Religion retards scientific disovery?

[hoosier]

Sorry, I can see how my title was misleading, I am a practising christian and a geology major, a soft science but a science all the same. I do not feel like my beliefs are in any way detrimental to my learning. I hate to sound like a cry baby but it just bugs me how often religion in general comes under attack in a college setting.

In my experience it's not religion that comes under attack, it's specifically the efforts that are made--in the name of religion--to eliminate or severly restrict the teaching of science. No reasonable person has a problem with practicing religion, it's when religion is used to drive science out of the schools or to distort the teaching of science (for example, mandating that evolution and intelligent design be taught as "competing theories" in HS biology classes) that pro-science people start to attack.

[Tarlam!]

...it just bugs me how often religion in general comes under attack in a college setting.

See, now, this is gonna sound really provocative, and it has nothing to do with the topic, so please forgive me.


BUUUUUUT: As a non practising (as in church going) believer in a positive superior being I happen to call God, I am always dumbfounded when a football player thanks the Lord during interviews or after a great play, TD so demonstratively.

What if said player was a practicing Muslim and prayed to the East for a few seconds after a TD? It would be a 15 yard unsportsmanlike for starters, but the public outcry?
What if said player was a practising devil worshipper and thanked Lucifer or pointed downwards and crossed himself "upside down"?

No, I am NOT a devil worshipper. And no, I don't mean to hijack the thread, but it just occured to me.....

[Gunakor]

What if said player was a practicing Muslim and prayed to the East for a few seconds after a TD? It would be a 15 yard unsportsmanlike for starters, but the public outcry?

The NFL decided that dropping to your knee to praise God in celebration is still acceptable. They weren't specific as to which God, so I'd assume that a Muslim player dropping to his knees for just a moments prayer would be allowed within NFL rules. The public outcry, on the other hand, would still exist I'm sure. Though I couldn't venture a guess on how grand of scale that outcry would be. The outrage would be greater in some parts of the country than others, so it would depend on which city it happened in.

[HowardRoark]

Re: Religion retards scientific disovery?

Attempts to thwart teaching of evolution or to present creation or intelligent design as competing "theories"; attempts to restrict or ban stem cell research; attempts to limit sexual education and HIV prevention in secondary schools.

Let me first say that I could have posted your reply it is so predictable. I this the Daily Hoosier?

My answers reflect the quality of the original questions.

1. We already went over this one at length. Neither should be taught as the origin of the universe in government schools.

I must have missed that day. Evolution doesn't make claims about the origins of the universe; it talks about the origin and evolution of species. Why shouldn't it be taught? Do you want to do away with physics and astronomy too because they were once seen as making controversial claims about the movement of celestial objects?

2. Should we do experiments on old people with dementia? This is where my book recommendation would be of use to you.

Your inability to see the difference between fetuses and the elderly makes it perfectly clear why you take the positions you do. But don't expect me to follow you in your refusal to see the difference.

3. Science (the measurement of data) shows that since sex education has been introduced, problems in society with their origins in sex have multiplied. Disease, unwed parents, age of single mothers, etc. Why do you impede science?

I'm struggling to follow your logic and your syntax, Howie. I assume your point is that correlation doesn't prove causality, but I'm making a bit of an interpretive leap here. Could you please be a little more specific and less cryptic with your statements and questions?

What, now you channel Ben Bernanke(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFFAL56sEc)? It was not a poorly posed question; I was merely asking you to back up your posit.

Evolution does not prove the origin of species either. As I mentioned before, this is not terra incognita. We can disagree.

I am not looking at your #2 in a parochial manner; I am looking at the bigger picture. There are more sides to an issue when it comes to this kind of science. Stem cell research was not illegal before Obama’s thoughtful one-sided proclamation on the subject.

Data shows that with Sex Education comes more societal issues derived from sex. Once again, your original pugnacious posit was wrong.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

1. The earth moves

Johannes Kepler said, "We see how God, like a human architect, approached the founding of the world according to order and rule and measured everything in such a manner."

I bet he wasn't an Evangelical.

If the earth dies before accepting jesus will it's soul go to hell?

Oh, those wacky Lutherans.

Does the Earth have a soul?

It does according to Kepler.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

I stand by my original point, mathematics= mankinds greatest scientific tool. In your list Tyrone, which of those can follow the sceintific theory without the use of math?

Which of those can stand without the alphabet. The alphabet, mankinds greatest scientific tool.

[hoosier]

Re: Religion retards scientific disovery?

Evolution does not prove the origin of species either. As I mentioned before, this is not terra incognita. We can disagree.

It offers a theory about the origination of species, one that can be tested and evaluated against other theories. That's the difference between evolution and any theological account of biological diversity--they can't be tested or disproven. So while evolution may not be "proven"--it is always subject to testing, revision, debate, etc.--it is currently the indisputably superior account of the origin of the species.

That cigarettes cause cancer isn't "proven" either, but it's a pretty safe bet.

I am not looking at your #2 in a parochial manner; I am looking at the bigger picture. There are more sides to an issue when it comes to this kind of science. Stem cell research was not illegal before Obama’s thoughtful one-sided proclamation on the subject.

I used this as an example of religious driven attempts to change how science is done and funded. That this attempt wasn't successful doesn't change the fact that it happened.

Data shows that with Sex Education comes more societal issues derived from sex. Once again, your original pugnacious posit was wrong.

What data are you talking about, and how does it go about "showing" a causal connection--and not just an association--between sex ed and change in social behavior?

[MJZiggy]

How can you positively associate an increase in sexual issues to sex education without taking into account the concurrent increase of sex in the media that one would argue creates the need for the sex education? It's not like James Bond ever heard the phrase "no glove, no love..."

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Sorry, I can see how my title was misleading, I am a practising christian and a geology major, a soft science but a science all the same. I do not feel like my beliefs are in any way detrimental to my learning. I hate to sound like a cry baby but it just bugs me how often religion in general comes under attack in a college setting.

They didn't offer geology at Liberty U?

[texaspackerbacker]

Sorry, I can see how my title was misleading, I am a practising christian and a geology major, a soft science but a science all the same. I do not feel like my beliefs are in any way detrimental to my learning. I hate to sound like a cry baby but it just bugs me how often religion in general comes under attack in a college setting.

For some reason, I thought you were a liberal or secular progressive or some other variety of wrongheaded specimen. Glad to hear otherwise.

I had a minor in Geology--along with a Finance major forty years ago at U.W. Are you familiar with Professor Velakovsky and his theory of Catastrophism? He actually spoke at U.W. when I was there, and the whole Geology Department--full professors and all--shamefully heckled him. Back in those days, Huttonian Uniformitarianism--the geologic equivalent of the Theory of Evolution--was taught as gospel. Plate tectonics was dismissed as too common sensical or something. That has all turned around now, and Velakovsky and other early detractors of Uniformitarianism have been vindicated.

How do you justify the first chapter of Genesis with Geologic Time and the fossil record?

[HowardRoark]

Re: Religion retards scientific disovery?

it is currently the indisputably superior account of the origin of the species.

From what I understand, physics and math don’t back up the theory.

Take Creation out of the discussion…..what are the other competing theories about the origin of species?

How did new species evolve?

How do explain the evolution of one very small component of species…..the eye? That one tiny part of the whole body is said to be statistically impossible to have evolved. And that’s just one part of the whole. Is it time? Just throw more time at the problem?

I am not trying to be confrontational, I am interested in your answers.

[Tarlam!]

Personally, I think the co-existance of religion and science is in many ways similar to the co-existance of differing beliefs/ denominations.

Let's view science in a similar light to any religion/belief for a moment. Depending on the tolerance of any "rival" belief or religion, science will be tolerated, persecuted, belittled, accepted etc. etc. etc.

Ultimately, I believe the day will come when science and most world religions will walk in step with eathother. I truly believe all mainstream / legitimate religions (i.e. those that really exist to worship, not those that exist to take money out of gullible pockets) will one day conclude that we all pray to the same God - we just do it with differing rituals.

And, I believe science will be the key to lifting the current ignorance that is the root of many heated debates, hurled insults, wars, terrorist attacks and hostilities around the world.

I firmly believe it will take another thousand years before this happens, though.

[crosbiegrad]

As for the account of the creation in the book of genesis, I have no idea how long each of the 6 creative periods were. In the bible it assigns it as a day but who's to say that God works on the same understanding of time that we do? It's be come very apparent that various species have evolved and adapted to their environments and the Earth has also undergone massive change in its 4.6 billion years. What is important for me in the Genesis account is that there is a master designer, how did he do it? Dunno, does science offer a glimpse into how? sure.
As for Velakovsky, never heard of him but I'm going to google his name and see what I can find. Huttons model of Uniformitarianism is still taught as the most feasible explanation as to how the earth developed. I have to say that what I've been taught about catastrophism doesnt sound very viable but I'll look into it more.

[texaspackerbacker]

I would have thought they'd have shit-canned Hutton by now with Plate Tectonics being closer and closer to positively proven.

Tarlam, that "religion in step with science" thing will undoubtedly occur fairly early in Christ's Millenial Kingdom on Earth. Maybe that was the thousand years you referred to.

Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It doesn't say when He did it or how He did it. 12 billion years ago with a Big Bang for the universe--which has been expanding ever since? No problem if that's what science determines. 4.6 billion years ago for the earth? Again, no problem. Fossils as evidence of life as much as 3 billion years ago? OK, again no problem. Dinosaurs and glossopterous flora 160 million years ago? Again no problem. A catastrophic end to the Mesozoic Era with dinosaurs and glossopeterous flora mostly wiped out? No problem--possibly explained in Revelation 12:9-12, as well as Genesis 1:2: "The earth became void and without form".

Then God started over 6,000 years ago--beginning with Genesis 1:3--with the six literal days described. The various events like separating light from darkness, day and night, and sea from dry land are reasonably close to what science tells us happened. There is no ironclad evidence of seed plants or mammals prior to that time.

Potassium dating is notoriously inaccurate, and Carbon 14 dating is only accurate to around 4,000 or so years.

It basically takes a helluva lot less faith-based reasoning to accept that scenario than to twist observable facts and numbers to try and make the theory of evolution add up.

[MadScientist]

Re: Religion retards scientific disovery?

How do explain the evolution of one very small component of species…..the eye? That one tiny part of the whole body is said to be statistically impossible to have evolved. And that’s just one part of the whole. Is it time? Just throw more time at the problem?

How 'bout reading up on things before posting crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050822230316data_trunc_sys.shtml

(etc.)

It seems religious beliefs also suppress one's ability to google.