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

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

I think that I have carefully pointed out that there certainly are
differences in religious attitudes toward science.  But at present the
anti-science religious groups have a disproportionate influence.  If it
weren't for the Supreme Court, probably about 1/3 of the states would ban
teaching of evolution, or at very least make ID or Creationism a mandated
alternative.  TX would be in the forefront there, and they have inordinate
influence on textbooks.

I did ask if any Conservative legislators have come out against this mania,
and I have not received any replies.  So I must conclude that the idea of
one party as getting into bed with the anti-science religious groups is
correct.  Can I be proven wrong????????????????????????????  We do know that
Bush Jr was a supporter of the anti-evolutionists, so there is one data
point in favor of my observation.

My wife who grew up in Durham, NC attended 3 different churches because her
family could not agree on whose denomination to go to.  She noticed no
differences in theology and no anti-evolutionist rhetoric.  But all of these
churches had Duke divinity students as instructors.  So the mainline
Protestant churches, Unitarian, Orthodox, Jewish and Catholic churches do
not generally oppose evolution.  The Mormons, Evangelicals, and Muslims tend
to be anti-evolution.  The Eastern religions are generally all OK with it.
Actually the Eastern religions generally don't oppose abortion according to
what I have read.  Abortion is a social, political, religious issue, but
evolution is a scientific issue.  Both sides in the abortion debate can cite
scientific evidence, but in the end it boils down to what they believe, and
there is no way science can decide this issue.  Please notice that I did not
take a stance on abortion, but merely pointed out that the issue is not a
scientific issue.  In other words they misunderstand what science can
actually show.

But in Houston I encountered a geology professor who was anti-evolutionist
(a Muslum), a physics teacher who was anti-evolutionist (Evangelical), and a
biology teacher (Catholic) who was afraid to teach evolution.  The biology
teacher was teaching in a Catholic school where the principal who was a
biologist fully approved of teaching evolution, and would do it herself.
But he had been in schools where it was either strongly discouraged or not
allowed.  So the religious pressure has a wide effect on education.

As a result of religious pressure the anti-science attitudes extends to much
broader areas.  Some universities have geologists who are teaching that oil
is being continuously formed in the Earth.  This is on the basis that the
Earth is continuously forming methane.  It neatly dovetails with the idea
that oil was not formed over multi millions of years and is the product of
sedimented plant and some animal life.  So I heard from a theology teacher
that we can never run out of oil!  She claimed to have heard this from a
friend who was a petroleum engineer for an oil company.

Then of course there are the ridiculous claims made by the Conservapedia.
But in the middle there are many who would use inaccurate science with
students.  This sort of thing has been going on for centuries, but the
current climate in the US just exacerbates it.  There is an interesting book
review in PT about the split between physicists and philosophers.  I think
all on this list agree that the currently taught scientific method is
stupid, and a number of philosophers claim that science has no "truth".  The
problem of the "religious right" as I see it is exacerbated by the way in
which science is taught as absolute truth, rather than as models that we
make up to understand what we can observe physically.  So science becomes a
belief system just as religion is a belief system, and it is then put forth
as an alternative to religion.

This brings up the fact that engineers are often trained to be good
technicians, but are often not scientists.  I have found on the basis of
experience that they are more prone to buy into "funny" ideas.  Again, I put
forth the idea that conventional teaching has done this by emphasizing
algorithmic approaches over understanding.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> I agree that religious methodologies are not appropriate for science.
>
> However, I am getting a little annoyed with some people on this thread
> painting all people with participate in religion as somehow anti-science.
> As I have posted before, thinking about the existence of deities plays
> little part in my life. However, I do work at a Catholic college. The
> Catholic church, for the most part, is highly supportive of science. At
> the upper levels, the Vatican Observatory has been a constant contributor
> to serious astronomy. Down in the trenches, the church supports the
> teaching of evolution and never gets involved when our biology instructors
> discuss human reproduction and the growth of the human fetus. Their
> feeling is that one can only have an honest Faith if you are educated to
> all the alternatives.
>
> I am amazed how some on this list who profess to be so liberal (in the
> classic sense) and free thinking can come out with this knee-jerk bigotry
> regarding religion.