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Coping with a Serious Data Loss from your Computer Hard Drive
Data loss is an expensive reality. It's a hard fact that it happens more often then users like to admit. A recent study by the accounting firm McGladrey and Pullen estimates that one out of every 500 data centers will experience a severe computer...
Dreams or Dreamers? Part One
From my Encyclopedia. DREAMS OR DREAMERS?: - “We are told by Herodotus that in the temple of Bel {This is the Keltic god known as Ba'al by the Phoenicians, Bel might have been in Babylon through the Byblos city on the Persian Gulf that sold ships...
Experiments in the Science of Mind
In any science experiment, you take a situation, change
something about it, and measure the effect of your action on the
situation. When you're a kid, you might start with a still cup
of vinegar, add baking soda, and be delighted when the...
Feb. 12 is "Darwin Day" -- Secular Americans Celebrate B'day of Evolution Champ
This Feb. 12 marks the 196th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth! The day has special significance for America's nearly 30 million nonreligious people. In the humanist community, Feb. 12 is "Darwin Day." "Darwin has become an all-purpose icon...
Remote Viewing ... What is it anyway?
Ever since I began posting information about remote viewing on my site, more and more people have been asking about what it is and how it works. At first, I thought this would be a simple topic to write; however, I began to realize that there is a...
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Evolution and Intelligent Design
What about evolution creates such a fuss in our society? We do
not see people getting exercised about Quantum Mechanics, String
Theory or the Theory of Relativity. But mention evolution and
you invoke an immediate and visceral reaction. Local school
boards are elected, rejected and then re-elected solely on this
issue. No other scientific discovery is so deeply embedded into
the fabric of American politics.
The debate about intelligent design in public schools is a
uniquely American phenomenon, a quirk of our history and
culture. Beyond the theocracies of the Middle East, religion
permeates American politics in a way not found anywhere else in
the world. No other developed country, east or west, is host to
a serious political movement dedicated to the destruction of
secularism.
We have to go all the way back to Italy in 1614 to find another
example of a powerful political machine dedicated to the
suppression of a broad scientific truth with deep implications
for human understanding. That is the year in which Galileo's
observations of the earth orbiting the sun were first denounced
as a threat to the established authority of the Catholic Church,
which claimed Galileo's doctrine to be false and contrary to the
divine and Holy Scripture. We have regressed four centuries.
Intelligent design is nothing but a transparent fig leaf for
creationism, a child of that dark era in the 1600s. Comparing
creationism or intelligent design to evolution is no different
than insisting that we teach today that the sun actually orbits
the earth as an alternative theory to modern astronomy. Only in
the United States are such discredited views taken seriously by
a large portion of the citizenry. We can and should do better.
Intelligent design has no place in a science classroom.
Nevertheless, the debate will inevitably continue: evolution
strikes at the core of expanding religiosity deeper than other
scientific truths such as the age of the earth because the
conclusions are more personal. Imagine yourself back in that
amazing year of 1859 when Charles Darwin published his
masterpiece. The day before Darwin's book was published, you
woke up thinking yourself the image of God; the next morning you
realize you have the face of a monkey. Not everybody immediately
embraced this rude demotion. Resistance to the idea was
inevitable, if not futile.
Sometimes the word "theory" associated with evolution is
misunderstood to mean that the concept is not well established.
Oddly, that burden is not shared by the Theory of Relativity.
Einstein apparently hired a better publicist than Darwin, if not
a better barber. Evolution is a fact, an undeniable, proven
fact, as certain as the existence of atoms. Only some of the
details of the mechanisms of evolution remain to be
elucidated.
Cancer is a fact, though not all the mechanisms leading to
malignancy are understood. Theory does not imply uncertainty;
instead, a grand idea, such as General Relativity or Evolution,
can be well-established but remain under the rubric of a theory
because the ideas encompass and explain a broad range of
phenomena.
Complicating public acceptance of evolution as a scientific
truth is the fact that society is still largely scientifically
illiterate. Although understanding the basics of science is
critical to everyday life in a technology-driven society, the
subject is given only cursory treatment in most public schools.
As a result, people are often poorly equipped to understand the
complexities of an issue before forming an opinion about the
costs and benefits of adopting or restricting a particular
technology. The issue of therapeutic cloning offers a prime
example. Religious bias and scientific illiteracy combine
powerfully to restrict a technology with extraordinary potential
for good, with little associated risk. The upside of therapeutic
cloning could be cures for diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,
multiple sclerosis, and a host of other devastating diseases.
There is no downside.
As religiosity has ascended in American life, policy debates
have become faith-based rather than being anchored in logic.
Support for a policy position becomes unmoved by contradictory
facts because proponents simply "believe" the position to be
correct even in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the
contrary. That explains why 80% of Republicans still support the
current president. Just as there is no way to determine relative
validity between religions, or to diminish faith with facts, as
soon as logic is removed from policy debates, competing
positions are no longer evaluated based on relative merit, but
are supported as inherently right, immune to any reasonable
counter arguments. This slide away from secular debate leads
increasingly to polarization, greater animosity and a loss of
civility because the only way to support a position is simply to
assert supremacy as loudly as possible. We are reduced to
childlike tantrums of "I'm right, you're wrong, I win." Without
logic, there is no common basis for discussion, and no way to
mediate disputes. The death of secularism is the death of
civility, and nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the
debate about teaching science in schools free from religion.
About the author:
Jeff Schweitzer spent much of his youth underwater pursuing his
lifelong fascination with marine life. He obtained his doctorate
from UCSD and has published in an eclectic range of fields,
including neurobiology, marine science, international
development, environmental protection and aviation. Visit
www.JeffSchweitzer.com
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| Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information |
| International weekly science journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). |
| www.sciencemag.org |
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| Science/AAAS | Table of Contents: 1 December 2006; 314 (5804) |
| This Week in Science: Editor summaries of this week's papers. Science 1 December 2006: 1349. ... 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science. ... |
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| Science.gov : FirstGov for Science - Government Science Portal |
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| Science in the Yahoo! Directory |
| Explore the fields of astronomy, biology, geology, mathematics, and physics and all of their related disciplines with resources designed for professionals, ... |
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| Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Sciences versus Science: the plural of the term is often used but is difficult to ... Science education is also a very vibrant field of study and research. ... |
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| Popular Science |
| Monthly magazine about current science and technology. |
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| AAAS web magazine. Some free sample stories, subscription required for full text. |
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| Searchable database of jobs, sorted by field specialty. Can post resume and curriculum vitae. Includes tips for improving the workplace for employers and ... |
| sciencecareers.sciencemag.org |
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| American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| Research news, issue papers. Educational programs, science policy (US and international). |
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| NASA - Science@NASA |
| News and features about NASA research, aimed at the general public. Includes sections on astronomy, space science, beyond rocketry, living in space, ... |
| science.nasa.gov |
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| Science NetLinks: Resources for Teaching Science |
| Resources for K-12 science educators. |
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| Cool Science for Curious Kids |
| Fun and interactive site to help kids appreciate science. Why are snakes like lizards, and monkeys like moose? Find out here. |
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| Welcome to the Science Museum |
| London museum and library of science. Exhibitions cover all areas of science and technology. Includes online exhibits and a learning area. |
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