Showing papers on "Antiscience published in 2010"
TL;DR: The age of Earth remains a divisive topic in the modern evolution–creationism controversy, and a vocal group of citizens and religious activists continue to insist that Earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Abstract: When Charles Darwin was developing his ideas for On the Origin of Species, the most widely accepted estimates of Earth’s age were those of William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). Kelvin used calculations involving thermodynamics to argue that Earth is only 20–100 million years old—an age far too brief to accommodate evolution by natural selection. Darwin referred to Thomson’s claim as one of his “sorest troubles,” for Darwin understood that the history of life on Earth ultimately relies on geology. Darwin suspected that Earth was much older than Thomson claimed, but Thomson’s enormous stature as a scientist obliged Darwin to reconcile his claims with Kelvin’s data. To accommodate Kelvin’s timeline, Darwin proposed pangenesis as an explanation of inheritance (i.e., every sperm and egg contained “gemmules thrown off from each different unit throughout the body”). Darwin’s explanation sped evolution while avoiding Lamarck’s quasi-spiritual sources of acquired traits. However, Darwin’s explanation of inheritance was wrong (see discussion in Moore et al. 2009a). The age of Earth remains a divisive topic in the modern evolution–creationism controversy. Whereas mainstream science has long acknowledged that Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, a vocal group of citizens and religious activists continue to insist that Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Although most geocentrists and flat-Earth advocates have capitulated to scientific evidence, young-Earth creationists continue to reject scientific evidence in favor of religious dictum to claim that Earth is less than 10,000 years old. These antiscience claims have been surprisingly popular with the public. For example, a Gallup Poll in early 2009 reported that “On Darwin’s [200th] Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution” (Newport 2009), and Berkman et al. (2008) noted that “16% [of biology teachers] believed that human beings were created by God in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” In another study, 12.5% of students were young-Earth creationists (Rutledge and Warden 2000), as are 10%–14% of biology majors (Moore and Cotner 2009). Answers in Genesis’ (AiG) Creation Museum, along with the $27 million in donations required to build it, attest to the appeal of young-Earth creationism. Indeed, AiG’s income for 2005 exceeded $13 million, and that of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR, another religious organization based on young-Earth creationism) exceeded $7 million. For comparison, the 2005 income of National Center for Science Education—the nation’s leading organization that defends the teaching of evolution in public schools—was
50 citations
TL;DR: Two online projects offer one-stop shopping for teaching evolution, as well as the nature and process of science, and a basic understanding of how science works are offered.
Abstract: It's not just about evolution anymore. Growing anti-science sentiment in the United States now infuses public discourse on conservation, vaccination, distribution of research funds, and climate change ( 1 ). Low rates of scientific literacy ( 2 ) exacerbate the problem. Although the public recognizes its indebtedness to the products of scientific knowledge, few understand much about the nature of that knowledge or the processes that generated it ( 3 ). Without a basic understanding of how science works, the public is vulnerable to antiscience propaganda, which engenders distrust of science when it comes to social issues, consumer choices, and policy decisions.
17 citations
TL;DR: The Climate Change Debates as mentioned in this paper is a review of eight books written by the authors of the Merchants of Doubt, written by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, who are basically polemics for anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
Abstract: Philip Kitcher, a philosophy professor at Columbia University, has written a book review, entitled “The Climate Change Debates” (Science, vol 328, 4 June, 2010, pp. 1230-34). His recipe for an “open discussion and debate” about climate change seems to be a one-sided coverage by an elitist, self-chosen group. “Genuine democratic participation” is out, in favor of “reliance on expert opinion.” And who might these ‘experts’ be? No surprise there; Kitcher knows – and shapes his review accordingly. Making his point, Kitcher then juxtaposes “aging” scientists to “serious” scientists. It’s all downhill from there. To emphasize his recommendation to deny a platform to “deniers” (his term), consider his choice of books for review. All eight books are basically polemics for anthropogenic global warming (AGW), with precious little science in them. Assuming a rough balance of such books on both sides of the AGW debate, the probability of such a choice by pure chance is about 0.39 percent. So much for balance. To make matters even worse, he plugs the very worst of the eight books selected – Merchants of Doubt, written by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.1 It attempts to smear mainly four scientists, all physicists with long records of publications, public service, and honors. In defense of three of these (recently deceased), who were founders of the George C. Marshall Institute, the GMI has published a reply to this attack on the integrity of the Institute and its founders. The reply is available at http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/894.pdf and is worth quoting from: “Replete with half-truths and mischaracterizations, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book besmirches the reputations of three great American scientists to silence dissent within the ranks of scientists and stifle debate among policy makers about how to respond to global warming. Their message is both antiscience and anti-democratic. Whether the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is desirable or not is irrelevant, the merits of their scholarship and its implications are clear. Predictably, they create a tobacco strawman and knock it
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that science and technology have both failed to acknowledge being according to Heidegger, and argues that man is a process; he is in a process of fulfilling his mission as the guardian of being.
Abstract: This paper argues that science and technology have both failed to acknowledge being according to Heidegger. This failure is underscored by Heidegger in Being and Time and his post- Being and Time works. He laments that science and technology should have shown due credence to a relationship of difference between Being and beings which he calls ontological difference and that science and technology should have, likewise, placed a considerable dose of importance to a relationship of identity – a relationship between Being and the human person. This is why Heidegger has refused to call man man, but Dasein. He places man above the ambiance of rationality. To him, man is a process; he is in a process of fulfilling his mission as the guardian of Being. But this goal is somehow shattered by science and technology. To become a guardian of Being, Dasein should embrace meditative thinking rather than calculative thinking . It is Heidegger’s desire that both science and technology should have served as pathways where the being of beings and the beings of being can be gleaned through. But because of science and technology’s rigorous utility of calculative thinking , they both proceeded to deprive man of the terminal point of his existence, i.e., to become the guardian of Being. Instead, they both reduced man to a mere commodity. Technology authors the resurgence of technological beings, viz.: omputers, cell phones, microwaves, and palm pilots, fax machines, DVDs, VCDs, among others. Consequently, Heidegger laments that science and technology have succeeded in enframing (Gestell) man and eventually they both have achieved to dehumanize man. But this paper maintains that Heidegger is neither antiscience nor anti-technology. Heidegger does not deny the enormous contributions of science and technology to us. However, he is also quick to warn us of the dangers that science and technology may bring to us like inventions that intervene and disrupt the intrinsic flux of nature, including the human body, or those that could bring grand scales of destruction to life, viz.: instruments of war that could surely bring mass destruction to any form of life, hungry and deadly germs that could result from scientific experiments, specifically in bioethics. So, to dispel these disastrous effects man must engage in meditative thinking to soften the appalling and abominable blows of science and technology.
1 citations