Science is our future

Lawrence M. Krauss published an opinion piece with the Los Angeles Times that addresses something that's been bothering me about the McCain/Palin ticket.

McCain's science earmark error

I find it interesting that there's so much focus on the "new energy economy," and yet both of these candidates have consistently made statements that belittle the importance of scientific research and education.

I want to know how McCain and Palin expect this new energy technology to come about, because I'm pretty sure that it's not going to create itself. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking that we're going to need scientists to research and innovate in order to create a "new energy economy."

I'd also like to know if McCain and Palin support scientific research only when it advances their own personal agenda, because that's another kind of ugliness all together.

4 comments:

moif said...

The biggest irony for me, is how most of the great scientists of the past were deeply religious. Even Darwin was a Christian fundie.

Ironic that now, so many religious people have a problem with the science they themselves unleashed upon the world.

Cyan said...

I think the problem is that as more information comes to light, fundamentalists have become afraid that scientific discovery will invalidate their religious texts...so they're up in arms against the scientific establishment, and they've created their own brand of pseudo-science which is just playing with leeches. It's arcane, and the data is just plain wrong.

If religion is to remain a viable and healthy part of society, it has to be able to adapt to new information. If it doesn't...well, we're currently seeing what happens when rigid fundamentalism takes hold of a society. Most clearly, it can be seen through the lense of fundamentalist Islam, but I wonder if fundamentalist Christians can see the similarities in their own thought process.

moif said...

I think they have a convenient blind spot

Georg said...

Fortuntaly, those cell-phone medievals can now be forgotten.

Good luck for the next four years.

Georg