Science and Imperialism

The Wall Street Journal commissioned Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong to respond independently to the question, “Where does evolution leave God?” Their answers became an article in the Life & Style section last month called Man vs. God.

Richard Dawkins said of Darwinian evolution, “We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet.” Evolution, Dawkins concluded with his characteristic wit, is God’s “pink slip.” In other words, since science says Evolution is, we say God isn’t. (I discussed Dawkins’s argument for the non-existence of God in an earlier Salvo article.)

Karen Armstrong’s response was more artistic. She spoke of two complementary ways of arriving at truth, which the Greeks called mythos and logos, both of which were recognized by scholars as legitimate. Logos was reason, logic, intellect. But logos alone couldn’t speak to the deep question human beings ask like, What is the meaning of life? and, Why do bad things happen to good people? For that, she said, people turned to mythos – stories, regardless of whether or not they were true, that helped us make sense out of the difficulties of life. They were therapeutic. We could think of them as an early form of psychology.

“Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. But can we respond religiously to evolutionary theory? Can we use it to recover a more authentic notion of God?

Darwin made it clear [that] we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the ‘God beyond God.’ The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry.”

Not only is the veracity of any religious story irrelevant, she seems to be saying, it is incorrect to believe any account concerning God as objectively true. To do so is to construct an idol of certainty. How do we know that? Because of the certainty of Darwinian evolution.

Her response, at bottom, isn’t much different from the atheist’s. Evolution is. God isn’t. But some of us like to imagine that he is.

Notice the source Dawkins and Armstrong consult for certain truth: Science. Why? Because Science proclaims what is.

The questions I’m pondering and posing are (1) At what point do the proclamations of science become imperialistic? and (2) At what point does an appropriate respect for science morph into worship?

This post first appeared in the Salvo Signs of the Times blog.

Obama Radicals, Socialists, and Marxists in their Own Words

Barack Obama admitted in his first book “Dreams of My Father” that he used to carefully seek out Marxist friends.

These two are great fun:

• CommieTunes Episode 1 This is hysterical!
  
• SNL’s Victoria Jackson There’s a Communist Living in the White House

Fidel Castro praises Barack Obama as “absolutely sincere”.

Hugo Chavez says “Hey Obama has nationalized nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right!” and says Obama has brought the smell of hope to the UN.

Ron Bloom; the Obama Administration Manufacturing czar agrees with Chairman Mao, Free Market is nonsense.

Van Jones, self admitted Communist, video montage – Obama’s Green Jobs czar.

Valerie Jarrett, White House advisor, praises about Van Jones.

Anita Dunn, White House interim communications director, admires Chairman Mao.

Cass Sunstein, Obama’s new regulatory czar seems to place more intrinsic value on animals than to human infants. Proposed bans on hunting and eating meat and proposed that your dog to be allowed to have an attorney in court.

John Holdren, science czar proposed “compulsory sterilization” and forced abortions to control population, Holdren predicted in this 1971 textbook co-authored with Malthusian population alarmist Paul Ehrlich that global over-population would lead to disastrous conditions unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilization. Holdren also openly supports redistribution of wealth and resources and was suspected of divulging vital nuclear information to the Soviets.

Carol Browner, global warming czar, was part of Socialist International and the Commission for a Sustainable World Society groups who call for “global governance.”

Mark Lloyd, Diversity czar for the FCC, praises dictator Hugo Chavez, who forcibly took control of the media in Venezuela.

Austan Goolsbee, long time friend and now economic adviser to the President, says that they’re consulting communism’s founding documents: “I mean, it’s been a long, long time since things were this bad, so we kind of had to go back and look at the old textbooks – Karl Marx, Trotsky – and the thing that we found was that it was critical that we do something,”

Dr. John C. Drew, Occidental College acquaintance of Barack Obama, former avowed Marxist, says Obama was a pure Marxist.

Related articles:

• The Obamarang by Victor Davis Hanson Note the four reasons at the end. See also comment #54.

A Socialist Halloween

Russian 9-11 Memorial

Someone sent me this today:

As a new junkie, I am dumbfounded that I’ve never heard a thing about it:

I checked it out on snopes and hoaxslayer and they both say it’s true. Has anyone else heard about this?

What do you make of the fact that it’s received little to no press?

Global Warming: This is Denialism?

In March 2009, the Texas State Board of Education finalized its new standards for science education. Soon thereafter, in the Summer 2009 issue of the The Earth Scientist , the quarterly journal of the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA), Steven Newton, Public Information Project Director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), took issue with the new standards.

Specifically, Newton singled out a handful of amendments which he said “weakened the standards” and “opened to door … to bring non-scientific ideas into the science classroom.”

He took issue with minor changes to wording concerning teaching of, among other subjects, the age of the universe, changes in the earth’s atmosphere, and fossils. Referring to these amendments, Newton summed up his comments this way,

“[The] amendments sought to cast doubt upon well-established earth science ideas. The language changes are subtle but significant, hinting to students that scientists do not really know as much as they claim to understand.” (page 31)

My personal favorite had to do with the teaching of global warming. Newton complained that the new standards did not require a presumption that global warming exists. Instead the standards allow different views to be examined. Newton contended:

In Environmental Systems, Texas students are now required to “analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming.” This is the language of global warming denialists, not of the scientific community.” (page 33)

Is it unscientific to analyze and evaluate different views? Newton is writing here as a representative of the NCSE, so I referred back the NCSE website. Here’s what the NCSE says about its reason for existence:

The National Center for Science Education is not affiliated with any religious organization or belief. … Our members range from devout practitioners of several religions to atheists, with many shades of belief in between. What unites them is a conviction that science and the scientific method, and not any particular religious belief, should determine science curriculum.

I’m left wondering, if science and the scientific method are the guiding principles for science education, why is there a problem with students being allowed to analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming?

I’m also wondering, who is the denialist here?

Related articles:

• Global warming alarmist extraordinaire to Discover magazine in 1989: “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”

Orthodox Christian Meditations

An Orthodox pastor discusses here an article I wrote in the latest issue of Salvo.

How Red Will We Get?

Austan Goolsbee, long time friend and now economic adviser to the President, admitted last night they’re consulting communism’s founding documents: “I mean, it’s been a long, long time since things were this bad, so we kind of had to go back and look at the old textbooks – Karl Marx, Trotsky – and the thing that we found was that it was critical that we do something,” He was speaking at a comedy club, so I guess his supporters either think Communism’s a good thing or it was meant to be a joke.

But I’m not finding it funny. Given the breathtaking grabs for power and money, it appears to me they’re most certainly enacting a social framework that leads to a Communist government.

I’ve seen the inside of a Communist country. It doesn’t work for you; you work for it. And it’s ugly.