Yesterdays news...
The following letters were written in to "Metro" in response to a recent article that they printed...
Edward Bozzard from London, E1, writes:
"It comes as little surprise to me that people are so willing to accept such rubbish as Creationism or "intelligent design" as fact (Metro, Tue).
The increased exposure to religion in the media and the demise of critical thinking allows people to feel justified in their beliefs that some higher power rules their lives, and be less inclined to look at the "difficult science" reality of the universe.
Creationism and ID are religious subjects and, if taught, should be taught in religious studies lessons. It is simply incorrect to suggest they are competing scietific theories. There is no science in them, only religious dogma.
To say anything else risks confusing a generation of students and sending our planet further into the arms of the delusional and religious, not to mention undermining the efforts of thousands of hard-working scientists."
I don't know what it was, but I simply had to write a little something...partly as someone grading his letter as an argumentative piece of literature, and partly because I disagree with what he's arguing.
1- "...such rubbish as Creationism or ID..." - nice objective opener, really gives credibility to your argument when you set out, blatantly rejecting the other view point, without then giving testable reasons for your rejection, otherwise it just looks like you're as opinionated and as "dogmatic" as the offending religions.
2- The increased exposure to religion, does not, in and of itself allow people to feel justified in their beliefs... it is in fact their beliefs that does this...
3- "The demise of critical thinking..." also does not allow people to feel justified in their beliefs. In fact it does the opposite. The demise of critical thinking would mean that your average Joe Bloggs walking down the street would not be able to objectively differentiate between the various religious systems, or indeed science. It is in fact critical thinking that initially made the monks of old want to explore the world in which we live. The first scienctists if you will.
Furthermore, it cannot be said that it is a lack of critical thinking that leads people to believe that a higher power rules their life. It is in fact the absence of critical thinking that leads people to believe that they are in control over their life, as this would be the precedent if no-one bothered exploring the claims that religions, or the Bible, makes.
4- "...difficult science..." - I agree that a lot of people cannot be bothered to investigate science to a level that maybe technology today allows. This doesn't infer that they are happier to side with religion. In fact it actually just means that people are happier to keep living in ignorance about the world we live in... maybe a case of, as long as it keeps spinning, I don't care how it does...
5- "Creationism and ID are religious subjects..." - Not technically true... ID (capitals) is simply a theory, which I happen to subscribe to, which investigates science and comes to the conclusion that the mathematical probability of the existance of the world, and indeed our aptitude for studying it, leads the ID-er to believe that the world has been designed... Creationism - created...
id (lower case) is the belief of ID (Upper case) being undertaken by a being, the Bibles account - God, and it is this which should be taught in the religious lessons... but, once again it isn't.
The Big bang is a theory, not a religious principle, however, when faced with the vacuum of morality that is left to "chance theories" should this be taught as well in the religious lessons?
I have in fact been having similar discussions in the blogsite www.exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com re: philosophy and science and have been corrected before... but as I currently understand it, there is an aspect of crossover between science and philosophy, whereby the evidence that science points to seems to a conclusion that must be attended to by the philosopher.
In fact I would go as far as to say I don't regard ID (upper case) as a theory at all... it's merely the conclusion that scientists have come to after they have looked at the evidence themselves... I also would express my disappointment that so many scientist subscribe to the ID conclusion, as it will hereby be referred, without wanting to look into it any further, to maybe questions who or what it was that designed the world, universe etc...
6- "To say anything else..." to say anything less, risks ignorance, which is far worse then knowledge... with knowledge comes responsibility, with ignorance comes irresponsibility, and it's 2nd cousin, extremism.
To ignore the ID conclusion is actually to undermine the study and evidence undertaken by thousands more scientists, whose, in Bozzard's opinion, is less valid then the other scientists that he hasn't yet stated...
There were 2 other letters written, and when I get a mo I will respond to them as well...
Your thoughts as well would be appreciated... feel free to critique the above... otherwise I'll never learn...
Edward Bozzard from London, E1, writes:
"It comes as little surprise to me that people are so willing to accept such rubbish as Creationism or "intelligent design" as fact (Metro, Tue).
The increased exposure to religion in the media and the demise of critical thinking allows people to feel justified in their beliefs that some higher power rules their lives, and be less inclined to look at the "difficult science" reality of the universe.
Creationism and ID are religious subjects and, if taught, should be taught in religious studies lessons. It is simply incorrect to suggest they are competing scietific theories. There is no science in them, only religious dogma.
To say anything else risks confusing a generation of students and sending our planet further into the arms of the delusional and religious, not to mention undermining the efforts of thousands of hard-working scientists."
I don't know what it was, but I simply had to write a little something...partly as someone grading his letter as an argumentative piece of literature, and partly because I disagree with what he's arguing.
1- "...such rubbish as Creationism or ID..." - nice objective opener, really gives credibility to your argument when you set out, blatantly rejecting the other view point, without then giving testable reasons for your rejection, otherwise it just looks like you're as opinionated and as "dogmatic" as the offending religions.
2- The increased exposure to religion, does not, in and of itself allow people to feel justified in their beliefs... it is in fact their beliefs that does this...
3- "The demise of critical thinking..." also does not allow people to feel justified in their beliefs. In fact it does the opposite. The demise of critical thinking would mean that your average Joe Bloggs walking down the street would not be able to objectively differentiate between the various religious systems, or indeed science. It is in fact critical thinking that initially made the monks of old want to explore the world in which we live. The first scienctists if you will.
Furthermore, it cannot be said that it is a lack of critical thinking that leads people to believe that a higher power rules their life. It is in fact the absence of critical thinking that leads people to believe that they are in control over their life, as this would be the precedent if no-one bothered exploring the claims that religions, or the Bible, makes.
4- "...difficult science..." - I agree that a lot of people cannot be bothered to investigate science to a level that maybe technology today allows. This doesn't infer that they are happier to side with religion. In fact it actually just means that people are happier to keep living in ignorance about the world we live in... maybe a case of, as long as it keeps spinning, I don't care how it does...
5- "Creationism and ID are religious subjects..." - Not technically true... ID (capitals) is simply a theory, which I happen to subscribe to, which investigates science and comes to the conclusion that the mathematical probability of the existance of the world, and indeed our aptitude for studying it, leads the ID-er to believe that the world has been designed... Creationism - created...
id (lower case) is the belief of ID (Upper case) being undertaken by a being, the Bibles account - God, and it is this which should be taught in the religious lessons... but, once again it isn't.
The Big bang is a theory, not a religious principle, however, when faced with the vacuum of morality that is left to "chance theories" should this be taught as well in the religious lessons?
I have in fact been having similar discussions in the blogsite www.exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com re: philosophy and science and have been corrected before... but as I currently understand it, there is an aspect of crossover between science and philosophy, whereby the evidence that science points to seems to a conclusion that must be attended to by the philosopher.
In fact I would go as far as to say I don't regard ID (upper case) as a theory at all... it's merely the conclusion that scientists have come to after they have looked at the evidence themselves... I also would express my disappointment that so many scientist subscribe to the ID conclusion, as it will hereby be referred, without wanting to look into it any further, to maybe questions who or what it was that designed the world, universe etc...
6- "To say anything else..." to say anything less, risks ignorance, which is far worse then knowledge... with knowledge comes responsibility, with ignorance comes irresponsibility, and it's 2nd cousin, extremism.
To ignore the ID conclusion is actually to undermine the study and evidence undertaken by thousands more scientists, whose, in Bozzard's opinion, is less valid then the other scientists that he hasn't yet stated...
There were 2 other letters written, and when I get a mo I will respond to them as well...
Your thoughts as well would be appreciated... feel free to critique the above... otherwise I'll never learn...
posted by mrjohnfernandez at 10:29 am
8 comments
![BBCi: Javascript is not available
on this browser](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/bsp/hi/services/htmlsyndication/img/synd_js_error_js-inactive.gif")
