Faith and Foolishness

[DRSB]

An interesting article in Scientific American, with over 100 comments:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... R_20100804

[devogue]

Just one of those comments:

Ideas have consequences and hence Dr. Krauss wants to hold religious leaders accountable for their mistaken beliefs. Lets apply the same logic to scientific leaders and use the not very distant past for our thoughts.
(1) The Enlightenment promoted science and did away with medieval superstitions but somehow the French Revolution ended in the guillotine.
(2) Some scientists were provocative in their early support of Darwins theory of natural selection. They fueled the eugenic movement in Europe and soon we had inferior races and a master race and ovens blazed.
(3) The Soviets promoted science and built their society on philosophical materialism. Their mistaken beliefs led to the Gulag and millions dead.
Scientific ideas, once an unwarranted materialist assumption has been attached, have been used with deadly consequences, while a theist philosophical assumption leads to rational thought, acceptance of the scientific method and the prayer, deliver us from evil.

What a fucking dick.

[Feck]

"acceptance of the scientific method and the prayer, deliver us from FUCKING MORONS"

[charlou]

An interesting article in Scientific American, with over 100 comments:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... R_20100804

A rather worrying article .. highlights how precarious knowledge and understanding is when it is state run and the state is sympathetic to faith over, even averse to, empiricism ...

[DRSB]

And it is not just any state we are talking about! Aren't the States supposed to be the world's greatest democracy? The world's industrial engine?! The greatest investor in scientific research?!

[hiyymer]

Just one of those comments:

Ideas have consequences and hence Dr. Krauss wants to hold religious leaders accountable for their mistaken beliefs. Lets apply the same logic to scientific leaders and use the not very distant past for our thoughts.
(1) The Enlightenment promoted science and did away with medieval superstitions but somehow the French Revolution ended in the guillotine.
(2) Some scientists were provocative in their early support of Darwins theory of natural selection. They fueled the eugenic movement in Europe and soon we had inferior races and a master race and ovens blazed.
(3) The Soviets promoted science and built their society on philosophical materialism. Their mistaken beliefs led to the Gulag and millions dead.
Scientific ideas, once an unwarranted materialist assumption has been attached, have been used with deadly consequences, while a theist philosophical assumption leads to rational thought, acceptance of the scientific method and the prayer, deliver us from evil.

What a fucking dick.

It's not a totally pointless argument. Science and reason are just tools. They make us richer, but they don't make us better.