I’m not about to stay up all night to post to every channel on the front page, but I will make a brief appearance in the “Culture Wars” channel, not my usual space, to note two science and religion items:
1) Rob Knop offers lecture slides on the scientific method, and the difference between scientific and religious approaches.
2) A new blog, See You at Enceladus offers a slightly different take on Why Creationism Is Stupid (below the fold):
This is what scientists been doing for the last 300 years or so. They been that “listen” to what the universe has to say about history. In fact, ideally, that all scientists are suppose to do — just listen to what the universe says, without any preconceptions what so ever (yeah, right!). Contrast with any random religious origin story. It just asserts what happens (God dunnit, for example), without a shred of evidence. And if evidence need be, it will be found.
How can this not strike anyone but as profoundly stupid? An creation story, obiniately, exists to explain the origins of the world. The universe is telling its biography, if we are able to, and willing to, listen in. But creationists don’t. They don’t listen to the universe’s life story, they tell the universe its life story. Imagine if a a neighbour told your life story to everyone else, and forced you to shut up when you contradicted anything they said about your life; without a single evidence, just bare assertions. In a sense, creationism mutes the universe, depriving it of a role in telling its story. It is only allowed to “speak” when it agree with a supposed life narrative (the metaphor here breaks down here, since creationists just manipulate the evidence to support their just-so stories). This may have been excusable for less advanced eras, since they had no method of unlocking the universe’s history, of “listening” in. It is inexcusable now, in this modern, advanced society.
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