[FoRK] Faith and/or Science dingding redux

[Luis Villa]

On Nov 28, 2007 12:46 PM, Tom Higgins <tomhiggins at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some questions of which I have a a few answers but only so much as a
> single point and not a intractable dogma, I would need a religion to
> pull that one off.
>
> * How an science be taught in a culture that fights to insert religion
> into every aspect of teaching?

I don't think, unfortunately, that this is the real problem. The real
problem runs way, way, way deeper than that.

The culture fights to insert blind faith into every aspect of
everything. Critical Thinking is hard, and we're not generally wired
to be very good at it- we prefer to match patterns and follow the
herd. Religion is just a surface effect of that need for blind faith;
if you take away religion, that need will pop up in other ways- it'll
become blind faith in Party, or in State, or in whatever. Often it'll
become blind faith in the Wisdom We Receive From Scientists- if more
than 1 in 1,000 of Al Gore's new fans can explain why global warming
is actually happening, what alternative hypotheses have been evaluated
and discarded, etc., I'll eat my hat.

Luis (who wishes he had more time right now to participate in this discussion)