It is hard sometimes to understand the modern arguments against science, whether it be global warming, genetics, neuroscience, evolution, and so on. Very often the argument is partisan rather than about the science. Imagine explaining a round world to a primitive person, or what gravity is and how it works, or that light travels faster than sound, or that the star you see is light years away. What reaction would you get, and how if this were a really curious (scientific) person could you demonstrate the concept? Which brings me to that curious person whose ideas are not based on partisan influence. Too much information in America today is anti science, time we turned off the TV and even the computer.
First check out Richard Dawkins' "The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing' as a fascinating and eclectic start, then Carl Sagan's writings, Martin Gardner too, and if you are doubtful evolution is fact, check the books noted below.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time-when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. "Beavis and Butt head" remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning-not just of science, but of anything-are avoidable, even undesirable." Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'
On evolution.
"Tom Nagel undertakes in his slender 128 page book to show that "the materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false," and yet in those pages, there is not a single chapter, a single paragraph, a single sentence, indeed not a single word about all of this extraordinary science. On the face of it, that just cannot be right. Surely one cannot engage with the "Neo-Darwinian conception of nature" without so much as relating a single bit of its substance."
The Philosopher's Stone: WHAT HAVE I BEEN READING
The Philosopher's Stone: READING SUGGESTIONS
'My comments on Nagel prompted a request from Larry K. for some of my sister's reading recommendations. She gave me four titles:'
Sean B. Carroll 'The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution'
Sean B. Carroll 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo'
Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb 'Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life'
Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart 'The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma'
Martin Gardner's "The Night Is Large: Collected Essays, 1938-1995" excellent, excellent book.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU]Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children - YouTube[/ame]
"When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science." from edge.org
First check out Richard Dawkins' "The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing' as a fascinating and eclectic start, then Carl Sagan's writings, Martin Gardner too, and if you are doubtful evolution is fact, check the books noted below.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time-when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. "Beavis and Butt head" remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning-not just of science, but of anything-are avoidable, even undesirable." Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'
On evolution.
"Tom Nagel undertakes in his slender 128 page book to show that "the materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false," and yet in those pages, there is not a single chapter, a single paragraph, a single sentence, indeed not a single word about all of this extraordinary science. On the face of it, that just cannot be right. Surely one cannot engage with the "Neo-Darwinian conception of nature" without so much as relating a single bit of its substance."
The Philosopher's Stone: WHAT HAVE I BEEN READING
The Philosopher's Stone: READING SUGGESTIONS
'My comments on Nagel prompted a request from Larry K. for some of my sister's reading recommendations. She gave me four titles:'
Sean B. Carroll 'The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution'
Sean B. Carroll 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo'
Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb 'Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life'
Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart 'The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma'
Martin Gardner's "The Night Is Large: Collected Essays, 1938-1995" excellent, excellent book.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU]Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children - YouTube[/ame]
"When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science." from edge.org
