What Fires You Up?

4/10/2003

 

The US "ODD" Traditions of
Church, State, and Science

Another excellent post by Tom Coates on April 8 is about a Brit's view of the sway the religious right and fundamentalists have over the government. He finds it quite odd, especially considering his own country has a national religion and the head of it IS the monarch! He finds much less freedom in the US than the US is supposed to be known for. The post ends with his comparison over the effect on Science and Science in education. Well worth reading the post, especially the last paragraph. Here are some excerts:

"Probably the one thing I understand least about America is its relationship with religion. American is a country that (i) is particularly known for not being hide-bound by convention in science or business and (ii) often demonstrates an astonishing (and often laudable) amount of bombast and rule-breaking in both domestic and foreign-affairs. How then can it be that so many elements of American life can be held so firmly under the sway of religious fundamentalism?"AND THIS:
"Presidents of the United States essentially have to be church-going Christians. Church-going in the UK is simply considered a bit odd. We have anti-abortion campaigners just like in the US, but nowhere near as many and nor are they so overtly religious."
AND THIS:
It's the effects of religion on science, I think, that most appalls me. I don't believe - never have believed - that science is a completely value-free space. Decisions are made every day about what to study, who to study (and what not to study as well). Initial hypotheses are almost necessarily built upon assumption, intuition and the influx of current mainstream political consensus. But the idea that challenges to theories like "evolution" can circumvent the entire academic peer-review and testing process by way of the courts - inspired by people who want to find ways to equate the world with their religious beliefs... Well, it's scandalous! Totally, utterly scandalous!"

You will find his blog www.plasticbag.org here/

Tom recommends a story in the Guardian Unlimited for his reponse: "The Guardian is running an article in its new Life section today on exactly this subject: The Battle for American Science. "The Guardian is bringing up what many mainstream newspapers in the US are loathe to do:

"As prescient observers of the events north of Atlanta last year realised, these aren't the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other."
AND
"maybe you were an Aids activist, elated by the president's unexpected (and genuinely revolutionary) announcement in the State of the Union address of $15bn (£9.7bn) in funding for fighting the epidemic worldwide - and then surprised to find that only around 10% was destined for the Global Aids Fund, while the rest would be funnelled through US agencies, where it is more likely to be accessible to American abstinence-only groups campaigning against condoms."

As a teacher myself, I daily come into contact with more and more such information that is most concisely observed by journalists from other countries. In almost every area of elementary education in public schools in the US, there are such concerns that teachers may not be free to select a book for reading aloud (Harry Potter is about witchcraft) or demonstrate for some children the millions of years erosion, plate techtonics, and other land formation if it occurred more than, say... 6 or 7,000 years ago. You know, when God created the Earth. Then the young children studying rocks and minerals may learn about the dreaded...FOSSILS! And then there is another bag of worms, as they say... Oh yes, can you say "Family Values" and a curriculum that is now close to universally-requiring a curriculum unit on this? Or what about sex education=abstinenance only? ai-yi-yiiiiii
Peace, Love, and Hugs,
* * * * * * *cobalt* * * * * * *

BJ 4/10/2003 08:59:00 AM

4/06/2003

 

Housekeeping Today

Finally ran the Xenu program to check on any possible broken links in the Fired Up blog. Thankfully there were only about 10 from all the pages and pages of them! This software is freeware off the Net, recommended by my brother and it is good. It would be useful to anyone who maintains an online page of links. Links may be "broken" when the original site has removed the page or made it unaccessible. One lost link is to a fun program called Maukie, where you could make the animated cat move around with just making your cursor hover over it and dragging - rats! But, I do have some nice Maukie photos to share in another site. Another broken link was for Indy Media.org. Sometimes a broken link is only unavailable at the exact time one tried to access it - so hopefully there is nothing amiss with this parent site. In lieu this site, I've added the San Francisco Bay Area Indy Media site which links to it and hundreds of other Indy Media partner sites around the world. The home page has a terrific set of links at the bottom.

A final note for today: I attended a Peace and Justice meeting today where the local newspaper editor spoke and answered questions. In his reply to a question, he responded that the percentage of people that were really interested in the local paper's coverage of the War on Iraq was very very small. He was justifying why it was the the paper only published coverage from AP sources - "The Wire". A woman had inquired if it were possible for a small snippet could be provided in the local papers as a sidebar to be a synopsis of some of the other media coverage or reactions from a more global resource of news. He said "The Wire" did not provide it and it would take too much work for a local paper to look for that type of a summary of other reports. I asked "What about Technorati.com Current Events or Indy Media or Information Clearinghouse"? His reply - "(We) don't take stories from the Net, only "The Wire". When pressed, he further clarified (a paraphrase here) that "the kind of people that want to see such information are welcome to go to the Internet, but most people don't". Such a sad state of affairs that newpapers feel no need to look further than their own partner sites and services.

Peace, Love and Hugs,
* * * * * * *cobalt* * * * * * *

BJ 4/06/2003 05:39:00 PM