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Author | Topic: Atheists control science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
marc9000 Member Posts: 1522 From: Ky U.S. Joined: Member Rating: 1.4 |
From the I am not an atheist! thread;
Tangle writes: marc9000 writes: ....and atheists control science. (there is evidence for it) I'm calling you on this one. Would you like to start a new thread to defend your assertion? Hence, this thread.
Tangle writes: But I recommend you do some research on what your terms mean before you start... My terms are that "science" is the scientific community, and that "control" means decisions that are made regarding publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. This thread is mainly about the U.S. scientific community. Wikipedia has a webpage that gives some detail of just what the "scientific community" is. A relevant paragraph from that page;
quote: The National Academy of Sciences, publications like the Scientific American, and university administrators and others who are involved in hiring practices in academia, are all very influential when it comes to control. The leaders don't necessarily have to be "binding" or "reflect the opinions" of every scientist to politically control science as a whole. I'll start with evidence for discrimination in hiring practices. Series of Costly Case Settlements Warns Darwin’s Bullies: Stop Censoring Intellectual Freedom | Evolution News
quote: and
quote: Just two examples - the link shows a few more. They get caught every once in a while, but considering the shouting down of the examples of discrimination the movie "Expelled" exposed, it's probably safe to say that penalties for discrimination by the scientific community are about as rare as a speed limit violating driver receiving a ticket for every time he speeds. Next, we'll note evidence in the form of "The Scientific American" articles. This one is a training course for using science, not just anti-religion, to promote atheism. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rational...
[QUOTE]2. Positive assertions are necessary. Champion science and reason, as Charles Darwin suggested: “It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science.” [/QUOTE] "Gradual illumination of men's minds", or children's minds? Darwin's philosophy is promoted and extended today as much as ever. That Scientific American article is largely indistinguishable from one of militant atheist Sam Harris' many essays; Science Must Destroy Religion | HuffPost Latest News
quote: The Scientific American has a "skeptic" section, with many articles by Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, which currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer has little, if any scientific credentials, yet he writes for the Scientific American. Finally, the National Academy of Science. It's a non-profit U.S. government organization, begun in 1863. National Academy of Sciences - Wikipedia
quote: In other words, it does what it wants, with no input from the taxpayers who support it. Human Events has some (documented) things to say about the National Academy of Sciences; http://www.humanevents.com/...d-national-academy-of-sciences
quote: There is also not a shred of evidence that ANYONE but atheists, with the complete approval of their "religious" allies (theistic evolutionists, Deists, etc.) make all decisions concerning publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. Why is that a problem? Here's why, because a pew research center poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans, while 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest don't know, or won't commit. We probably see far less than 6 percent of evolution proponents on these forums who would ever vote for a Republican. Yet other survey data shows that the scientific community enjoys the trust of 90 percent of the U.S. population, more than the Supreme Court or the military! I'm part of the other 10 percent, and I wonder how long it will be before at least some of the 90 percent wakes up and realizes that the scientific community is probably the biggest ally the Democrats have in obtaining political power and money, and that the Democrats are probably the biggest ally the scientific community has in obtaining political power and money. Can anyone really claim, and justify, that science is free from political partisanship? Edited by marc9000, : Cleaned up punctuation Edited by marc9000, : Clarified as asked in message 2.
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AdminPD Inactive Administrator |
It is nice to quote small relevant portions of the articles you linked to that you feel supports your position. Not whole articles or huge chunks. Just so readers know where to look.
Also on the quote below, you need to clean it up. Your quotation marks aren't consistent. It is hard to tell if you are quoting a source or not.
Finally, the National Academy of Science. It's a non-profit U.S. government organization, begun in 1863. "Members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine". As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research." Please make it clearer. ThanksAdminPD
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Admin Director Posts: 13046 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.7 |
Hi Marc,
If your main theme is that atheists control science, your concluding couple paragraphs shouldn't be about political partisanship. This topic will be promoted to one of the science forums, and we'd like to keep political discussions confined to the Coffee House forum.
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marc9000 Member Posts: 1522 From: Ky U.S. Joined: Member Rating: 1.4 |
The control I'm referring to IS political. To restrict it to exclude politics would keep me from making relevant points, and nothing would be accomplished. It's not important to me what forum it's in, so I guess the coffee house would be where I'd hope you'll promote it. 6% v 55% - isn't that worth some exploration? If it can't be freely/completely discussed as I've proposed it, then we'll just have to forget it, and Tangle, Coyote, Razd, Dr Adaquate, and others can all heave collective sighs of relief.
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Admin Director Posts: 13046 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.7 |
Thread copied here from the Atheists control science thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Panda Member (Idle past 3744 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
marc9000 writes:
It seems strange that there are only 3 words in the title and yet you only define 2 of them. My terms are that "science" is the scientific community, and that "control" means decisions that are made regarding publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. This thread is mainly about the U.S. scientific community. What definition of 'atheist' are you using? Edited by Panda, : No reason given."There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god." J. B. S. Haldane
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
What definition of 'atheist' are you using? Given, this statement, I think his definition of atheist is a bit moot.
There is also not a shred of evidence that ANYONE but atheists, with the complete approval of their "religious" allies (theistic evolutionists, Deists, etc.) make all decisions concerning publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. Atheists, for the purpose of this rant, means everybody who accepts evolution as the explanation for biodiversity on this planet. I expect that I'll remain in lurk mode for this thread. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison. Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own. George Bernard Shaw
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 315 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Let's hope he doesn't find out how we rig the elections.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7
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In my summation (Message 380) for Percy's topic, I Am Not An Atheist!, I discuss your bizarre redefinition of "atheist" to include everybody who does not reject evolution and science and reality as you would wish them to:
DWise1 writes: "Atheist" has a very specific meaning, but marc9000, like so many of his brethren, has chosen to ignore that specific meaning and to apply it indiscriminately and broadly to tar everybody who doesn't agree with his beliefs. In doing so, he renders his accusations of science and scientists being atheistic completely meaningless ... not that those accusations had any meaning to begin with. And now that he is trying to get a new topic started based on those same accusations, the first thing he must do is to define his terms! No, a deist is not an atheist. Obviously! Nor is any theist. Obviously! Yet again, marc9000 just has no idea what he's talking about. Until you provide a definition for "atheist" that actually means something, your entire position here is completely meaningless. Since you used Wikipedia to provide a definition for "scientific community", shouldn't you also use it for a definition for "atheist"?
quote:In contrast, your misuse of "atheist" includes vast numbers of theists, including the majority of Christians. Now, the qualities of scientists that causes you to brand them as "atheists" is that they are sane and they work and live in and with reality instead of your community's approach of denying, ignoring, and trying to redefine reality away. In that case, then I would most certain hope that scientists root themselves in reality. If that makes them "atheists" in your scale-covered eyes, then that is your problem, not theirs.
... a pew research center poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans, while 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest don't know, or won't commit. We probably see far less than 6 percent of evolution proponents on these forums who would ever vote for a Republican.
Why are so few scientists Republicans? It's very simple. Scientists are both intelligent and sane, two qualities that are incompatible with the wing-nut travesty that the GOP has now become. Let's face it, who in their right mind could even consider voting Republican?
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Given this assertion:
There is also not a shred of evidence that ANYONE but atheists, with the complete approval of their "religious" allies (theistic evolutionists, Deists, etc.) make all decisions concerning publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science.
it becomes clear that by "atheist" you really mean "scientist". Accordingly, I have made that change in the thread subtitle. That quoted statement of yours is factually wrong. Politicians make the primary decision on public funding of science. And republicans get to participate in that political process. It is true that the politicians may make only the primary decisions, and delegate secondary decisions to scientists. However, that only happens because the politicians have decided that the scientist can generally be trusted as the most capable of making these decisions. I see it as a plus that scientists are involved in this way. You seem to think that science is some sort of grand conspiracy to produce false descriptions of the world. But that is an utterly absurd idea.
Science provides the best, most accurate, descriptions of the world that we have. If you were a true creationist, then you would believe that science accurately describes the world that your God created. Your denial of science is nothing less than a denial of creationism. You apparently believe in a false creationism that denies that the world that we can see was created by your God.Jesus was a liberal hippie
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
I had a quick look at the National Academy of Sciences in the US.
quote:My bold. The link goes on in how members are selected and approved at annual meetings. Seems like people belonging to the National Academy of Sciences are elected as distinguished scientists, by scientists, themselves. The history indicates that the organisation officially started in 1863 after legislation passed by the House of Representatives in that year. You can famililiarize yourself with the History of NAS .
quote: President Bush affirmed the importance of the Academy and the National Research Council and further broadened it's charter. So, I guess the NAS is not "controlled" by atheists, but by scientists. Some of them happen to be Christians. Some of them happen to be atheists. Some of them happen to be Buddhists. Some of them happen to be Jews. Some of them happen to be agnostics. They all have one thing in common, though: they achieved and keep on achieving excellence in original research. Edited by Pressie, : Changed last sentence
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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marc9000 writes: There is also not a shred of evidence that ANYONE but atheists, with the complete approval of their "religious" allies (theistic evolutionists, Deists, etc.) make all decisions concerning publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. Could you tell me exactly who is excluded from this process then - is it just the agnostics that have anything to complain about? As far as I'm aware, atheist+deist+theist+agnostic=pretty much all of humanity. So it seems that everybody but agnostics (and some ancestor worshippers and maybe the odd witch doctor) controls science? Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Hi Pressie,
Seems like people belonging to the National Academy of Sciences are elected as distinguished scientists, by scientists, themselves. And the religious beliefs would cover the spectrum of the scientists in general, which by the nature of science would draw from all beliefs regardless of how well they do science. And I also note:
Robert T. Bakker quote: Dr Bakker has also graced our pages to comment briefly on his views in this regard. He is no atheist, and he was instrumental in causing a rather major revision of scientific thought, and therefore this one instance alone completely and utterly refutes marc9000's point. If marc9000 disagrees I suggest he contact Dr Bakker himself for guidance. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : cleanupby our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
For atheists to control science, they must be in a position to do so. This shows the breakdown of religious beliefs amongst scientists.
Studies on the views of scientists Among contemporary scientistsphysicists and biologistsabout 40% held strong religious beliefs in 1997, which closely matched those of a similar 1916 poll.[69][93] According to a 1996 survey of United States scientists in the fields of biology, mathematics, and physics/astronomy, belief in a god that is "in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" was most popular among mathematicians (about 45%) and least popular among physicists (about 22%). In total, about 60% of United States scientists in these fields expressed disbelief or agnosticism toward a personal god who answers prayer and personal immortality.[95] This compared with 58% in 1914 and 67% in 1933. Among members of the National Academy of Sciences, 7.0% expressed personal belief, while 72.2% expressed disbelief and another 20.8% were agnostic concerning the existence of a personal god who answers prayer.[99] A survey conducted between 2005 and 2007 by Elaine Howard Ecklund of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York found that over 60% of natural and social science professors at 21 elite US research universities are atheists or agnostics. When asked whether they believed in God, nearly 34% answered "I do not believe in God" and about 30% answering "I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out."[94] According to the same survey, "[m]any scientists see themselves as having a spirituality not attached to a particular religious tradition."[100] In further analysis, published in 2007, Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle conclude that "the assumption that becoming a scientist necessarily leads to loss of religion is untenable" and that "it appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists."[101] An explanation has been offered by Farr Curlin, a University of Chicago Instructor in Medicine and a member of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, that science-minded religious people instead elect to study medicine. He helped author a study that "found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife." and "90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults." He reasoned, "The responsibility to care for those who are suffering and the rewards of helping those in need resonate throughout most religious traditions."[97] Another study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."[102] 48% say they have a religious affiliation, equal to the number who say they are not affiliated with any religious tradition. The survey also found younger scientists to be "substantially more likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God". Among the surveyed fields, chemists were the most likely to say they believe in God.[96] Religious beliefs of US professors, many in scientific fields, were recently examined using a nationally representative sample of more than 1400, published in Sociology of Religion. They found that 60.8 percent of biology professors "are either atheists or agnostics" (p. 115).[103]Ecklund and Sheitle, in a 2005—2007 survey,[104] compared differences between natural and social scientists at the 21 elite US research universities that they surveyed. 52 percent of the scientists listed themselves as having no religious affiliation. Analyses of the more than 1600 responses indicated that "differences in religiosity between natural and social scientists are simply no longer a meaningful descriptor of the place of religion in the academy. For the most part, there is little difference between these larger fields [social versus natural science] or between the specific disciplines themselves. The differences that do exist are seen among chemists and political scientists who are more likely to be religious, according to traditional indicators, when compared to physicists" Relationship between religion and science - Wikipedia I'd say that degree of atheism in the NAS is quite surprising, whist the proportion in the general population of scientists is pretty much what I would have expected - science is not dominated by atheists. So now it's marc's task to show how this distribution manages to control all of science.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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Hi Marc,
Just a few things. About this:
marc9000 writes: Shermer has little, if any scientific credentials, yet he writes for the Scientific American. According to Wikipedia, Shermer has a master's in experimental psychology, a PhD in the history of science, and is the author of a number of lay-level science books. About the definition of atheist, I wasn't originally concerned about the way you're defining atheist, but several people have raised the issue. If you aren't using the traditional definition then you should say so. About the desirability of removing religious superstition from our understanding of the world in which we live, that's just good science, not atheism.
There is also not a shred of evidence that ANYONE but atheists, with the complete approval of their "religious" allies (theistic evolutionists, Deists, etc.) make all decisions concerning publicly funded/government sponsored methods of exploration in science. You haven't provided any evidence of atheists actually doing anything. You don't know which scientists are atheists and which aren't. You don't know which scientists are making the decisions. So far all you've done is described your position. Can we assume some evidence will be forthcoming? What bothers you about science isn't that it's controlled by atheists, because it isn't. What bothers you about science is that it isn't controlled by religious fundamentalists. --Percy
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