It doesn’t so much sound like these people are opposed to science it self, but rather to scientists and scientific theories,. . . they are opposed to certain scientific theories and the scientific community, but not the practice of science.

Gibbon, reading through your posts, I see that your repeatedly state what things aren’t constitute rejecting science. Can you clarify what it would take for you to see someone as rejecting science? Do they need to state that they reject all science, because the scientific method if always inhrently flawed? Or refuse to use technology produced by science?

Again. The Galileo Affair was a dispute about Church authority, while creationism is about scriptural interpretation. . . nor is there a common factor present in both of them.

I’m not sure what to say, since you for some reason seem to have ignored the part of my comment where I point out the common factor. As I said before, the common factor is that religious people thought that their religious beliefs had implications about the physical world. For you to insist that two things have no common factor because you can list ways in which they’re different, doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Why do I get this funny feeling that all your arguments rely on the fallacious notion that science is some sort of ideology, philosophy, or “world-view” (despite the absurdity of such a term), or that it offers one of them, despite the fact that it is nothing more than a practice? Experimentation and observation constitute the defining essence of science; I’d like to whatever objections creationists have made to those two basic principles.

I can’t parse that last sentence, I think there’s a typo there, but it seems to me that you’re saying that you’re only going to view creationists as rejecting science if they explicitly say “I do not believe in experiementation and observation.” Again, I’m not sure what to do other than repeat what I’ve said earlier, and which you seem to have ignored. If somone claims that they believe in experimentation and observation as an accurate method of determining reality, but then reject the results of that experimentation and observation whenever it produces results that they don’t like, then there’s no meaningful way in which that claim is true.

Perhaps it comes down to what you mean by “rejecting science.” Yes, science is a practice, a set of methodologies for determining how the world works. And most people aren’t going to explicitly criticize those methodologies, so if that’s your standard, very few people can be said to have “rejected” science – but most people probably don’t think about those methodologies at all, so I’m not sure by that standard you could say that many people, religious or not, have “accepted” science. I would say people “accept” science when they accept that those methodologies are an reliable way of determining information about the physical world. I don’t understand your view, it seems to be that your view is that people “accept” science when they’re willing to use technology produced by that science.

I was raised as a creationist and I can tell you that the Christians at my parents’ church most certainly are anti-science. They believe that all scientists expect for the creationist scientists are apart of this global atheistic conspiracy to supress evidence of the existence of God and that the reason why the Large Hadron Collider keeps failing is because God is punishing the scientists for trying to contradict the Genesis creation account.

It doesn’t so much sound like these people are opposed to science it self, but rather to scientists and scientific theories, two things that I wouldn’t describe as equating to science. And again, it comes back to origins. One of the big issues the LHC is supposed to address is the Big Bang; figure that out and you’ve figured out the origins of the universe. That’s got to be a problem for the creationists, whose whole doctrine rests on the origins of everything.

The fact that they’ll accept science when it’s convenient for them does not prove creationists like science. It only proves they’re hypocrites.

All it proves is that they are opposed to certain scientific theories and the scientific community, but not the practice of science.

I can say that while they may recognize science is behind technology, I think most creationists take it for granted that science gave them their nice cars and fancy TVs and computers and don’t give science any proper credit for it.

So what? You expect them to bow down at the altar of science and give thanks and forgiveness to the gods of science for the bountiful technology that has been bestowed upon them? Ninety-nine percent of all people, creationist or not, take it for granted that scientific research has provided them with all their wonderful technology; they just don’t give it any thought. For the vast majority of people, there is little point in giving credit to scientific research for technology; I’d say that there is just as much reason to do that as there is to pray to god that he rain-out the cricket tomorrow.

Wow, just like creationists!

Hardly. Creationists are driven by their ideological commitment to oppose anything that they believe conflicts with their ideology. Libertarians are more pragmatic, they object to money being spent on projects which have no tangible pay-offs, such as SETI. What is the point of trying to discover if there is life on other planets when such knowledge could not be put to any use?

Autumnal Harvest

And yes, creation “science” feels the need to dress itself up in the trappings of science. However, if someone claims to believe in science, but rejects huge fields of science every time they produce results they don’t believe in, only to replace it with sham pseudo-science, I’d say that they feel some social pressure to pay lip service to science – they don’t believe in it or understand it in any meaningful way.

Again. They may reject certain scientific theories, but they don’t reject science. Why do I get this funny feeling that all your arguments rely on the fallacious notion that science is some sort of ideology, philosophy, or “world-view” (despite the absurdity of such a term), or that it offers one of them, despite the fact that it is nothing more than a practice? Experimentation and observation constitute the defining essence of science; I’d like to whatever objections creationists have made to those two basic principles.

This seems like an untenably narrow view of “when things are related.” Yes, one involves the authority of the Catholic Church, and one involved the authority of the Bible, that hardly strikes me as such a huge difference as to make them completely unrelated.

It is not an untenably narrow view, it is the fact. There is no evidence that connects the Galileo Affair to the evolution-creation debates. There is nothing about the Galileo Affair that is also present in the dispute over creationism.

When Martin Luther argued that the Church of Rome had no greater authority to interpret scripture than anyone else, he was basically saying that every person, laity or clergy, had the right to interpret the Bible for themselves; they didn’t need someone else to do it for them. But what the Catholic Church argued in the Council of Trent was that they alone had the authority to interpret the Bible. When Galileo presented his scientific theory, some 50 years after CoT, he also offered his own interpretation of the relevant scripture to make it consistent with his theory; he was interpreting the Bible despite that being heretical under the Church. Galileo was simply an innocent victim of the Reformation Wars, in other words he had really bad timing.

It is not the same with creationism. It isn’t over the authority of the Bible, as liberal Christians assign to it similar authority as well. It is about evolution conflicting with a specific interpretation. The creationists object to any idea or notion that contradicts their particular interpretation of the bible.

Again. The Galileo Affair was a dispute about Church authority, while creationism is about scriptural interpretation. There is no evidence to suggest that together they are part of something bigger, nor is there a common factor present in both of them. The only thing they could possibly have in common is the presence of scientists.

NOMA is not an accurate description of their religious beliefs – in those cases, science and religion can conflict. It’s only if a person’s religious beliefs make no testable predictions about the physical world – e.g. they believe that prayer has no observable physical effects external to the person praying – that NOMA is accurate.

NOMA is not accurate, because science and religion do overlap, just not in a way that most people realise. Religion is a social oriented practice, while science is a knowledge oriented practice; there is a bit of overlap but not of the sort that naturally puts them at odds with each other. For the most part they have coexisted for over a thousand years without any real trouble, so as to why anyone is trying to stir up trouble now is beyond me.

As humans, we ask questions and want answers. Some systems of thought, like religion, supply all the answers to all of our questions. It kills off inquiry. Other systems, like science urge us to ask more questions. New answers create new questions.

I’ve put the systems in two camps. Science explores the questions of objective reality, religion explores the realm of subjective reality.

For example, one can study God, Darth Vadar, or Alvin and the Chipmunks and get universal human truths. Those truths are not necessarily objective.

Objective reality, on the other hand, is what can be measured and observed in space and time. This is the realm of mathematics and science.

We are on the brink of a new scientific field; synthetic genomics. We can make artificial life forms. Objectively, that means we can manipulate and engineer life at the molecular level.

However, there are ethical things to consider. Should we use such technology to make weapons that can eliminate whole groups of people? What will we do when governments begin to use that technology to design such weapons? (And studying human history, they will.)

Ethics is subjective. It’s not the realm of science to answer ethical questions, but it couldn’t hurt us if scientists were ethical in their pursuit of knowledge and asked if what they were doing was moral.

We’ve got nuclear weapons because of scientists. What are we going to do when we have DNA bombs?

We need a method to discover ethical truths. Otherwise, scientists will continue to discover new things that will lead to amazing technologies and apocalyptic weaponry.

We’re running out of time to reconcile these things. What can we do?

Putting aside that issue, there is no evidence of a conflict between science and religion. For example, you can’t interpret what happened to Galileo as being related to what is going on with evolution; one is an example of the Church’s authority being challenged, while the other was a shakeup of scriptural interpretation. There is nothing to indicate that they are related in any way.

This seems like an untenably narrow view of “when things are related.” Yes, one involves the authority of the Catholic Church, and one involved the authority of the Bible, that hardly strikes me as such a huge difference as to make them completely unrelated. The common thread is that, throughout history, many people have thought that their religious beliefs made factual predictions about what the observable physical world was like. For those people, NOMA is not an accurate description of their religious beliefs – in those cases, science and religion can conflict. It’s only if a person’s religious beliefs make no testable predictions about the physical world – e.g. they believe that prayer has no observable physical effects external to the person praying – that NOMA is accurate.

Like the Iraq War? Wow, that’s really helping in the Middle East.

Of course, I’m a Bitch. Yes, with a capital B. That’s Ms. Bitch to you. Turning the other cheek is for fools.

I was raised as a creationist and I can tell you that the Christians at my parents’ church most certainly are anti-science. They believe that all scientists expect for the creationist scientists are apart of this global atheistic conspiracy to supress evidence of the existence of God and that the reason why the Large Hadron Collider keeps failing is because God is punishing the scientists for trying to contradict the Genesis creation account. They also claimed that people don’t believe in God because they’re too educational expect they believe being too educational is a sin. The fact that they’ll accept science when it’s convenient for them does not prove creationists like science. It only proves they’re hypocrites. In his documentary Expelled, Ben Stein said that he loved science, but we all know that’s a joke, right?

“Do you really believe that? That a significant number of people do not recognise that science is behind pretty much all technological advancements? It is highly unlikely that many people believe that science played no part in the advancements of technology.”

I can say that while they may recognize science is behind technology, I think most creationists take it for granted that science gave them their nice cars and fancy TVs and computers and don’t give science any proper credit for it.

“Libertarian-minded people are fully aware of the connection between science and technology, they just don’t see the point in any research that does not or can not produce technology.”

Wow, just like creationists!

I still believe you’re wrong about that.

The thing is though that most creationists, such as Ken Ham and even the Intelligent Design community, believe that science supports their position. They reject evolution as a failure of science and instead argue that their ideas have greater scientific legitimacy. And the people who do believe that make up the vast majority of creationists.

I’ve heard it said in certain creationist circles that the only thing scientists have ever given us was deadly new weapons (they were speaking of nuclear and biological weaponry, of course).

I’m sure as hell hoping that you are not taking that comment from Ben Stein when he said that “science leads to killing people”, as a statement of what creationists generally believe, because it would be a big disappointment if you are. Again, creationists do not object to science or the various disciplines, but rather to certain scientific theories. They have no problem in using geology to argue for Noah’s Flood or a young earth.

Unlike most everyone here, and even most intelligent design proponents, most do not make a connection between human technology and scientific research because the research almost never leads directly technological products. Many people fail to comprehend that advances in physics and chemistry fields lead to improved computer and medical technology.

Even among the public at large, a surprisingly high number of people simply do not associate the technology behind their new television screens or cell phones with physicists in white lab coats performing experiments in laboratories.

Do you really believe that? That a significant number of people do not recognise that science is behind pretty much all technological advancements? It is highly unlikely that many people believe that science played no part in the advancements of technology. Scientific knowledge has increased exponentially over the last several centuries, and at the same time technology has developed with ever increasing speed; it wouldn’t take someone with an education to realise that there is a connection between the two.

For example, I’ve seen many people who call themselves libertarians take the position that pure research is worthless, and shouldn’t be funded.

Actually, libertarians aren’t so much objecting to scientific research, they just don’t see anything worthwhile in scientific projects that do not produce results which can be put to practical use. Typically, this argument is applied to the astronomical sciences more than any other. Geology, biology, physics, and chemistry are all seen as having useful applications, whereas something like astronomy, which studies things distant from Earth, usually isn’t. Libertarian-minded people are fully aware of the connection between science and technology, they just don’t see the point in any research that does not or can not produce technology.