Good morning, Nancy. I'm truly sorry you are taking my message as you are. I
never meant
any of my words as a put down. I apologize, truly apologize, if my hurried and
clumsy
wording, in any way conveyed that message. I merely disagree with your
position that you
can separate science from the scientist, and you can separate the scientist
from her or
his subjective, fallible humanity. That is Ben Stein's position, though I
think Ben Stein
was not complete in his latest statements. I have read and heard him at other
times on
this issue, though his too often conservative, simplistic bent grinds me more
often than
not. He is not talking about science per se; he is talking about an applied
science in
human hands that is not guided, directed, controlled by a moral and ethic code
that
rejects close-mindedness and bigotry, be it of theological or scientific
origin, of mutual
humanizing respect, the kind of science and scientist who participated in such
events and
atrocities of the Holocaust. Nor am I saying it was only the scientists; it
was an entire
society. But, science was the fair-haired boy, especially of the 1920s, the
members of
which were influenced by a particular combining of distortions of Einstein and
Darwin that
created rule-less and often lawless relativism in politics and the arts and
academics and
all facets of society, further moralized "might makes right" national and
international
contention and conflict, entrenched class stratification, and advanced racial
inequality.
Science was used-and often blamed--to legitimatize as "natural law" all of
this, just as
in this country science is in the foundation of our emphasis on the sacredness
of the
individual and the equality of all persons. I was also saying that science can
be a
source of a philosophy and a theology, a moral and ethical code, by the very
nature that
it is looking into the truths of nature. That is, science can be teleological
no less
than can religion, and these teleology's can be conflicting or compatible
depending who is
doing the comparison. That was very nature of the Scientific Revolution: you
could use
the human intellectual capacity and knowledge of nature's truth to create a
moral code and
social ethic such as the Voltaire's Enlightenment Creed without needing divine
revelation
from an organized and ordained church, although at the time the leaders of that
revolution-Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Bruno, et al--saw no conflict between
science and
religion-if their advocates stayed within the bounds of their own realm--or
between reason
and faith. But, even the great Isaac Newton, who discovery of natural physical
laws became
the cornerstone of the modern day scientific faith, believed his greatest work
was his
commentary on the Bible rather than his Principia and never thought one truly
destroyed
the other. The scientific revolutionaries felt if the church got out of the
science
business and if science did not get into the church business all would be well.
It did
not go well since the Scientific Revolution became the essential back-beat to
the
Reformation. One culmination of which is in Jefferson's Enlightenment Deism
inscribed in
our own Declaration of Independence. It is a scientific statement fraught with
a
socio-cultural philosophy and theology: "human events," "Nature's God and
Nature's laws,"
"these truths to be self-evident," "all men are created equal," "endowed by our
Creator,"
"inalienable rights."
As an American, as a self-proclaimed moralistic, non-ritual and ceremonial,
Jewish-Zen-at
best Deist, I see no conflict between science and religion per se. Notice I
did not say
"organized church." It is my contention that science can be and is a source of
a viable
morality and ethic just as legitimate as any religious theology. In fact, that
is the
magic and uniqueness of the American experience, the mergence of the
Enlightenment
philosophy and the theology of the Great Awakening that ennobled each person
and gave to
that person the power to control her or his own destiny into a partnership that
is not
always absent of contentiousness. Imperfect people, uninformed people,
self-righteous
people, however, too often have a way of screwing up a good thing.
But, unbridled "in the name of science" science, as with unbridled "it is God's
will"
religion, as with any unbridled thing, the reins of which are in human hands,
can lead to
things running amok. The partnership between science and religion is then
fractured,
leads to a denunciation and rejection and condemnation of one by the other, and
can lead
to disastrous consequences. We saw that in the religious wars of the
Reformation, in the
Holocaust, and we are seeing it now in both Western and Eastern religious
extremism.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of History
http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
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