Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Science and Religion
At HuffPo a post about science and religion. Robert Slayton is attempting to find a middle ground. Not a bad idea, but his argument misses two essential points.
For one, he uses polls that show religious people believing in micro-evolution as evidence that they are not opposed to Darwinism. This reveals a misunderstanding of both Darwinism (as much philosophy as science theory) and evolution itself, which has both micro and macro elements and it is the macro element where some have an issue.
But the really serious flaw in his argument is that he confuses, deeply, fundamentalists and evangelicals. "The response to Charles Darwin created the Fundamentalist wing of modern religion, and turned evangelicals against the science they had previously pursued with fervor." The split comes much earlier and the two groups are pretty well opposed to each other on any numbers of things, most importantly theology.
This piece is lightweight uninformed fluff. It is as ignorant of religion as many of the scientific declarations of the fundamentalists are of science.
For most of my life I have written this stuff off, who cares about stupid people? But we are now to the point in serious public debate where the polarization born of this ignorance pretty well controls the debate. It's time to point out this stupidity wherever possible.
It is also time for Evangelicals to point out the ignorance of Fundamentalists. Their intransigence has deeply hurt the position of Christianity in the American public discourse. Talk about the baby and the bath water.
ignorance religion science
For one, he uses polls that show religious people believing in micro-evolution as evidence that they are not opposed to Darwinism. This reveals a misunderstanding of both Darwinism (as much philosophy as science theory) and evolution itself, which has both micro and macro elements and it is the macro element where some have an issue.
But the really serious flaw in his argument is that he confuses, deeply, fundamentalists and evangelicals. "The response to Charles Darwin created the Fundamentalist wing of modern religion, and turned evangelicals against the science they had previously pursued with fervor." The split comes much earlier and the two groups are pretty well opposed to each other on any numbers of things, most importantly theology.
This piece is lightweight uninformed fluff. It is as ignorant of religion as many of the scientific declarations of the fundamentalists are of science.
For most of my life I have written this stuff off, who cares about stupid people? But we are now to the point in serious public debate where the polarization born of this ignorance pretty well controls the debate. It's time to point out this stupidity wherever possible.
It is also time for Evangelicals to point out the ignorance of Fundamentalists. Their intransigence has deeply hurt the position of Christianity in the American public discourse. Talk about the baby and the bath water.
ignorance religion science
