Image thanks to the Proch. Interactions. Blog
SCIENCE! leads to this; Creationism leads to this. Any questions?
At least two news stories involving Texas made the headlines today. The following is written as a way to process the fact that the Texas State Board of Education is still, as of yesterday, deliberating what form of creationism, if any, should be required in Texas public schools. Nee, how much would elected officials like to weaken SCIENCE! education in the second largest state in the Union?
Certainly, the initial comparison in this post is hyperbolic and unnecessary, but the point is the following non-hyperbolic assessment. SCIENCE! makes amazing things possible. Things that are novel, new, original, non-existent-previously-and-possible-now-type things. What is it that creationism makes possible that wasn't here yesterday, or last year, or last century, or last millennium? Nothing. Creationism adds nothing to the system of human knowledge. Nothing. Meanwhile in the land of faithless reason, a team of surgeons and scientists just put an electrode in a mute person's brain and connected it to a synthesizer so that he may communicate verbally again. Get that?
In fact, creationism does the opposite of adding net-knowledge to the ongoing human condition. SCIENCE! is cumulative. The findings of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and Darwin influence the body of human knowledge when they were written, today, and in a century from now. SCIENCE! builds upon itself. What is built on creationism? Nothing. Nothing other than obfuscation and ignorance is built on creationism.
Flame Alert!
SCIENCE!: Brought to you by reason; Creationism: Brought to you by faith.
At least two news stories involving Texas made the headlines today. The following is written as a way to process the fact that the Texas State Board of Education is still, as of yesterday, deliberating what form of creationism, if any, should be required in Texas public schools. Nee, how much would elected officials like to weaken SCIENCE! education in the second largest state in the Union?
Certainly, the initial comparison in this post is hyperbolic and unnecessary, but the point is the following non-hyperbolic assessment. SCIENCE! makes amazing things possible. Things that are novel, new, original, non-existent-previously-and-possible-now-type things. What is it that creationism makes possible that wasn't here yesterday, or last year, or last century, or last millennium? Nothing. Creationism adds nothing to the system of human knowledge. Nothing. Meanwhile in the land of faithless reason, a team of surgeons and scientists just put an electrode in a mute person's brain and connected it to a synthesizer so that he may communicate verbally again. Get that?
In fact, creationism does the opposite of adding net-knowledge to the ongoing human condition. SCIENCE! is cumulative. The findings of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and Darwin influence the body of human knowledge when they were written, today, and in a century from now. SCIENCE! builds upon itself. What is built on creationism? Nothing. Nothing other than obfuscation and ignorance is built on creationism.
Flame Alert!
SCIENCE!: Brought to you by reason; Creationism: Brought to you by faith.
Posts
@Katya
ReplyDelete1) It is not possible to 'believe in science.' Science is not a belief structure, it is a method and a body of knowledge.
2) Science is extraordinarily accessible; it is with you where ever you go, whenever you go.
3) I do not accept that holding creationism as valid nor keeping faith in anything at all is easy to do or the 'lazy choice.' Both of these positions require a tremendous amount of work.
4) You appear to miss the point of the post, which is that science produces results, and real advancements making peoples lives better. Creationism doesn't provide anything other than obfuscation to science education.
There are, of course, many intelligent people, and more than a few scientists, who are also religious; the two spheres do not necessarily intersect. It is possible to believe in the existence of a unique, immortal, transcendent being without accepting, as a consequence of that belief, this or that explanation, contradicted by science, for some physical phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteScience, of course, does not "produce results," although its application can do so, and not always for the better --arguing for the superiority of science because of all the wonderful gizmos we have (admittedly a semi-hyperbolic characterization of Jumco's enthusiasm) is a weak position to take: Science has made possible the despoilation of the earth, and may make possible its early demise as a life-supporting system.
And I do not think it takes much work to accept the validity of either a scientific fact or a non-scientific assertion (e.g., creationism*). Raise your hand if you accept the results that your pocket calculator shows you. Now raise it if you extracted with paper and pencil a few square roots of, say, 7-digit numbers before you were willing to accept your calculator's proficiency in doing this. Using science requires only the faith that what you have been told about a specific thing is true, and will work. The great thing about religious belief (and what makes it different in kind from scientific knowledge) is that it has no application; it doesn't have to "work:" you just take it or leave it.
*Before Jumco launches a heated reply, listing all the contradictory facts that one has to overcome in order to accept creationism: No, one has to do nothing of the kind --just ignore these facts, and any other evidence to the contrary. Or, be ignorant generally, and so unaware of the contradictions. Works all the time.