Science Forums 2

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Actually what I'm really asking is what we *do* about it. To a certain extent, some scientists are at fault too....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?

This issue seems a little inflated. In spite of the hoopla over events like the introduciton of ID into schools, this is much ado about nothing.

Lots of scientists are at fault. Scientists are just as biased (as a group) as theologians are. Unschooled people of science are as embarassing as unschooled people of religion. The unschooled people of religion just seem to get more air time. Although some of the unschooled scientists that show up on NPR get pretty good exposire.

A substantal number of basic science sorts are theistic. This does not mitigate their impact on science. A substantial number of theologians understand the basic science issues, and are not young earth creationists. This heterogeneity is healthy. Heterogeneous opinion is the hallmark of science. Bias is also a hallmark of science. That is why the scientific method assumes bias on the part of the researcher, and requires reproducibility and explicit description of methods.

Introduction of a paragraph on Intelligent Design into speciation curriculum is not unwarranted, and it is not unreasonable. It is also not particularly significant. It might even get more kids (who might not otherwise) to think about science in an openminded manner.

The majority of biased (or outright fraudulent) presentations of science over the last 100 years have been by scientists, not by theologians. Nobody is overturning the scientific method.

The sky is not falling.