To tickle the ostensible track: I think innumerable and complex interactions
comprise each individual person's development and what may influence any
certain person to drop a class based on selection of a textbook or other
pedagogical approaches is as unique as that person's life.
In response to Silvert's post: I don't think the difference is so clear.
Moreover, I think it's very fuzzy and awfully generalized to say that
contemporary human society is based on scientific observation and reason, and
not on faith. I see people spill from churches, synagogues, mosques and bars
(what bars! yes, bars.) all the time. I see relatively few people with
scientific instruments.
I don't dispute that various faith systems have been put to some very malicious
uses ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!") over our histories, but so has
so-called science (Manhattan Engineering District; choose any weapons research
project, really... certainly arguments can be, have been and are being made
that armaments end up saving more lives than would be lost without them...
that' not what I'm arguing here.)
It's easy - and very emotionally effective (think of the children!) - to make a
case against religion by invoking a practice as abominable as forcible human
slavery, but I think attributing this to 'religion' in a generalized sense
unfairly alleges against plenty of monks, nuns, witches, shamans, priests,
preachers and others who would agree that forced human slavery is morally wrong
and who might very well describe themselves as religious (in their particular
patois). I think it's reciprocally easy to say that 'science' - again, in the
same broad, generalized sense - maintains that all humans are fundamentally
similar. I've seen scientific studies that group - meaning emphasize
differences among - humans based on sundry observable and reasoned
characteristics such as arrangement of facial structures and skin pigmentation.
I've also seen many religious texts that present meta-emotio-spritual
arguments for similarity among all humans - extended to all sentient beings
even !
- at a zero-order harmonic level. In my intentionally orotund and bombastic
opinion, human beings can hijack just about any well meaning enterprise and put
it to nefarious ends just as much as we can nurture, respect and elevate just
about any of our undertakings. Influences of people operating in religious
context have often contributed to peaceful co-existence, so have some
scientists. Sidebar: Gregor Mendel... priest or scientist? Or 'and'?
And regarding reactions to mining disasters and deaths, I agree on the tragic
aspect, but I also submit that a person could conduct a hybridized
religio-empirical investigation into why people died. My research proposal:
incorporate studies of ventilation systems, synclinal orogenies, human greed,
legislative loopholes, compassion, political wiliness, spiritual valuation of
familial place-bases, market-based economic expediency, informational
manipulation, returns to investors and re-election. Plus sunshine. To twist a
statement: to act greedily and recklessly with human lives on the basis of
arguably-incomplete and possibly-politically-slanted empirical observations and
for monetary benefit to relatively few people is a sketchy undertaking, in my
estimation.
I'd also like to put the idea out to this listserv and chrono-synclastic
infundibulum (thanks to K.V., Jr. for that one) there that religious-based
power hierarchies may have analogs with scientific expert-ism... priests of
empiricism?
In a respectfully amicable and simultaneously disputatious manner -
Brian Chalfant
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Wayne Tyson
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Science and Religion are we getting off track?
Bill and Ecolog:
This is exactly why I took care in my initial post to emphasize DOGMA.
"Religion" suffers the semantic fate of a lot of terminology; it
simultaneously covers everything unscientific and cherry-picks extremes.
That is why the discussion took off on an infinite number of tracks, and a
"value-free" observer does well to "let it all hang out."
Meanwhile, back on the track, the issue is how to best reconcile the fact of
dogmatic tendencies in religion tar all "philosophy" and are not so entirely
unknown in "science" as many inside those ivory towers insist. How, for
example, should a science teacher handle the dogmatic student?
This is a common and ongoing challenge. While perhaps magnified a bit in the
academic context, the nature of this conflict may have roots far deeper into
the ways humans have come to interact. It seems that there is, to paraphrase
Margaret Mead, "conflict enough to go around." She actually said "There's
love enough to go around." Maybe she was in a rare mood of wishful thinking,
maybe not, but love in the form of ENGAGEMENT might be fertile grounds for
the beginning of a reconciliation revolution.
One thing seems certain. The present "system" could use some refinement.
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Silvert" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 2:39 AM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Science and Religion are we getting off track?
> While I have found the animated discussion interesting, I think we are
> getting away from the original issue of actual conflict between
> science and religion. This began with a student who dropped science
> because of the evolution issue, which is (or was) fairly common -- my
> step-father never could teach his physical anthopology course without
> getting into a fight with students who believed in creation. One can
> of course be religious without getting into a bind -- no reason why a
> scientist cannot go home and
> pray, attend religious services, and so on. But direct conflicts are only
> the tip of the iceberg.
>
> If we compare our mostly secular modern society with that of the past
> few centuries or millenia then the difference between a society based
> on observation and reason, which is basically what science is all
> about, and one based on religion is clear. Consider for example the
> matter of race. Even on the fringes of modern society, the people who
> think that blacks aren't smart enough to be quarterbacks, or the
> scientific extremes represented by The Bell Curve, there is some
> awareness of our common ancestry and the essential human nature of
> non-white races. In the past on the other hand, slavery and genocide
> were justified by the religious doctrine that only white people have
> souls, and that humanoids without souls could be treated like animals.
> Now of course the issue of souls is not one where science and religion
> are in direct conflict, no scientist can determine whether or not the
> soul really exists. But the fate and lives of millions of people were
> determined by whether the religious "knowledge" that
> they had no souls took precedence over the scientific evidence that all of
> the races of man are fundamentally similar.
>
> Societies have been shaped by religion, and not always constructively.
> Serfs
> were held down not only by armed might but by belief in the divine right
> of
> kings -- even today many people believe that hereditary aristocrats are
> superior to commoners. Whether the priests who accompanied Pizarro went in
> support of his greedy goals or really just wanted to save souls, they
> certainly help subjugate the natives. We still see religion as sometimes
> an
> obstacle to social development. Consider the frequent mine disasters that
> have been in the news recently. No doubt many of the widows console
> themselves with the thought that this was god's will and was foreordained,
> and that they will meet their husbands in heaven. This is fine, I am all
> in
> favour of consoling the sad and alleviating emotional suffering. But there
> also has to be a scientific investigation into the causes of the disaster
> that leads to improvements in mine safety, and the grieving widows should
> support this. All too often the religious explanation (god's will) is seen
> as a valid alternative to the scientific one (negligence). But of course
> no
> scientist can prove that these disasters are not god's will!
>
> For me the fundamental issue is whether we act scientifically, that is
> to say on the basis of evidence and reason, or whether we defer to
> religious belief. This leaves plenty of room for mysticism and the
> kind of ecstasy that E. O. Wilson wrote about, for prayer and holy
> celebrations. But to act irrationally on the basis of one's religious
> beliefs in a way that causes harm to people or to anything else in our
> environment is in my opinion an abomination.
>
> Bill Silvert
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