I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) posts articles on his blog about environmentalism’s extremes and provides a bit of commentary as well. The first article in the post that I have marked was interesting because I keep hearing about this war on science, but when it comes down to it, there isn’t.
“For six and a half years under President Bush,” Senator Hillary Clinton told an audience in October 2007, “it has been open season on open inquiry.” Senator Edward Kennedy, in an April 2007 speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bemoaned the many ways in which “the truth is taking a beating” under conservative influence in Washington. One popular recent book on the subject is entitled The Republican War on Science; another, by former vice president and Nobel laureate Al Gore, is called The Assault on Reason.
But beneath these grave accusations, it turns out, are some remarkably flimsy grievances, most of which seem to amount to political disputes about policy questions in which science plays a role. Ethical disagreements over the destruction of embryos for research are described instead as a conflict between science and ignorant theology. Differing judgments about the proper role of government in sex education in schools are painted as a quarrel between objective public health and medieval prudishness. A dispute about the prudential wisdom of a variety of energy policy alternatives is depicted as a clash of simple scientific facts against willful ignorance and greed.
The American right has no desire to declare a war on science, and nothing it has done in recent years could reasonably suggest otherwise. The left’s quixotic defensive campaign against an imaginary enemy therefore has little to tell us about American conservatives-who, of course, do have a complex relationship with science, though it is not the one the left seeks to describe. But if this notion of a “war on science” tells us little about the right, it does tell us something important about the American left and its self-understanding. That liberals take attacks against their own political preferences to be attacks against science helps us see the degree to which they identify themselves-their ideals, their means, their ends, their cause, and their culture-with the modern scientific enterprise.
I have heard the same things from Democratic leaning scientists whom I respect, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, a noted astronomer. When asked the question at a forum in Los Angeles, he responded with, and I’m paraphrasing, there is no Republican war on science.
Read the whole first article. You can read the second and third articles as well, if you want.
I have been hearing this meme as of late, but thinking back, I can remember the same sort of theme in some of politics of the past. I’m not sure I completely buy into the whole thing, but it is an interesting read which looks like, at times, what is going on. I agree that there is criticism and self-criticism with in the society, that is needed to keep the country from tilting one way or another. The claim of exaggerated criticism or exaggerated self-criticism pushes democracies over the edge is interesting, but I’m thinking that they are temporary and are pushed away by the mainstream once recognized as such.
I often feel that the extreme right and extreme left pull us into this kind of discourse. Not because they have any new ideas, but they just can’t bring themselves to agree at all with the other side.
I usually read this stuff through XXXChurch.com, but I ran into this through another blog site. This secular view of the trends is what we have been saying has been happening. This is a secular site so I’ll give a warning for some of the language in the article.
HOW INTERNET PORN IS CHANGING TEEN SEX: DETAILS Article on men.style.com.
Watching My First Abortion | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com.
Hmm…I wonder why they had a negative reaction to the procedure? Could it be that there is a law written on our hearts (Romans 2:15)?
I saw this recently. Hmmm…someone pushing an agenda and sending out a retraction that most nobody hears about?
Usually, when I read something about climate change from Discovery Channel, it usually goes out and talks about man-made global warming. Sorry, but with my background in atmospheric science, there are too many things that the climate models lack to attribute things all to man’s disregard to taking care of the planet. However, this article surprised me. A good read for most laypeople.
I found this on a youth ministry blog. This is a fun way to make simple animated movies. The scene that I have made is one where our youth pastor(James) is talking to our worship leader (Zach), but Zach is impersonating me.
I was listening to the Net @ Night podcast with Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane (standing in for Amber MacArthur) the other night. Somehow the subject they started talking about was a portion of the Conan O’Brien show from earlier in the week. This was an interesting, because Scot McKnight, a theologian and blogger that I regularly read just got done with a series about the book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before. Both of these hit on the unique subject that with everything we have, people are more miserable. I see this with the youth group kids and the some people in church. Listening to the podcast Money Life with Chuck Bentley, he has been hammering the fact that we have put ourselves into debt to buy things that end up making us miserable. So we keep trying to earn money to buy our happiness, only to be unfulfilled. I won’t go into details, but there are people that I am close to that they haven’t figured that out yet. In fact, they once told me that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think that in the coming years, that America will realize that we need to change…
I know that Christianity isn’t works driven, but as it says in James, a faith without works is dead. The other thing that most don’t realize is that when you do good deeds, you usually have good feelings and vice versa.
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