since he apparently didn’t even try to test it, and didn’t produce any data to show it. Did he publish it in a reviewed journal? Or was it a clearly labeled bit of opinion? You have a very fuzzy idea of how science works. I have a column in a computer design journal. The papers in this journal are carefully reviewed, my column can be any damn thing I please from speculation to jokes. Our readers understand the difference. > [@](#): > > It sounds like the range of science that is being negatively impacted by religion is getting narrower and narrower. If Dawkins meant only the field of evolutionary biology, he should have said so. I’m unaware of Carson ever doing any research. Surgeons, even good surgeons like Carson was, don’t need to know anything about evolution to do their job, no more than car mechanics have to be experts in combustion engineering or mechanical engineering to be good mechanics. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/75 "2015-10-06T07:59:59Z")
> [@CatastrophicFailure](#): > > He does this. He does science workshops and lectures for students that are great. He just doesn’t get mainstream press for it. If you search “Richard Dawkins science” on YouTube, you can find several examples. His passion for science really comes out in these, and I enjoy them immensely. I wish he would focus more on what he loves and less on what he hates, but, like I said, he doesn’t get much press for that. Thanks. I’ll look those up. Yes his mouth does get him in trouble. Recently he got into trouble by saying “[mild pedophilia](http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/richard_dawkins_defends_mild_pedophilia_says_it_does_not_cause_lasting_harm/)” isnt harmful and that a woman when presented with evidence her unborn child has down syndrome should have just “[aborted and tried again](http://new.spectator.co.uk/2014/09/i-know-that-richard-dawkins-is-wrong-about-downs-syndrome-because-i-know-my-son/)”. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/76 "2015-10-06T12:58:04Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Did he publish it in a reviewed journal? Or was it a clearly labeled bit of opinion? You have a very fuzzy idea of how science works. > I have a column in a computer design journal. The papers in this journal are carefully reviewed, my column can be any damn thing I please from speculation to jokes. Our readers understand the difference. It looks to me like you’re agreeing with **Shodan** : Dawkins wasn’t being a scientist when he made the allegation. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/77 "2015-10-06T14:54:48Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It looks to me like you’re agreeing with **Shodan** : Dawkins wasn’t being a scientist when he made the allegation. He was not speaking from his expertise as an evolutionary zoologist, if that is what you mean. He was making an observation about the composition and beliefs of the electorate, a significant portion of which do not accept scientific theories that have been widely regarded as demonstrated to be factual beyond any reasonable doubt and in absence of any exceptional evidence to the contrary, e.g. natural selection. Were this four hundred years earlier, he would doubtless be railing upon the Catholic church for rejecting heliocentricism. While Dawkins is certainly militant and abrasive in his screeds against religion (stemming from his personal experience with an ex-wife who insisted on raising their child in a particularly backward and Fundamentalist sect of Christianity) he makes and defends his points with clarity and citation. It certainly isn’t a stretch to observe the anti-intellectualism and education atavism of a nation in which a substantial portion of the population refuses to acknowledge established scientific principles and in which the teaching of evolution is contraversial in many states to the point of attempting to insert pseudoscientific gobbledygook like Intelligent Design into the science curriculum. As for the impact upon science, one can see it in gene therapy research, which has been substantially restricted in the use of embryonic stem cells over nothing more than religious objections to abortion. The only reason religious uathorities aren’t railing more heavily in other fields such as high energy particle physics is because that work is already internationalized thanks to the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider. (While the cancellation was a political move rather than religious, there was a small but vocal minority of Pentacostalist whackjobs who were lobbying against operation of the SSC on some flaketastic basis about bringing the Apocalypse prematurely or some other absurd horseshit.). But the largest impact that religion has had on science in the US has been on education, which is ironic because what we now view as the hard sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy all had their origins in the education and communication traditions of the European Enlightenment. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/78 "2015-10-06T15:08:11Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It looks to me like you’re agreeing with **Shodan** : Dawkins wasn’t being a scientist when he made the allegation. Once a scientist, always a scientist. But opinions don’t have to come with tables of data. If you’ve read Dawkins, you’d know that this whole thing is driven by his mail from the religious attacking him for his writing on evolution. So he has lots of data supporting his views, if not data that would ever go into a paper. If Dawkins were a sociologist he might do a study on the influence of religion on science, but he’s not. He knows anecdotal data can drive opinion pieces, not papers. That’s being a scientist. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/79 "2015-10-06T15:21:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Once a scientist, always a scientist. But opinions don’t have to come with tables of data. > If you’ve read Dawkins, you’d know that this whole thing is driven by his mail from the religious attacking him for his writing on evolution. So he has lots of data supporting his views, if not data that would ever go into a paper. > If Dawkins were a sociologist he might do a study on the influence of religion on science, but he’s not. He knows anecdotal data can drive opinion pieces, not papers. That’s being a scientist. I was thinking along those lines earlier. I know some folks think that Dawkins can be overly aggressive in pushing his atheist views, but as an evolutionary biologist, he is on the receiving end of attacks from overly aggressive religious types, so it’s hard to blame him. And frankly, I’ve not seem him be “overly aggressive”. I do, however, need to correct an earlier post of mine in which I implied that Dawkins didn’t right books about the subject. Not sure how I forgot _The God Delusion_, but that was certainly one of his books. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595/80 "2015-10-06T16:08:09Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > He was not speaking from his expertise as an evolutionary zoologist, if that is what you mean. He was making an observation about the composition and beliefs of the electorate, a significant portion of which do not accept scientific theories that have been widely regarded as demonstrated to be factual beyond any reasonable doubt and in absence of any exceptional evidence to the contrary, e.g. natural selection. Were this four hundred years earlier, he would doubtless be railing upon the Catholic church for rejecting heliocentricism. So can he demonstrate any causal relation? Or that this is uniquely attributable to religiosity as opposed to natural human suspicion and suspectability to pseudoscience which may come in the guise of religion but also from other sources? > [@](#): > > While Dawkins is certainly militant and abrasive in his screeds against religion (stemming from his personal experience with an ex-wife who insisted on raising their child in a particularly backward and Fundamentalist sect of Christianity) he makes and defends his points with clarity and citation. I’m curious if there’s any more details on this, since it would be rather unusual that Dawkins who has been an atheist since his youth would marry a fundamentalist. > [@](#): > > It certainly isn’t a stretch to observe the anti-intellectualism and education atavism of a nation in which a substantial portion of the population refuses to acknowledge established scientific principles and in which the teaching of evolution is contraversial in many states to the point of attempting to insert pseudoscientific gobbledygook like Intelligent Design into the science curriculum. Much has been said about American anti-intellectualism, although I fail to see how we are particularly more anti-intellectual than any other nation while once socioeconomic disparities are accounted for, American schoolchildren do just as well if not better than their foreign counterparts. > [@](#): > > As for the impact upon science, one can see it in gene therapy research, which has been substantially restricted in the use of embryonic stem cells over nothing more than religious objections to abortion. Any real opposition to embryonic stem cell research is pretty much dead at this point, and I don’t see how its different except in its greater weakness than the non-religious opposition to things such as nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccination. > [@](#): > > The only reason religious uathorities aren’t railing more heavily in other fields such as high energy particle physics is because that work is already internationalized thanks to the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider. Or perhaps its because there’s no religious objection to it. > [@](#): > > (While the cancellation was a political move rather than religious, there was a small but vocal minority of Pentacostalist whackjobs who were lobbying against operation of the SSC on some flaketastic basis about bringing the Apocalypse prematurely or some other absurd horseshit.). Yes and I’m sure you can find Indian witch-doctors thundering how we can’t store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain because of ancestral spirits or whatnot. > [@](#): > > But the largest impact that religion has had on science in the US has been on education, which is ironic because what we now view as the hard sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy all had their origins in the education and communication traditions of the European Enlightenment. > > Stranger So how exactly has there been a causal relation in religion affecting science education in the United States? Is America significantly less scientifically innovative? Does it have disproportionately less youths going into the sciences? > [@Voyager](#): > > Once a scientist, always a scientist. But opinions don’t have to come with tables of data. > If you’ve read Dawkins, you’d know that this whole thing is driven by his mail from the religious attacking him for his writing on evolution. So he has lots of data supporting his views, if not data that would ever go into a paper. > If Dawkins were a sociologist he might do a study on the influence of religion on science, but he’s not. He knows anecdotal data can drive opinion pieces, not papers. That’s being a scientist. Its called being a polemicist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-dawkins-says-american-religion-holds-back-science/733595.md?page=5)