August 2008

Once upon a time, there was a lovely woman named Harriet.   She adored her grown children, her young grandchildren, her Pomeranian and her potted petunias.   She went for walks in the neighborhood nearly every day, stopping to chat with neighbors.   An extensive book collection lined the walls of her house, and she claimed to have read every one of them. 

At sixty-four, she was educated, financially savvy, and active.

She was also scared.

When she woke up in the mornings, she didn’t always remember what day of the week it was.  Always proud of her intellect, she’d started struggling to follow the science programs she loved to watch. She’d been feeling moody, she’d lost her keys 3 times  in the last week, and more worrisome, just today, she’d put a casserole in the oven and forgotten about it entirely. 

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“The War on Science” series raised some questions better suited to a discussion board than a blog comment section. I happen to have forum software set up for the upcoming e-course, and it wouldn’t be difficult to create a public section for general MindTweakish interactions.

But before I go to the trouble of all that…

I thought I’d ask ya’ll - is there any interest in a MindTweaks discussion forum? It might be only temporary, for discussing the science, politics and religion topics that have come up lately, or it could be a more permanent community set up. At the least, you would be helping me test the forum system and catch any bugs.

So what do you think?

(If the poll below doesn’t show up, you’re probably reading this via RSS. Click through to the actual blog to see the options and vote)

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Let me know if you have any other ideas…

With apologies to international readers, this post is admittedly pretty U.S. specific.  Just carry on, please…   I’ll be back to more widely applicable brain stuff soon.   For those of you just tuning in, check out part 1 and part 2.

When I first mentioned this series to a group of acquaintances, one of them scoffed. “A war on science? In AMERICA? Pshaw. There’s always a fringe contingent against anything, and  Churches have been fighting science for centuries! You really think it matters NOW?”

Yes, yes I do.   And I think it should matter to you, too. (’cause I’m a busy body that way) 

I grew up in the heyday of the Apollo space program.  In 1969 I was four years old, and too young to understand the significance of that first moon walk, but I stayed up late to watch it on our flickering black and white TV anyway. My parent’s excitement and tension was infectious:  this was something very, very cool, and a little scary.  

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This post isn’t intended as open debate of Creation vs Evolution , and it isn’t about what I believe, or what I think you should believe.  Rather, it’s about the anti-science aspects of the Creation/Evolution arguments, and how they are contributing to a confused and negative perception of science in the US.  For more info, please see part 1 in this series. 

The problem appears straight-forward and simple on the surface; The Theory of Evolution flat out conflicts with the  literal interpretations of the Bible’s account of Creation.    Many Christians don’t see the conflict as relevant to their lives, and they move quietly beyond it, whatever they actually believe.

But for Fundamentalists, the conflict is clearly relevant.  For them, there is no doubting that life arose as described in Genesis, created by God along with the rest of the Universe in less than 7 days.  In their view, the Theory of Evolution is not only inaccurate, but it is an evil  and atheistic argument against mankind’s unique relationship with God.

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A few weeks ago on Creative Think, creative-thinking expert Roger von  Orech posed an interesting question: “What do you think will be demonized in the next two years?” 

My answer actually scared me:  Science.  

It’s hard to imagine at first…   how could a logical method of investigation (and the body of knowledge produced through that  method) be viewed as evil and diabolic? It seems especially odd in the US, where for so many years,  scientific technology  and education has been the driving force of our success. 

The whole concept seems absurd on it’s face - but under the surface, much of the public’s perspective on science is are shifting from positive to negative. Why?

Science IS Scary Stuff, Sometimes.

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