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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 16948
[Science]
Date Posted:
12/27/2006
8:59:04 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 7,050
RSS: 22,443
Comments: 17
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The Search For Truth: Is Science Losing Ground To Religion
Author: Lee Dye Source: ABC News (US)
Title: THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH: IS SCIENCE LOSING GROUND TO RELIGION?
The small Alaska city where I make my home is far from a backwater community. It is the state capital, and a college town, and because of its isolation it is one of the most "wired" communities in the nation.
So solid scientific facts are not hard to find. Just a click of the mouse can answer many questions.
That's why it was so disturbing recently when the Juneau city assembly ignored the advice of local dentists and several scientists and voted to stop adding fluoride to the city's water. We can get by without fluoride in the water, since good dental hygiene will protect our teeth from decay, but that's not the issue.
The issue is a growing lack of public confidence in science, and that's something that all of us should worry about.
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Community Thoughts: There are 17 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Sticking To The Fluoride Issue | Dec 29th. at 9:27:46 am EST
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Lughaidh (Burleson, Texas) - Email Me
I didn't care for the leap from a city deciding to not fluoridate their water to religion and evolution. These types of 'arguments' ... where one takes an unrelated issue and tries to use it in painting with a broad brush ... don't appeal to me.
Juneau is not a backwater and they have demonstrated that by removing fluoridation. Governments, IMO, should not have the option to involuntarily medicate their citizens. On the 19th of December in Martin County, Florida, Commissioner Susan Valliere said, "To me it's medicine and I'm not licensed to prescribe medicine." Dentist Inge Ford said that she's "taking out an inordinate number of decayed, bombed-out, abscessed, pus-ridden teeth in children ages 3 to 6 and teens ages 13 to 16. Can you say 'Third World developing country?' This is unreal." At the same County Commissioners meeting fluoride was referred to as a "nutritional supplement" by dental coordinator for the state Department of Health Michael Easley.
Fluoridation has been a way of life for fifty years or so. If it's such a wonder, then why is Inge Ford removing all those "bombed-out" teeth? Not only is fluoride effectiveness debateable, it is only "needed" when children's teeth are developing and not in adult teeth. If it's a "nutritional supplement," then why is the government mandating it's use? Fluoride use should be voluntary.
For some additional info on fluoride and it's dangers, follow the link below.
Find More info -- HERE
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| Reason Is Losing Ground To Stupidity, That's All | Dec 29th. at 1:23:34 am EST
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R. Cicero (Seattle, Washington) - Email Me
Science is stronger than ever. How about that Human Genome Project. Unfortunately, the undereducated and poorest of the world still reproduce at higher rates than the well-educated and financially secure. As for the validity of religion, that pretty much speaks for itself. The leader of the free world, otherwise known as the worst president in U.S. history, believes that abstinence is a reasonable solution to the AIDS crisis in Africa. Historically, one thousand years of Christian rule is casually referred to as 'the Dark Ages.' As opposed to the much more positive sounding 'Renaissance' and 'Age of Enlightenment,' characterized by tremendous strides in the arts and sciences and our understanding of the natural world. And here's a basic test -- let's compare a Doctor of Divinity from Liberty University (or Universal Life Church, for that matter) to a PhD in any other discipline.
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| Ponder This | Dec 28th. at 7:05:08 pm EST
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William (Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia) - Email Me
If we had only religion, where would we be?
If we had only science, where would we be?
Which is the lesser of two evils?
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| In The Struggle-is The Glory... | Dec 28th. at 11:18:01 am EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
While scientists might not be able to run a country any better than anyone else-they could use a bit more respect. They are not asking that their words become law- but that people keep a more open mind. After all, it's very difficult to come up with all those things we take too much for granted, thanks to the various fields of science that has contributed to the human endeavor, which have been miracles in their own right.
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| Scientists Do Know More Than Most People | Dec 27th. at 7:40:52 pm EST
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Rubyglare (Sacramento, California) - Email Me
in their area of expertise-they often know the causes of the effects that we see, where they are fallible is how to create policy (i.e. politics) to manage & reduce deleterious effects. The fish stock in the North Sea is lurching towards collapse & scientists have called for a stop to fishing that area every year sine 2001, but the politicans & fisherman prefer to continue & go the way of Canada & their cod. People are only thinking about the short-term, what would the fishermen do if the North Sea is temporarily closed until the fish can breed back up to healthy numbers? That is obviously outside the scientists realm, yet the answer is there-with gps buoys they could breed fish like cattle & "own" or rent areas of the sea, using rfids to tag/brand the fish. Only savages hunt & gather their food to extinction, selfishly saddling future generations with "food insecurity".
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| Scientists Rule? | Dec 27th. at 7:23:06 pm EST
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Morning Light (Fairplay, Colorado) - Email Me
I don't think anyone could beleive that scientists could lead this country better or worse than any other intelligent person. A good scientist is usually very busy with their area of study. Their knowledge base is in their area of expertise. Scientists can be and often are very stupid or I should say not very knowledgeable outside their area of expertise. They are bright people, so scientists do have good ideas and opinions on social issues, but they are no brighter about such issues as other intelligent people. Of course if they become a politician, then they usually leave there scientific endeavors and concentrate on politics.
Scientists are able to give us good models of the way the universe works...but at our present stage of knowledge, we really don't know much. And yet we do know some things. People live at their own peril when they ignore all scientific knowledge. To paraphrase, "Scientists can be believed by most people most of the time, and some people believe them all of the time, but no scientist can be believed by everyone all of the time".
) O (
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| Chaos, Complexity, And Reality | Dec 27th. at 7:02:19 pm EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
It's neither science nor religion which are fundamentally what this article is about. It's the nature of human existence and awareness in a vast, diverse, information based society, which results in challenges to everyone, and decoupling from aspects of reality US legal standards require as part of the definitions for a level playing field for many people who are less intellectually capable or emotionally functional.
Many aspects of law and public policy in US governments are required to meet "rational basis" and other tests, which are designed to meet some core standards for a level playing field, and reduce mental health pathologies or emotional quirks of some factions from being imposed at gunpoint (directly or indirectly) on others. In many cases, that obligates government to put scientific fact above voter or politician arbitrary preferences. To the extent many people aren't well grounded in facts or rational decision making skills, they end up incompetent to meaningfully participate in government, or as abusers of authority if they gain it.
That doesn't place science at odds with religion per se. To the extent some people adopt religions which give simple but factually delusional answers rather than suggest learning relevant facts, those religions for some people can exist as both coping tools and at odds with reality. Science is driven ideologically to expand and test an increasing scope of details documenting the very aspects of reality less intellectually rigorous or capable people evade. But, religion can also be driven by and reliant on science, whether the Dalai Lama's form of aware Buddhism, or overlapping scientific pantheism or Gaians, who view the world in terms of nested interdependencies rooted in scientific Gaia theory and related development of ethics and practices. Hostility towards science would also not work with UUA Principles, while people looking for psychotic dogma answers to all questions handed to them from a self-proclaimed authority don't tend to do well in UU-ism either.
A group of people with advanced statistical and political science skills can reasonably prove that the last two Presidential elections were tampered such that Bush did not legitimately win the 2000 or 2004 elections, but the tedious nature of that documentation and complex statistical models involved scare off less specialized and dedicated PhD level research statisticians. A PhD level clinical sleep researcher I know has engaged in fraud representing Dr. Emoto's water crystal project presented in "What the Bleep" as if science, a fraud so common that Dr. Emoto finally came out to remind people it was an interesting art project which in no way followed scientific process, despite the image some viewers had watching white lab coats in a science lab. Muon spin focused subatomic particle physicist friends have some rather highly developed mental models of orderly chaos patterns and the majority of what we call "solids" actually being empty spaces, but lack the clear concepts of which brain regions control what elements of sleep process or related spiritual practice brain wave patterns that sleep researcher can recite offhand. We've reached the point where people more than 2 or 3 Standard Deviations above average intelligence are only capable of solidly learning small portions of what science now offers us.
That would present a huge challenge to political leaders obligated to base public policy on rational facts where applicable, even absent the tampering from economic predators and scientists or medical researchers who publish biased and less often fraudulent conclusions for money. In a few limited scope studies, it's been found that 50% more research in select fields is legitimate and meets scientific standards than is suspect or fails basic tests, but that the "junk science" (or in some cases medicine) is covered in MSM (mainstream media) as if valid news about equally. When political and business leaders promote frauds, and reporters and the public are clueless to distinguish for the most part, no wonder people not already driven by basic lack of life skills for a complex rational basis driven society don't do well staying grounded in reality.
Relative to standards for rational basis tests in law, and issues where science is the core underlying source of facts for rational analysis of some issues, Dawkins dismissive attitude may be realistic for one aspect of government policy determining process. The Wall of Separation in fact demands alternative arbitrary religious answers be isolated from that process. What that position lacks is any guidance on how to answer ethical issues as may apply to biomedicine or wars, which are also not legitimately answered under our system from religion as a traditional source in other cultures. Nor does it suggest how those less capable people reliant on religion for simple if unrealistic answers might live without being disenfranchised at least by de facto process from government, or how to deal with their existence if in fact neutral legal standards require government to treat their low functioning as less than responsible citizenship.
A modem, which used to be comprehensible at least to most electrical engineers, is now a series of black box logical blocks even to people trained in related fields. Few engineers designing a PC video card know all details of the primary chipset used in their own overall design. But, construction companies with wireless networked GPS systems in backhoes have trouble hiring men to work hand shovels as illegal alien hiring restrictions went into effect. Few citizens engage in serious issues of either telecom policy development, or immigration law, when serious participation rather than narrow interest or prejudice based pot shots require expansive knowledge of many other interrelated fields, not all of which function as rational logic systems where it can be tested or defined as to what is or is not accurate understanding.
Science isn't a demon in that maze, even if expansion of breadth and complexity of knowledge, and obligations to understand chaos systems as a form of order, does tax the ability of many people to keep up, or results in others disconnecting.
Religion is a demon, when it promotes perspectives at odds with the common social and legal contracts of our society, and becomes a source of child abuse when it promotes violations of civil rights or legal due process, even if done as an evasion of complex or chaos systems many people don't cope or function well within. Even in those cases, "defective religion" is generally used as a coping mechanism, leaving open issues when the results of it in some forms causes emotional patterns like alcoholic parents abusing kids, and OCD, ACOA, and similar patterns as kids become adults. Contrary to the generalizations of this article, that's not all religion, but certain forms, whereas others rely on science and advanced awareness dependent upon but expanding into areas of life beyond science alone.
What neither science nor religion conveniently offer us are answers simple enough for most people to be able to work with them in real human terms, and which comprehensively and accurately reflect the many aspects of reality as we've come to document or understand it currently, across the composite scope of knowledge. And Scio, "to know" in Latin, is the root of science. But, to "grok", even in science, requires a deeper knowing, a comprehension of applied meaning. Mental models of how vast arrays of pieces function in dynamic contexts isn't easily handed to others.
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| How Exactly Is One SUPPOSED To Prove It? | Dec 27th. at 5:39:45 pm EST
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Arcadia's Ashes (Sydney, New South Wales) - Email Me
I am getting tired of people implying that because evolution is not a proven fact that it is of now more value than the "mad ravings of Uncle Harry". And so I issue this challenge. Suggest an experiment, oh you people that think evolution is valueless until it is a proven fact. Suggest a way for us to prove it or disprove it once and for all, and if it really will and if it is possible to do, then scientists will do it. I, for one, promise to not stick my fingers in my ears. Scientists as a whole do not have an agenda. If something else is true then most of us want to know and see it proven.
As for fluoride in the water, I suggest that the people serviced by a water supply can choose between fluorinated water and taking the cost of their dental care onto themselves with no public money funding of anything to do with it. There is so little money apportioned to health that people who deliberately choose to suffer from preventable diseases should be honestly ashamed of themselves.
As for religion vs science? Believe in both, one or neither as you please.
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| Science Is Able To Explain The Natural World | Dec 27th. at 4:42:18 pm EST
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Rubyglare (Sacramento, California) - Email Me
& the Bible/Torah/Koran is being eclipsed in authority; people go to doctors when they are ill & only turn to priests as a last resort-this is very threatening to the various 12th House brands of religion. Aquarius' "priests" are essentially the scientists, so this weakening of the old religion is only going to expand, they shouldn't fight it, it's natural.
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| No, The Real Losers.. | Dec 27th. at 3:48:55 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
will be the people who are supposed to be served by both.
Religion is supposed to serve the soul, to preserve the guidelines of the way we are supposed to live our lives. Science was meant to answer those questions that would preserve our lives and expand our knowledge. Neither can actually answer all those questions, but- where religion offers "pat answers" which answers nothing, Science offers a more honest, "I don't know, but I'll find out."
Science is often maligned in its searches, but it offers a more organized approach in its search for truth than religion's wishful hearsay.
And Science constantly refines its search favoring only the truth in its investigation. While it doesn't claim to have all the answers, it does offer reason in place of faith,in search of those answers it doesn't have as yet.
If Science loses, the fate of the status of our country will fail also. In favor of still another religiously oriented Dark Age.
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| God/Evolution | Dec 27th. at 12:46:47 pm EST
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Ardeith Carter (Zephyrhills, Florida) - Email Me
Somewhere I once read that God had hidden the secrets of the Universe all around us, and had given us the brains to discover those secrets. Much like a parent hiding presents, or Easter eggs, for the children to find.
It may be that one god, or many gods, created the Universe we know, but the existence of that god, or those gods, is not something we will ever be able to prove. This is something we must take on faith.
Science discovers how things work; this is not something we must take on faith; this is something we can demonstrate again and again, just as we can demonstrate how a knife cuts an apple.
The best of religious teaching tells us how to live together; how to behave honorably toward one another; and gives hope for an afterlife . . . none of these things are subject to proof, or scientific measurement.
Science tells us what we are, how we came to be, and gives us the means to survive.
Religion tells us why we are here, how we should live, and what comes next.
The two are not incompatible, except in the mind of a Christian fundamentalist who is ready and willing to trust his/her soul to a book we know has been edited by men for centuries. I have never been able to figure out if such people are too lazy to try to understand scientific principles, or too ignorant to think for themselves . . . but I'm sure of one thing . . . we must not allow them to dictate what we can think or learn.
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| Now Hear This ! | Dec 27th. at 11:44:32 am EST
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Libertarian (Langley, Washington) - Email Me - Web
The issue is not weather floride is good or bad for us nor is it the issue of good dental hygine for our children. This is the issue. Does a government, any government have the right to medicate its citizens against their will ? If it can, what's next ? Our government should be defending individual rights not violating them. Call me right wing if you like but minority rights used to be a liberal issue. I can remember a time when if you went against the popular majority opinions you were called a radical or worse. How times have changed.
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| "Truth" | Dec 27th. at 9:51:29 am EST
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Morning Light (Fairplay, Colorado) - Email Me
People have the right to believe what they wish to believe. The sadness comes when you realize that this too is an evolutionary process. When Jules Verne wrote about traveling to the moon, he placed this endeavor in the USA. He did so because these Americans were resourceful "engineering" type mentalities where progress was a byword. If we move away from those modes of thought, then we will loose that edge, and slowly move to a backwater nation intellectually and technologically. Others will take our place. It is sad to me as an American, but humanity will move forward without us, or dragging us into the future. We can stop this decline, but it will take a shock of some sort. These shocks can and do happen in history, so there is hope. I believe the pendulum is shifting in this country and our secular nation is moving back to secularism. At least that is my hope.
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