Posted on 12/03/2005 6:18:54 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
I’m afraid we live in loopy times. How else to account for the latest entries in America’s culture wars: science museum docents donning combat gloves against rival fundamentalist tour groups and evolution on trial in a Pennsylvania federal court. For those keeping score, so far this year it’s Monkeys: 0, Monkey Business: 82. That's 82 evolution versus creationism debates in school boards or towns nationwide—this year alone. [1]
This past summer, when most Americans were distracted by thoughts of beaches and vacations or the high price of gasoline (even before the twin hits of Katrina and Rita), 2 heavy-weight political figures joined the President of the United States to weigh in on a supposedly scientific issue. US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Arizona Senator John McCain, and President George W. Bush each endorsed the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in the science classroom. Can anyone reasonably convince me that these pronouncements were not just cynical political punditry but, rather, were expressions of sincere beliefs?
So you have to ask yourself in light of all of these events, are we headed back to the past with no escape in the future? Are we trapped in a new period of history when science, once again, is in for the fight of its life?
In times like these, as inundated as we are by technical wizardry, one might conclude that American technological supremacy and know-how would lead, inevitably, to a deeper understanding or trust of science. Well, it doesn’t. Perhaps just the opposite is true. Technology and gee whiz gadgetry has led to more suspicion rather than less. And a typical American’s understanding of science is limited at best. As far as evolution is concerned, if you’re a believer in facts, scientific methods, and empirical data, the picture is even more depressing. A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Science found that 64 percent of respondents support teaching creationism side by side with evolution in the science curriculum of public schools. A near majority—48 percent—do not believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is proven by fossil discoveries. Thirty-three percent believe that a general agreement does not exist among scientists that humans evolved over time [2].
What if we become a nation that can’t chew gum, walk down the street, and transplant embryonic stem cells all at the same time? Does it matter?
New York Times journalist Cornelia Dean, who balances her time between science reporting for the Times and lecturing at Harvard, told me that she believes that science stands in a perilous position. “Science, as an institution, has largely ceded the microphone to people who do not necessarily always embrace the scientific method,” she says. “Unless scientists participate in the public life of our country, our discourse on a number of issues of great importance becomes debased” [3].
Others, such as journalist Chris Mooney, point to the increasing politicization of science as a pollutant seeping into our nation’s psyche. In his recent book, The Republican War on Science, Mooney spells out the danger of ignorance in public life when ideology trumps science.
Science politicization threatens not just our public health and the environment but the very integrity of American democracy, which relies heavily on scientific and technical expertise to function. At a time when more political choices than ever before hinge upon the scientific and technical competence of our elected leaders, the disregard for consensus and expertise—and the substitution of ideological allegiance for careful assessment—can have disastrous consequences [4].
Jon D. Miller, PhD, a political scientist on faculty at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine, believes that the sophisticated questions of biology that will confront each and every American in the 21st Century will require that they know the difference between a cell and a cell phone and are able to differentiate DNA from MTV. For decades, Miller has been surveying Americans about their scientific knowledge. “We are now entering a period where our ability to unravel previously understood or not understood questions is going to grow extraordinarily,” says Miller. “As long as you are looking at the physics of nuclear power plants or the physics of transistors [all 20th Century questions]…it doesn’t affect your short-term belief systems. You can still turn on a radio and say it sounds good but you don’t have to know why it works. As we get into genetic medicine, infectious diseases…if you don’t understand immunity, genetics, the principles of DNA, you’re going to have a hard time making sense of these things” [5].
These ideological battles aren’t likely to vanish any time soon. If anything, an organized and emboldened fundamentalist religious movement buttressed by political power in Washington will continue to challenge accepted scientific theory that collides with religious beliefs. So one must ask, is it too farfetched to see these ideological battles spilling over into areas of medical research and even into funding at the National Institutes of Health?
Now I am not asking for a world that doesn’t respect religious belief. My education as a Roman Catholic balanced creed and science. In the classroom of my youth, one nun taught creationism in religion class while another taught evolution in science, and never the twain did meet.
So what does one do? How can a medical student, a resident, or a physician just beginning to build a career become active in these larger public battles? Burt Humburg, MD, a resident in internal medicine at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center, is one role model. He’s been manning the evolutionary ramparts since his medical school days in Kansas in the late 1990s when he became active in Kansas Citizens for Science. On a brief vacation from his residency volunteering as a citizen advocate for the federal trial in Pennsylvania, he said education is the key role for the physician. While he realizes that medical students, residents and physicians might not view themselves as scientists, per se, he sees himself and his colleagues as part of the larger scientific collective that can’t afford to shirk its duty. “The town scientist is the town doctor, so whether we want it or not, we have the mantle—the trappings—of a scientist” [7].
It is time for the medical community, through the initiative of individual physicians, to address not only how one can heal thy patient, but also how one can heal thy nation. There are many ways to get involved; from the most rudimentary—attending school board meetings, sending letters to the editor, and volunteering at the local science museum—to the more demanding—running for office, encouraging a spouse or partner to do so, or supporting candidates (especially financially) who are willing to speak out for science. As Tip O’Neill, the larger-than-life Speaker of the House of Representatives, famously declared, “All politics is local.” Speak out for science. Isn’t that a message that should be advanced in every physician’s office?
Northwestern’s Jon Miller concedes that speaking out may come with a price, “It won’t make…[physicians]...popular with many people but is important for any profession, particularly a profession based on science” to do so [5]. Consider this: shouldn’t civic leadership be embedded in the mind of every blooming physician? In the end, doesn’t combating this virulent campaign of anti-knowledge lead us back to that old adage of evolutionary leadership by example, “Monkey see, monkey do?” Seize the day, Doc.
I believe it is simply unethical--but the temptation to "sell" one's POV when an audience is captive is hard to resist.
If evo-teachers had disciplined themselves to talk as scientists should speak, in language heavy with qualifiers and "mights" "likelihood" "best possible explanatin" "plausible" "meets the minimum particulars"--they wouldn't be dealing with this challenge. Instead, they're playing catchup because too many of their own gave in to bullying.
Actually, I have seen some our arguments on these threads dismissed as being inadequate just because they contain too many qualifiers.
When we pay college profs a whole lot more than we do now, it will be possible to have a large enough pool to select for highly skillful teaching as well as knowlege of subject. I had a whole lot of truly obnoxious folk teaching me in college...but so long as they knew their stuff I was ok with them. Scientists, especially, do not suffer fools gladly and often are at least mildly afflicted with Asperger's syndrome, giving them few social skills.
As for k-12 teachers, they are not the to half of any college educated group. Few have a good understanding of the science they teach (for instance having students do "experiments" that are clearly demonstrations with right answers).
Those of us living in the real world, wthout an agenda to destroy science and replace it with theocracy, accept the limitations and work to improve, not re-define and destroy.
CarolinaGuitarman: "Why did Darwin mention Locke in connection with metaphysics? What does Locke have to do with metaphysics? :)"
Ahhhhh ... probably because he knew that metaphysics was one of Locke's main interests. Duh:
My family is littered with MDs who don't like the AMA...which is irrelevant to the point I made.
Try re-reading for content.
Indeed? I had to look it up...
Social impairments
2.2 Narrow, intense interests
--WOW, that's really on the money! That probably covers single-issue FR posters.
2.3 Speech and language peculiarities--sneering condescension?
You like the support of an org that basically has no support, I guess is the point you wanted to make?
Scientific organizations from various fields are beginning to enter the debate against ID. ID is living on borrowed time as an academic alternative to evolutionary theory. Those trained in scientific matters will inevitable win debates involving science. The inmates cannot be allowed to run the asylum.
Pot, meet kettle. Nice jab, but not an answer.
Read something a little more discursive on the subject.
Nope.
Try again if you like.
uh, yeah. I don't understand how it answered the question.
Spoken like one who either didn't comprehend the implications in "the answer", or is deliberately playing dumb.
Still playing stupid? Here's the quote from the other thread:
"Do you now realize that it does not necessarily have anything to do with the supernatural?"
Matchett-PI: "That depends upon which "scientist" you talk to, now doesn't it. LOL"
You missed the succeeding sentence in your quote.
These must be considered separate to the scientific theory, and are often in contradiction to the actual scientific models. Taken from the same quote of John Wilkins as above
Rather changes the meaning of your quote.
It's unethical to change the meaning of a quote. How many others of your quotes are similarly presented as disingenuously?
" Still playing stupid? "
No, that's your gig, and you're doing a fine job of it!
Now, in what way is Darwin challenging Locke's metaphysics? :)
What is the relevance of the quote you keep posting from Darwin?
I hope you're right. What worries me is that the alienation of the GOP from science will entail the long-term ascendancy of leftism in this country, with all that that entails.
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