Indeed the both the Left and the Right have elements that distrust science and dislike some of its conclusions. Indeed there has been an uncomfortable entaglement of science with politics with derision of scientific conclusions and elevation of extrreme minority views to equal time by “interested parties” (such as the tendency by some to paint global warming as controversal because there are one or two hired hacks … and Michael Crighton … who dispute it), but I do think that the biggest problem is communication - how it is communicated, what it tries to communicate, and the level of the target audience.
We are lacking today’s vesions of Sagan, Bronowski, or Gould. We do not have the effective mass media teachers. We instead have inaccessible research that the public sees the same as the latest silliness to spread across the web. We have distanced science from the public at large and made it into a specialized priesthood whose proclamations seem no less “from the chair” as any papal decree … except that it changes in a few years with more data … at least the Church doesn’t change its mind so often.
We do have those who profess to be scientists who use science to attack religion instead of respecting its role in people’s lives and treading very carefully indeed. (I’ll put that book on my to-read list, thanks metacom) Evolution does not preclude a Maker with a goal. One can present science as studying the means by which God did and does it, as approaching a relationship with God by studying that which has been left in God’s wake.
And last but not least, we have a public education system that more often teaches science as a bunch of facts than as a process of critical thinking and constant re-evaluation and revision of models that hopefully better approximate some ultimate truth.
But how to fix it? For I fear dark ages approaching.
I think the problem is what scientist wants to spend their time debunking every rediculous idea that comes along? it takes a lot of time and effort to have any impact on all the nonsense that is about and even then it doesn’t always work. I am sure we have all had experiences of some outlandish conjecture being successfully explained away, only to have it later repeated by someone who hasn’t bothered to research it properly. The media itself takes part of the blame as they will display sensational headlines about some outlandish claim but bury the disprove inside the paper, if the even bother to publish it at all.
Another problem is, it is easy to make any kind of claim, but it may not be that easy to disprove it. And the explanation may be very technical and not all that easy for a layman to follow.
The OP acts as if the US populace has been science-minded in the past and we are suddenly becoming less and less aware – or more and more inclined towards religious explanations. I don’t claim to know much in this area but I thought that are current condition, as it were, has been fairly constant over the past, say, 100 years.
The only thing I am aware of deteoriating is the state of our educational system. This, coupled with the mass media overload, could give the impression we are becoming dumber. I just haven’t become convinced.
You grossly underestimate the intelligence of the general population. A lot of people make that mistake. I see your post exactly as Liberal’s definition.
If people were really as dumb as you think you would be able to “snow” them all.
I think that what you might be seeing is a combination of two things. [ol]
[li]Atheists are liable to be pissed about the religious due to actual examples of Christians personally harming them. Not due to some irrational hate.[/li][li]You might see Christians claiming that reality itself attests to the existence of god. When they find out that science doesn’t support their beliefs, they get pissed.[/li][/ol]
Personally, for me it was my being told that religion has all the answers, and yet I could see clear holes in the torah’s claims.
I agree with your post, and add: The problems started when science decided to move into the spiritual field with psychology, psychiatry, and brain studies announcing that the brain produced the “psyche, mind, spirit, soul.” This effectively cancelled all spiritual knowledge, according to science, and began to anger the religious folks. Later on radical atheists started sueing to have symbols of religion removed from places they had been for centuries. So, science started the debate and are losing respect because of it.
Now science might have been justified if they could prove their claims, but they can’t so the conflict will continue and my money is on the religious folks because they have the most votes.
I believe the reason that science loses ground to irrationality is that it is easy to poke holes in strawmen copies of scientific theories. However, it takes much time and energy to disprove those strawmen.
[QUOTE=Scott Plaid]
I think that what you might be seeing is a combination of two things. [list=1]
[li]Atheists are liable to be pissed about the religious due to actual examples of Christians personally harming them. Not due to some irrational hate.[/li][li]You might see Christians claiming that reality itself attests to the existence of god. When they find out that science doesn’t support their beliefs, they get pissed.[/li][/QUOTE]
Yes. Your email demonstrates perfectly why I think people of faith turn away from science. The holier-than-thou-I-am-right-and-wiser-than-you attitude is just a turn-off.
Was that intentional in your post? Or do you not see it?
Wait, what? It all started with psychology/psychiatry/neuroscience? But those fields date back centuries, and the discussion of the mind/brain problem predates even those fields. How can it be to blame… unless… unless you’re just inserting your own agenda as the explanation for the phenomenon, and that would just be ridiculous.
Actually, I think lekatt has a point: Psychiatry and clinical psychology are more akin to theology or philosophy then, say, physics or biology. When their psuedo-scientific nonsense (be it id and ego or “chemical imbalances”) is put on the same shelf as real science it’s easy to get dissillusioned with the scientific community as a whole.
Now, I don’t think they cause as much fear and hatred as evolution, but I think they do make the same threats. In a way, biophysical psychiatric theories are even MORE threatening to belief then evolution, because they bring into question the existence of the soul, which is an even more fundamental premise of religion then a specific creation myth. Where they differ–for the worse–from evolution is that they’re both marbled throughout with pseudoscience, and I think that a lot of people recognize this (I think it’s part of the reason there’s such a stigma on mental health issues and mental health professionals are often the butt of jokes).
And yes, those fields date back centuries. But believe it or not religious fundamentlists refusing to agree to a scientific worldview also dates back centuries.
There are actual examples of harm done by christians. Some atheists dislike them for it.
Also, there are people, like detractors of evolutions, that dislike the fact that science doesn’t atually support thier claims.
I find it hard to believe you would not acknowledge that those things exist. However, you call my pointing this out to be arrogant. Hmm… I believe you are reading a non-existent viewpoint into my posts.
I can see how the principles of modern neuroscience and biological psychology could be construed to be threatening to religious beliefs, but it seems like they’re not the primary focus of most of the ire of organized religion. Stem-cell research is, or genetic engineering is, or evolution is. I’ve yet to see someone bomb a neurosurgery clinic or argue in an organized fashion for the removal of psychology from a public school curriculum.
I’m also a little saddened to see you refer so dismissively to psychiatry and psychology. As someone with more than a passing interest in the machinations of the brain, I think your depiction of the fields is rather inaccurate. Freud is to modern psychology as Lamarck is to evolutionary biology. What mainstream doctrines of psychology would you hold up as an example of pseudoscience?
Also, the “American populace” has traditionally been less interested in “pure” science as in invention and, maybe, discovery. Invent a lightbulb, dig up a dinosaur, develop a polio vaccine, launch a rocket to the moon – the populace applauds. Sit around in a lab running experiments over and over and deducing equations, th epopulace yawns. Just about the only theoretical scientist that caught the fancy of the American public was Einstein (to no small extent because he delved into the “deep”, near-metaphysical areas). Thus anyone not actually making something that tangibly improves your life is dismissed as a pointy-headed ivory-tower intellectual.
That could have something to do with psychology and psychiatry not being a subject taught in public schools, no?
The doctrine that that mental illness is biologically based in a way analogous to physical illness. This is obviously more of a psychiatric tenet then a psychological tenet; suffice it to say I see much more merit in psychotherapy then the current clinical practice of psychiatry, but think both have lots of problems. I don’t want to hijack DSeid’s thread, so I won’t argue this point further here.
But I will point out that psychiatry and psychology are still not looked on favorably by many people (of all classes and backgrounds), and some of their assertions threaten some very fundamental principles of most religions. So I don’t think lekatt’s point (which was that the conflict between religion and science started with the categorization of psychiatry and psychology as scientific fields) is completely without merit. I don’t agree with it–I think the conflict started way before that–but I think there’s some insight in it and I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it has him “inserting his own agenda”.
But… but… psychology was taught at my high school. And at other high schools. It’s an AP class now, and I think it’s at least sort of common.
Interesting. Your position is the reverse of the one I’m most familiar with, which is to say that psychology is bunk because it’s all about feelings and emotions and so forth, whereas psychiatrists can actually hand out the pills. In any case, you’re right about the hijack potential, and I’d be happy to debate this with you in another place.
