I'm just gonna use that as the backstory for my new episode thingy for added what-the-christ-ness. 

I stay out of the religion thread for a reason, but...

Does't science deserve to be constantly attacked? Shouldn't it be constantly prodded and questioned and (even rhetorically) assaulted?
I think so.
I think society has to continue to interrogate what science may mean in the lives of humans every day. We have to acknowledge, I think, the broader cultural narrative of which scientific discourses are an insistent and authoritative (and often legitimately contested) component.
EG Social Darwinists who kind of use evolutionary theory to promote selfishness etc
In totalitarian regimes, dissidence is treated as a mental illness. In apartheid regimes, interracial contact is treated as unnatural. In free-market regimes, where corporations can buy scientific results almost if not as easily as they can votes, self-interest is treated as hardwired. 

Does't science deserve to be constantly attacked? Shouldn't it be constantly prodded and questioned and (even rhetorically) assaulted?

Short, accurate, concisely stated, precision in the definition, explains what is wrong in the world, smacks you in the head with simple truth that is easily forgotten --- expresses concept in brevity ---

Drew, you are a genius. 

however much social darwinists, racists, authoritarians, marxists, and others, might claim that their views are "scientific," these things are all about as scientific as "creation science," aka intelligent design.

Real science is basically just critical thinking applied rigorously. It is possible to have an extremely skeptical view of the "scientific establishment" because (from the right) "scientists are a bunch of politicizing atheist liberals, global warming is a hoax and evolution is a lie" or (from the left) "scientists tend to be mostly white and male (less true every day both in the west and given the rise of india and china but that aside) and their 'way of knowing' suppresses "indigenous knowledges (such as what, voodoo?)." Yes, one can be that skeptical of science, and science should be questioned, but the thing is it's a self-questioning and thus self-correcting process: it produces increasingly accurate conclusions over time, whereas the VAST majority of anti-science comes from religious fundamentalists with theocratic agendas, people paid by corporations to confuse the public with propaganda, or misguided humanities intellectuals basically jealous of science's prestige.

I find it pretty sad that people can say, "oh I think critically about evolution" and what they really mean by "think" is "not think, but rather accept dogma" and what they really mean by "critically" is not "critically in general" but instead "critically toward anything which might oppose conclusions I've already accepted without thinking." Lol at the term "global warming skeptics." Skepticism means to wait for the evidence, not simply disagree with something! One can be "skeptical" of "establishment history" and be a holocaust-denier or a conspiracy theorist, just like one can be "skeptical" of "establishment science" and not believe in evolution or the germ theory of disease. Republicans are now attacking Einstein's General Relativity for promoting "relativism" (sigh), and there are even some religious fundamentalists who will deny heliocentrism (the sun is the centre of the solar system) or even that the earth is round.

None of this is good, and none of it comes from an authority-questioning, critical thinking, skeptical attitude: instead it all comes from irrational, anti-intellectual emotionally misguided authoritarian impulses, the defeat of which was what made the modern world with democracy, technology, free speech etc in the first place.

Global warming is accepted by 97% of scientists. THAT is the science, not the 3% of denialists paid for by corporations. 

hopefully that didn't sound harsh, it wasn't intended that way. I do agree with your points that the name of science has been misused. 

Find the average guy hanging around. Talk with him. Find out if knows algebra, if he uses good grammar, ask him what the capital of Mexico is and tell him about clinical research on how fluoride helps prevent tooth decay and see if he agrees.

By now ... you're probably damn sure you don't want to hear his ideas on evolution or global warming.

But people like this, you are very concerned about their thoughts on evolution and global warming? 

this might be a fanatical position, and obviously there are still lots of blue collar / non-intellectual jobs that need to be filled, but the more educated a society is the better it is to live there, in general.

You've probably seen this chart, but it seems to be no coincidence that awesome places to live are at the top:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/acceptance-of-evolution-by-country 

anyone can have a pro-knowledge position, a high school dropout could and some certainly do; all you have to say is, "I'm willing to listen to anybody who knows more than me on the subject they know more on." Being misinformed is one thing, being anti-intellectual is quite another. 

""I'm willing to listen to anybody who knows more than me on the subject they know more on."

For your guy who doesn't know algebra and has bad grammars, that might be 99% of the people out there that he should be listening to.

And he probably does listen to them. And they say conflicting things. And he turns on the TV and they say conflicting things.

So he not only doesn't understand the topic, he has a literal sea of ideas presented to him on any given subject from a million sources.

He doesn't really know what to believe on any given topic, so he just picks one. Occasionally the conversation comes up and he shares what he knows.

But there are millions of people who know more about any given topic than himself, but if you want special status in his mind that he should be listening to you specifically over the other million sources ... you will have to make that case to him. 

not that he should listen to me specifically, and of course part of education is knowing who to listen to (or take seriously) and why (aka real critical thinking). the main point of that is that this attitude is the opposite of viewing knowledge, especially science, in a denialist manner. I don't want to go door to door promoting science (lol at the image; "have you heard the good news? the earth is 4.5 billion years old?"), I just think every society ought to encourage education or at least a pro-knowledge attitude as much as it ican. 

And maybe one day in the future it will be.

I made this a few weeks ago:

http://quake-1.com/docs/opengl/solar1.png

http://quake-1.com/docs/opengl/solar2.png

And you navigate around. That's kind of a lite engine I made with many similarities to a subset of Quake functionalit.

Of the very few people who have tried in real life, they find it rather enjoyable and spend longer messing around with it than I usually want

(I'm thinking, ok, you've seen it, quit navigating the solar system and trying to find Pluto ... )

I think math, science and biology get an F in the area of inserting themselves into the public consciousness.

In the 1950s when Sputnik occurred, it changed the world and made science and scifi popular for 20-30 years. 

while I blame corporate interests and well-organized religious fundamentalists for trashing intellectual subjects like science, math, history, etc in public, I definitely don't let intellectuals off the hook, many of them are publicly funded, and popularization is extremely important: if you can't explain to the public why you are taking their money then why should you get their money. Carl Sagan (one of my heroes) said in The Demon Haunted World, that many scientists thought of popularization as either a waste of time or even "fraternizing with the enemy." My god what a ridiculous, ACTUALLY elitist attitude. I firmly believe that the average person could find science, history, etc fascinating, if it were presented in an interactive, jargon-free, less technical way. So on this last post, 110% agreement.

I like the model you made too. For me looking at stuff like that shows how local our ideas, all the way to basic concepts like up and down, really are. 

I have most of Carl Sagan's books. But the best one was one I saw on bookcase one time and borrowed (well, I still have it so ...) and it was from the early 1960s if I recall.

He predicted planet atmospheres and we hadn't even been into space back then (no probes, etc).

Due to a complete lack of data, he projected and explained the likely atmospheres describing what would and would not likely be in them due to chemical reactions, escape <insert right world> ... does planet have right gravity to retain each molecule, etc.

It was unreal.

However, in time I have concluded Carl Sagan's points-of-view on religion were incorrect. I was not easily persuaded out of a finalistic Carl Sagan-like view of religion, but it was through more science and questions.

Rather there are some very large unknown factors in play in more advanced scientific ideas and theories that are definition of reality level altering.

These aren't even the "good" ones:

http://www.physorg.com/news126955971.html
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/time.html
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/08/26/scientist-smackdown-are-solar-neutrinos-messing-with-matter/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren�_Descartes 

I thought Sagan was one of the least "dogmatic" pro-science public intellectuals of the last 30-40 years (as opposed to say, Dawkins - who I think is a great if imperfect communicator). Maybe you've read more Sagan than I have but I think of him as a person who never took a stance on things he didn't know enough about to judge, including cutting-edge issues in physics and astronomy.

In my view, Sagan, and others like him (say Hawking now, who just recently said no God need be invoked to explain the origin of the universe, or Krauss who goes further) can talk about how bizarre these questions are, and acknowledge that they have no clue at all, but none of that legitimizes religion in any form. Every religious thought we have now was thought thousands of years ago.

But in science, and any other investigative enterprise (say journalism, math, history, archaeology, philology, etc) there is presumably some progress. Today's religious people haven't learned anything above what their old-testament-writing, knuckle-dragging forebears "knew." Or if they have they've learned it from secular progress ie the enlightenment.

I don't think I know everything, I'm aware that I know a tiny amount. Sagan to me was extremely humble in exactly that way. But anyone with a basic knowledge of science still knows ENOUGH to know that ancient cults, are based on factually inaccurate information.

This is what scientologists actually believe, said South Park. Would I be too much of a Saganist, to laugh along with Parker and Stone at that belief rather than reserving judgment on whatever that psycho Hubbard wrote? Evidence is the only way to win, and I don't know is a great, and often the only appropriate, answer. Sagan was never a finalist! Most of his ideas were speculative and he admitted it. But there's a huge difference between informed speculation, and dogmas enforced by social pressure (ie religion).

Sorry for the length. 

I think the major religious texts were made specifically to help people avoid making the same mistakes in the past.

Stories of doing wrong and the consequences.
Stories of doing right and being punished by your fellow man, but ultimately persevering.
Stories of wise rulers.
Stories of unjust rulers.
Stories of weak selfish people who will hurt other people.

I think they were made by wise people specifically to help people.

Specifically to make them think. To reason. To see the value in morality. To teach them the foundations of right and wrong. To see to value of compassion.

Anyone can misuse benign and enlightened ideas. This isn't new in the world. 

AFAIK the Old Testament and the Koran are both pretty crazy and sadistic.
I love mythology, as literature the Old Testament is great, it's really creepy and fucked up (the Abraham story, the Passover story, the story of Job, etc), but I would not under any circumstances call the foundational texts of any western religion/monotheism "enlightened." 

Certainly the Old Testament is quite a bit harsh. That being said, in Israel do they still do "an eye for an eye"?

The Old Testament was definitely enlightened for its time. Prior to the Old Testament, the "king" was not held accountable to the same standards as the subjects.

The Old Testament was the first written body of laws that also applied to the "king". It was not for the peasants, but for everyone.

This was, according to historians a radical idea in those times.

The Code of Hammurabi was the first set of written laws according to historians and introduced the idea of a set body of laws; this preceded the Old Testament. There are some similarities to Hammurabi's Code and the Ten Commandments, one can easily come to the conclusion that the Ten Commandments was inspired or possibly derived from the former.

In the context of modern times, the Old Testament is very harsh.

The Koran may just be common best practices of the time transcribed to writing for that part of the world. Perhaps better, more clear and more fair.

I would like to point out that the oldest parts of the world, presumably Africa and the Middle East, have larger cultural challenges because they have multiple thousands of years of cultural history. And in climates that do not require too much effort to survive.

So you have a possible nature versus nurture cultural issues that perhaps are more of a factor than any belief system present. Solely attributing behavior to a belief system in such parts of the world is possibly inherently unfair and maybe not entirely scientific. 

as an amusing side note, I just looked up "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and found a Christian aplogist who claims, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live - If there had been no witches, such a law as this had never been made. The existence of the law, given under the direction of the Spirit of God, proves the existence of the thing." Amusing line of reasoning.

I think that the Old Testament and the Koran were both harsh within their cultural context. Hell, Muhammed BEGAN by preaching tolerance, and then when he got power he changed his tune and became intolerant, so clearly the idea of religious tolerance was around in his context. The OT contains what we would now call war crimes, even genocide, as well as slavery; I find myself incapable of believing that no one in that region during the period the OT was written had any better ideas on ethics than those. 

In the 1960s, you had spankings in school in maybe most of the civilized world. Mao starves 20 million Chinese.
In the 1920s, even in the West I think corporal punishment might have existed in places (like whippings). What do you think Stalin did to his people, btw?

Late 1870s, hangings for horse theft in the USA.

You do know the native americans scalped people, right?

Middle 1840's, in Charles Dicken's "more gruel please" inspired England you had literally "chimney sweeps" --- children (male) given away at ages like 5 to 8 years old who would literally go down chimneys to to clean them. Most would become fatally ill and die at an earlier age.

1799 French Revolution. Guillotine mania.

1600s. Bloody Mary? The Spanish in the Americas. Pizarro?

Middle Ages. The punishments were brutal. Kings and other nobles were ruthless.

And this isn't even going to back that far. Rome. Sparta. Persia. Ghengis Khan. Pyramids. The Vikings.

War used to be rather normal for every corner of the world until maybe as recently as the 1950s. Much of the third world has stabilized by now, except some parts of Africa.

Peace is a relatively recent development in history. 

Arguing about this kind of stuff is so futile, especially using an indirect impersonal medium like the internet. 

I wasn't under the impression we were arguing. I wasn't. Just expressing alternate views. I will say conversing with Tronyn has forced me to articulate things I really wouldn't have been able to explain well prior to this thread. 

I think of this as a discussion rather than an argument. notably we've been jumping from topic to topic and agreeing on many of them. I find this interesting, it's not hurting anyone.

I'd just like to say, that the French Revolution, was awesome.

Also just because war is a universal human phenomenon, all kinds of good ethical ideas (such as "not war"!) have come out of various places where bad things were happening. Thankfully, despite the media (24/7 news channels and the fact that you can see footage of civilians being shot and beheaded online) human violence seems to be decreasing, or at leasat that's the argument in Steven Pinker's new book which I haven't read yet.

I guess my general point is, Muhammad was largely a bad guy in the context of his own time, as were many of the Old Testament patriarchs. We're talking David Koresh types here, fanatical but unfortunately charismatic patriarchal men who hear voices, stockpile weapons, bully their followers and encourage hatred of outgroups. These guys were conquerors. It's not like war was absent from ancient Greece or China, but people in those places were able to articulate ethical ideals light-years ahead of most of monotheistic tradition. 

First, I'm not sure whether or not you can factually make the statement that Muhammed was a "bad guy" in his time and in his part of the world. Versus the idea that improved ethics and consistency. Accounting to accounts, he freed a huge number of slaves and promoted such.

The in-group/outgroup angle is an interesting one. What were the ethics and behavior of out-groups in that region at the time. Were they better or worse than Islam?

And a better question: in times long gone past, perhaps written religions are superior to unwritten ones? Perhaps there is a superior angle to a "single way to do things that is known" versus unwritten religions with only general ideas.

And is literacy better than illiteracy? Not that the common man in those days would be literate. But in many cultures, written holy books increased the need for literacy and the development of written language.

In commoner Europe, to the best of my recollection of history, it was the Bible that was used to spread literacy especially after Gutenberg and the printing press. And the Bible was the main literacy teaching tool in pre-1900s United States.

I think of history in many ways as something less to judge and more to learn from.

I feel negative judgment is often a result of failing to take into account other factors or reframing modern environments unto the past.

But moving forward, how can alter behavior towards outgroups in modern times where it is a problem? It is perhaps the main issue in our world. 

Muhammed was a warlord who built an empire, I guess it's possible he was better than other warlords at the time, but I kinda doubt it. Not that everything he did was bad.

The issue of written religions vs unwritten ones - basically, ones with a theology/dogma/institutional establishment, vs pagan ones that are basically just folklore and oral tradition - is super interesting. Folk-religions certainly can lead to some crazy practices (killing witches, thinking people are, or you can, use magic for things, head-hunting, heh, etc), and certainly the Catholic Church did keep classical learning alive in the Middle Ages (so did the Muslim empire of the time), when it might have died out due to all those illiterate barbarians taking everything over.

My view of the Catholic church's role in the middle ages, at least in the earlier middle ages, is more positive than average I suspect. They were trying to get really violent superstitious tribes of people to settle down, stop raiding/warring, and unite into bigger political units; they also promoted some ethical ideas that were ahead of the warrior-style ethic many of these tribes had. In the later middle ages it's a different story though, it became a massive corrupt bureaucracy trying to control power politics on the entire European continent and beyond, and then there was all that Inquisition stuff: lol like the KGB that office quickly got such a horrible reputation that it had to keep changing its name; the office's current name is "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" and, you guessed it, just like Putin used to work for the KGB or whatever they were calling themselves, that Inquisition office is exactly where Ratzinger used to work. 

Muhammed was an orphan with -- by accounts of history --- better ethics and started as a merchant.

He ended up having tens of thousands of followers within this own lifetime. These followers were attracted in large part of his idea of ethics.

Certainly, this is not common in history and quite unusual. I don't think such achievements can easily be dismissed.
---
Spanish Inquisition was in part in solidify control over Spain and weed out past traitors or enemy sympathizers. Probably at least as imperfectly done as French efforts looking for Nazis after WWII and shaving women's heads and whatever else they did.

The Spanish Inquisition was the aftermath of Christianity reclaiming Spain which had been taken over for a century or 2 by the Moors (Muslim control of Spain). In particular, the Spanish Inquisition targeted Jewish people who may have profited during Moor rule and were indifferent to the whole Christianity/Islam issue.