Science Forums 2

[Buffy]

Actually what I'm really asking is what we *do* about it. To a certain extent, some scientists are at fault too: the latest Discover mag has an article on Richard Dawkins in which even he admits that his religion-hostile, "Darwin's Rottweiler" image is counterproductive in convincing folks of the issues described above. The downside of not doing something about it is that we drift into a sort of latter day dark ages where any opinion can be justified as scientific because no one is defending science. In the Intelligent design debate, I hear too many defenders simply say "its wrong, and it doesn't belong in schools" instead of getting straight to the core of the matter that it is not a scientific idea at all, and trying to clarify why. Its kinda like saying "just say no", or "don't worry your little heads about it, just believe us experts". On the public policy side, the pro-business community has been very busy paying researchers to come up with any study at all, biased or not, that proves the points that maximize their profits, with studies that may not falsify data, but certainly skirt the issues of peer review.

I'm suggesting that we do need to do something "Lest Darkness Fall" (that's a great book!), and the question is, what do we do?

Cheers,
Buffy