An interesting
article, both disturbing and encouraging. Some exerpts:
quote:
. in a 2005 survey measuring the proportion of adults who accept evolution in 34 European countries and Japan, the United States ranked 33rd, just above Turkey. No other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution, Miller says. “We are truly out on a limb by ourselves.”
quote:
. longstanding conflicts between personal religious beliefs and selected life-science issues has been exploited to an unprecedented degree by the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party.
quote:
In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science. Such platforms wouldn't pass muster in the election, Miller says, but in the activist-dominated primaries, they drive out moderate Republicans, making evolution a political litmus test. Come November, the Republican candidate represents a fundamentalist agenda without making it an explicit part of the campaign.
quote:
The United States is the only country in the world where a political party has taken a position on evolution.
(although to be fair, I understand it is simply not taught at all in many Islamic countries like Pakistan.)
quote:
more anti-evolution legislation was introduced in just the first six weeks of 2006”12 bills in nine states”than in any year in history.
It is not a 'live and let live' situation any more.
It is not as though we are trying to teach evolution to kids in church Sunday schools as though it were a religion.
Rather, it is the religious fanatics who want creationism or its equivalent taught as if it were science in the science classrooms.
So the question is, how can we possibly decouple politics from religious influence in this country
at least to the extent that science education can be protected from corruption?
Can the public-science disconnect problem be solved through education at all?
Are there ways we can increase respect for science and scientists without improving the public's understanding of science?
Should scientists become more politically active, as suggested in the article, and would it make a difference given the low level of respect we have now compared to 50 years ago?
Education section?