The Right to be Wrong

From USA Today is an article on Religious Freedoms that I thought was particularly interesting.

America has a complex and enduring commitment to pluralism. We want people to be free to act — and believe — as they please. But we must all play in the same sandbox, so we are attentive to the idiosyncrasies of our playmates, especially when they don't make sense to us.

Few idiosyncrasies are more perplexing than the ways people connect science and religion. Widespread rejection of evolution, to take a familiar example, has created a crisis in education, and it now appears that biology texts might be altered to satisfy anti-evolutionary activists in Texas. Many on the textbook commission believe their religion is incompatible with scientific explanations of origins — evolution and the Big Bang — so they want textbooks with more accommodating theories and different facts.

Tufts University philosopher and leading atheist Daniel Dennet no doubt finds all this mystifying, since he thinks seminary education should ultimately terminate one's faith: "Anybody who goes through seminary and comes out believing in God hasn't been paying attention," he toldThe Boston Globe.

Dennet's brother-in-arms, atheist Jerry Coyne, raked Brown University cell biologist Ken Miller and me over the coals in The New Republic for our claims that Christians can unapologetically embrace science. The only faiths compatible with science, wrote Coyne, are "Pantheism and some forms of Buddhism" — hardly encouraging since few Americans embrace either of these. Coyne wrote that "90% of Americans" hold religious beliefs that "fall into the 'incompatible' category."

The 90% of Americans holding beliefs incompatible with science include Charles Townes and William Phillips, who won Nobel Prizes in physics in 1964 and 1997, respectively. What sort of atheist complains that a fellow citizen doing world-class science must abandon his or her religion to be a good scientist?

Our commitment to pluralism and individual freedom should motivate generosity in such matters and allow people "the right to be wrong," especially when the beliefs in question do not interfere with us. Nothing is gained by loud, self-promoting and mean-spirited assaults on the beliefs of fellow citizens.

I still think that Religion encroaches on other freedoms too much to get its knickers in a twist just yet, but there should be some restraint from bullying people for having a view of the world that cannot be scientifically proven.

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12 Events That Will Change Everything

Scientific American put together an interactive piece on 12 events that could drastically change the world, from nuclear exchange to cold fusion to the discovery of other dimensions. Pretty much all the stuff Lost totally prepared us for.

The feature illustrates all of the potentialities – the breakthroughs and the catastrophes alike – with diagrams, photograph and expert video interviews: Frank Drake, the man behind the famous Drake’s Equation, speaks on the near-future of extraterrestrial search, and interactive timelines plot the progress of artificial intelligence over the last decade.

Taken together, the piece is like a looking glass into future Michael Bay movies – it’s all spectacular stuff that will undoubtedly inspire humans to band together and move united into the future. You don’t want to be left out of that, do you? Consider this your primer.

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Darwinian spacecraft engine to last twice as long

The following article from New Scientist is a prime example of what can happen when we don't fight progress for fear of losing our superstitions. Through our acceptance of Evolution and Natural Selection we are able to use its principles to better our own technologies.

SPACE agencies may one day have Charles Darwin to thank for the longevity of their spacecraft. The life expectancy of a popular type of ion engine has been almost doubled using software that mimics the way natural selection evolves ever fitter designs.

Electrostatic ion engines are becoming popular in space missions. Instead of relying on burning large amounts of heavy liquid propellant for thrust, they use solar power to ionise a small supply of xenon gas. A high voltage applied across a pair of gridded electrodes sends the positively charged ions rushing at high speed towards the negative electrode. Most ions pass through the grid, generating thrust.

However, some ions collide with the grid itself, causing it to gradually wear out, says Cody Farnell, a space flight engineer at the University of Colorado in Fort Collins. Simulations suggest grids in a typical NASA engine will last 2.8 years - but Farnell wondered whether changing the grid's design could extend its lifespan.

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Why atheism will replace religion

An interesting article from Psychology Today website:

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in people’s daily lives and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached and that do not require slavish conformity to unscientific beliefs.

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Now it’s ‘Everybody Deny the Holocaust Day

Another good article by Michael Peck of True Slant.

This is how you payback the unbelievers. Some Muslims, furious at the “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day”, are retaliating with an “Everybody Draw the Holocaust Day”.

Of course, what the author of this Facebook page really means is an Everybody Deny the Holocaust Day, which will teach the infidels not to draw Muhammed in a bear suit. His semi-coherent manifesto seems to be that if people have the right to draw the Prophet Muhammed, then they have the right to question the existence of the Holocaust.

He is correct. We can’t defend the right to satire a religious figure and yet bar the right to deny the Holocaust, as some European states do (frequently the ones who directly or indirectly supported the genocide). However, what is fascinating here is the moral equivalence. Outraged at the “insult” to his religion, this fundamentalist won’t strike back by drawing a cartoon of Jesus or mocking atheists. He’s going to do it by denying the Holocaust. Since in his mind, Jews control the world, then question the Holocaust and the Elders of Zion will pull a few levers to make the cartoons stop. Because this is exactly the kind of world that a fundamentalist understands and desires. A cleric decides what is sacred and what is profane, which cartoons are permitted and which are not. There is no dissent.

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The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries

An interesting article from the Smithsonian website.

Science can be glorious; it can bring clarity to a chaotic world. But big scientific discoveries are by nature counterintuitive and sometimes shocking.

Here are ten of the biggest threats to our peace of mind.

1. The Earth is not the center of the universe.
2. The microbes are gaining on us.
3. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we’re probably in one now.
4. Things that taste good are bad for you.
5. E=mc²
6. Your mind is not your own.
7. We’re all apes
8. Cultures throughout history and around the world have engaged in ritual human sacrifice.
9. We’ve already changed the climate for the rest of this century.
10. The universe is made of stuff we can barely begin to imagine.

Obviously you'll need to read the article to find out the details. Enjoy.

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