Re: [Phys-l] Richard Dawkins Answers Reddit Questions

["Dr. Keith S. Taber" <kst24@cam.ac.uk>]

Everyone is of course entitled to their own views, but when you say:

At 05:16 -0500 21/11/10, Spinozalens@aol.com wrote:
> Just about everything in the Bible and Koran are in total conflict 
> with  everything science has learned about the Universe. To suggest 
> otherwise  seems to me rather amazing.

I have to this is intended as rhetoric rather than a serious point.

I do not know enough about the Koran to comments, but I find a 
statement such as

"Just about everything in the Bible [is] in total conflict with 
everything science has learned about the Universe"

makes about as much sense as saying that just about all the lyrics of 
Sgt. Pepper's are in total conflict with everything historians have 
found out about the Roman empire. Some people choose to read science 
or pseudo-science into the Bible. You are of course at liberty to do 
that, Bob, just as much as the fundamentalists you criticise, but it 
is not a book of science and most Christian scholars would argue that 
it was clearly never intended to be. If you want to argue that the 
Bible contradicts science you have to play the fundamentalist game 
and choose to interpret the Bible that way.

Without wishing to be provocative, as an outsider I don't understand 
why fundamentalist Christian religion seems to be so influential in 
US education, when so many other aspects of US public life are 
clearly influenced very little by Christian values and principles. 
I'm thinking, for example, of the high per capita prison population, 
and the use of legal judicial killing in some states (but perhaps 
those where the Christian religion is less influential?) - in the 
21st Century! - the apparent keenness to take military action around 
the world, the relatively limited provision of public health services 
and social welfare compared with many European countries, etc. I'm 
not looking to be critical (I'm not from a country that has a 
tremendous history of good behaviour), but if Christianity is really 
such an influence, it is either very selective in how it uses that 
influence within the public sphere, or is a very distorted (inverted) 
version of the teachings of Jesus Christ!

Perhaps what Bob finds so toxic is nothing to do with the tenets of 
the religion, and a lot to do with the politics of institutionalised 
organisations?

p.s. I would disagree with you about science and faith, but I see you 
take an instrumentalist perspective on science, and i  think there 
you can be quite consistent in what you say. Positivist, realists 
though (if they are still out there), I think do put in faith in 
certain metaphysical commitments that themselves can not be 
demonstrated within science.


Keith


--
Dr. Keith S. Taber

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Author: Progressing Science Education - Constructing the Scientific 
Research Programme into the Contingent Nature of Learning Science 
(Springer: 2009)

University Senior Lecturer in Science Education

Science Education Centre
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
184 Hills Road
Cambridge CB2 8PQ
United Kingdom

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