Tag Archives: AAAS

News

Will allowing free discussions of scientific theories hurt innovation?

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Some people are complaining that allowing students and teachers to question and debate scientific theories will harm economic growth and raise unemployment.

Evolution News explains:

One common piece of rhetoric being lobbed against academic freedom legislation is the claim that the bills would kill jobs and have a negative overall economic effect. An anti-academic freedom op-ed in The Tennessean stated that Tennessee’s academic freedom bill would have “adverse economic consequences for the state” and asked “What high-tech employer will want to open up shop in a state that allows ideology and prejudice to trump science education?”

If you actually read that op-ed, you will find that the authors make the following arguments against academic freedom:

  1. scientific theories favored by the secular left should not be subject to falsification by scientific evidence
  2. the only reason why some people oppose secular left ideologies like naturalism (e.g. – in the origin of life) and socialism (e.g – man-made global warming) is because of religious beliefs
  3. some religious clergy accept ideologies like naturalism and socialism, so therefore everyone should have no problem with naturalistic speculations about the origin of life and doomsday predictions about catastrophic global warming – since there is no scientific reason to oppose these theories
  4. scientific theories should be accepted or denied based on the pontifications of organizations like the AAAS or teacher associations, not on the basis of repeatable experiments and measurements
  5. lawyers should be able to settle disputes about science using their ability to file lawsuits against school boards
  6. although the new law explicitly forbids bringing religion into the classroom, it would bring religion into the classroom
  7. environmental regulations, chevy volts on fire, green energy solyndra grants, cap and trade, drilling moratoriums, drilling permit delays and carbon taxes don’t hurt the economy, but allowing students and teachers to ask questions about scientific theories would hurt the economy

Now look at that last argument (#7). Is there any evidence to show that allowing academic freedom and free discussions about scientific theories and scientific evidence would hurt the economy and raise unemployment?

More from Evolution News:

In late 2010, two-and-a-half years after it passed its Science Education Act, Louisiana won the “State of the Year Award” from Business Facilities magazine, in part because of its burgeoning high-tech industry. As the magazine noted:

“The diversity and growth potential of Louisiana’s top projects in both high-tech and traditional manufacturing, as well as healthy total investments, overall job creation and innovative incentives made Louisiana a clear winner of our annual State of the Year Award,” said Business Facilities Editor-in-Chief Jack Rogers.

[…]To determine the winner, Business Facilities reviews each state’s top five projects in terms of overall investment and job creation. The magazine also evaluates the state’s execution of its economic development strategy, and the diversity and growth potential of its target industries.

“We were particularly impressed with the diversity of Louisiana’s strategy for developing high-growth sectors, including digital media, alternative energy, advanced manufacturing, and modular nuclear power plant components,” Rogers said.

The Business Facilities editor noted that Louisiana “has emerged unbowed from a series of disasters that would have brought less-determined locations to their knees — including a major hurricane, an oil spill and the national economic downturn — and charted a course for the future that positions the state to be a national leader for years to come.”

So despite a massive recession, manmade and natural disasters, and — most terrifying of all — an academic freedom law, Louisiana’s economy appears to be doing better than most all other states that don’t have academic freedom laws. It appears that in the experimental laboratory of the real world, the Darwin lobby’s claim that academic freedom bills harm the economy is resoundingly disproved.

To me, it seems intuitively true that students will be more interested in any topic where there are two sides presented fairly. No one likes to be preached at – it’s boring. I realize that some people who are lazy-brained ideologues will try to bypass a fair investigation of scientific disputes and just jump right to agreeing with their government-paid educators, but that’s not a good way of becoming educated. A better way to be educated is to consider the evidence for and against propositions, and not jump to believe whatever the people in authority say that you should believe in order to be considered “smart”. It’s better to really be smart rather than just to be told that you are smart because you agree with everyone.

News

Science czar says trees should be able to sue and born babies are not human beings

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Here’s the story from CNSNews. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

The idea has been endorsed by John P. Holdren, the man who now advises President Barack Obama on science and technology issues. Giving “natural objects” — like trees — standing to sue in a court of law would have a “most salubrious” effect on the environment, Holdren wrote the 1970s. “One change in (legal) notions that would have a most salubrious effect on the quality of the environment has been proposed by law professor Christopher D. Stone in his celebrated monograph, ‘Should Trees Have Standing?’” Holdren said in a 1977 book that he co-wrote with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. “In that tightly reasoned essay, Stone points out the obvious advantages of giving natural objects standing, just as such inanimate objects as corporations, trusts, and ships are now held to have legal rights and duties,” Holdren added.

And also:

“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”

I wonder which of Obama’s advisers is the most insane?

From the Secondhand Smoke article:

Just when you thought that the high advisers to President Obama couldn’t get any more radical. Consider: Cass Sunstein, his nominated regulations czar, wants animals to be able to sue their owners and has asserted that the lives of elderly people should be given less value in government regulatory cost/benefit determinations.  Ezekiel Emanuel, a high health care adviser, wants to ration health care based on quality of life (and perhaps against the elderly) and has asserted we all have a moral obligation to be experimented on.

I wrote before about how environmentalists banned DDT in Africa, causing 25-50 million innocent deaths. And I also profiled the murderous views of leading environmentalists, including the radical views of Obama’s pick for Science Czar. And don’t forget – they kill 1 million unborn babies per year in the USA alone – 50 million since abortion was legalized in 1973.

Secularism is not a nice worldview.

Commentary

CRISIS! Science czar advocated forced abortions, mass sterilizations and totalitarianism

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Report here by ZombieTime, featuring quotations, page scans and photographs of the actual pages from the book. (H/T Hot Air, Michelle Malkin)

The report linked above is a MUST-READ. It is important that we understand the thinking of people on the secular left. We need to understand why they oppose traditional morality, religion and capitalism. We need to look at the writings of the most committed secular leftists, environmentalists, feminists and environmentalists and ask ourselves whether we should be voting for these people.

Here is the book cover:

The book authored by John Holdren, Obama's science czar
The book authored by John Holdren, Obama's science czar

Here are the main points in the parts cited at ZombieTime’s report:

  • Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
  • The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
  • Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
  • People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
  • A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

When you’re done reading the report, come back here I will explain how people born and raised in this country of liberty can even think things like this, much less advocate for them in public.

Michelle Malkin’s post had this video that explains where Holdren’s views came from:

And left-wing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has similar views.

She says this in a New York Times interview:

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.

This is the mindset of the secular left. The secular left doesn’t want to have too many babies of a certain color or gender, so they kill them. Because there is no purpose to life except to be happy, and the strong need to be happy even at the expense of the weak.

The denial of God matters

If there is no God, then survival of the fittest is true. Those who are deemed unfit by the secular left elites may be culled by abortion or eugenics so that they do not use too many of the world’s resources. This way, the happiness of the strong can be maximized. And that is the purpose of life on atheism – to maximize your happy feelings at the expense of others weaker than you.

The nihilism of the secular left makes them try to prevent future crises by seizing control. There are no human rights in an accidental, materialist universe, so there are no objective restraints on their exercise of power. In contrast, Christians believe that God is in control of history, and that other people have human rights and were made to freely respond to God, if they want to.

The job of Christians is to make sure that everyone has a chance to respond, and that means other people need to have liberty, prosperity and security to give them time to respond. People have value because they can respond to God. And even those who can’t or won’t respond have a human rights. The needs of others give Christians the opportunity to exercise love instead of selfishness. We were made to be good.

In Christianity, Christians are admonished not to compare themselves to others, and especially not to think that they are better than others. Christians are only allowed to voice their disagreement, set an example and try to persuade others. It is actually the worse sin (pride) to compare yourself to others and look down at them. In Christianity, everyone is equally loved by God, and having different views doesn’t change their value.

Secular leftists are different. When they turn away from God (and ultimate purpose and meaning), they feel a tremendous pressure to do something important in the world in order to maintain the illusion of having meaning and purpose. As they carry out their plans, the pride of comparing themselves to others grows, until they start to think they should really be controlling others, and even killing those who are “unfit”.

There is all the difference in the world between a Christian and a secular leftist.

Further study

I wrote an entire series here about how the worldview of the left, which begins with the denial of God, does not provide an adequate grounding for human rights, human dignity, moral values, free will, ultimate significance, and moral accountability.