| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
28 Oct 2005 11:56:36 AM |
| Object: |
Anti-science cultists |
Is US becoming hostile to science?
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in
U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among
scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is
under assault.
In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the
dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on
this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.
"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science
sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which
extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a
letter posted on the school Web site on October 3.
Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the
university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science
represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of
evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally
flawed.
Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious
and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division
replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education
suffers," he said.
Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are
too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have
been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be
identified as God.
AT ODDS WITH BUSH
In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at
odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global
warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent
scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing
science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other
research.
Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful
position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including
Bush, can afford to ignore their views.
This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo
earlier this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to
keep a woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her
husband's wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture
of life."
The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least
mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a
Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the
country.
The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents
backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered
schools to read students a short statement in biology classes
informing them that the theory of evolution is not established fact
and that gaps exist in it.
The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory
and recommended students to read a book that explained the theory
further.
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the
anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between
a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist
Christianity and science.
"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them
that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have
to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is
not at all true," he said.
On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American
Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between
science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.
"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at
a forum on the issue last week.
Proponents of intelligent design deny they are anti-science and say
they themselves follow the scientific method.
AMERICANS DON'T ACCEPT EVOLUTION
Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at
odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month
found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in
their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation
was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less
advanced life forms over millions of years.
Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept
the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the
concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.
"When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20
percent turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller,
director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern
University.
He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most
U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and
general scientific ignorance.
U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests
of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed
24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy
of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.
Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified U.S. candidates for
postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and
currently fill around a third of available science and engineering
slots with foreign students.
Northwestern's Miller said the insistence of a large proportion of
Americans that humans were created by God as whole beings had policy
implications for the future.
"The 21st century will be the century of biology and we are going to
be confronted with hundreds of important public policy issues that
require some understanding that all life is interconnected," he said.
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