I dropped this comment on a digg article about "Expelled." I thought I'd post it here.
"The anti-science sentiment in America is staggering. This is the same science that has given our species 50 years of extra life, vaccines, technology, agricultural advances and a million other survival extravagances. And how do we show our appreciation? We sit in our air-conditioned houses, chomping on corn byproduct, drinking our filtered water, and declare those kooky scientists with their "theories" nothing but elitist conspirators against God. It's sickening, to say the least."
5 comments:
You are exactly right Jay. Anti-intellectualism, specifically anti-science sentiment, is such a peculiar phenomenon. Not only is it sickening, it's disheartening.
Often I read your writings inculcated with anti-religious overtones and get this sort of ...meh...feeling. It's not the religious you should be going after per se. It's the anti-intellectuals; the champions of ignorance-proliferation--not the religious, but the dogmatic that the aim of your sharp words would fare better to point.
seriously, your comment was actually poignant this time. keep going in that direction. ben stein is a douchebag, unworthy of the capitalization of his name.
lol...i sound like such a snob.
HAPPY 420!
You're probably right. But I think religion is at the root of a lot of anti-intellectualism. In some sense, it's the major lesson of the Arahamic religions. Right from the get-go, Mankind is punished for disobedience and obtaining the knowledge of truth and evil. Knowledge is dangerous in the scripture.
And the elevation of blind faith as a preferred mode of thought is disastrously anti-intellectual. Worse, it's a farce. It's pretending to know without knowing.
Before long, Truth ceases to be a valuable idea. Instead, it is twisted and abused and appropriated until, by some great stretch of illogic, Truth is a person.
You can be so distracting sometimes. All this epistemology can't be good for your brain. But I have a sick sense of humor so I'll throw you a lob: why do you conflate the three: Science, Truth, and Knowledge?
Do I conflate the three? I suppose I believe that science is the systematic collection and analysis of knowledge from which tentative truths are derived.
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