Speaking as a student of economics, if you think that "nearly all economists think" the same thing about anything you are being very selective in your economics reading. Just a small point, but maybe you aren't as open minded as you think. Having said that, I agree that the Buttars proposal is misguided at best, but I don't think everyone who disagrees is necessarily an idiot. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Burns" <mark.burns@byu.edu> To: "Utah Valley Astronomy Association" <uvaa@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 11:15 PM Subject: Re: [UVAA] OT: Darwin and LDS doctrine
Astronomers all:
I'll chirp back in, and thought the criticism of my quick off-the- cuff comment was pretty much right on -- it seemed kind of extreme to me when I reread it also, I guess, and I guess should be as open- minded about Buttars in some ways as I would hope he would be about Darwin and me--or at least not so rabid in my knee-jerk "anyone who doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot" response. Actually, I do think they're flat-out wrong and that's okay, it's just when they turn their wrong ideas into legislation that I get bothered. I will say this also in terms of Bush: I actually do think my characterization of him as a relatively lazy man intellectually who probably knows less about science than any president in our history in at least a century and probably less than any other world leader of a major country currently on the planet now is probably quantitatively accurate however you would want to measure that -- and this despite the best education that money could buy. Again, he has all the right in the world to be choose to be lazy and stupid, it's only when he then begins to dictate legislation based on that scant background that I get upset.
And there is example after example of this current administration sending science down the tubes in America -- it will still survive, of course, since lots of people spend their free time like reading books and stuff, ya know, but his presidency has been an absolute disaster on all the major issues that will affect the world for generations to come: global warming is only the most pressing of lots of other issues, and the White House has actively attempted to suppress or downplay or even fire those responsible for scientific data which doesn't happen to jive with what they wanted to hear. He's a downright liar on some of this also: noone on the planet has yet to find the I think it was sixty stem-cell lines which he said scientists could still work on. Again, progress continues on this despite his administration, but with federal support who knows how many lives would be saved by this promising line of research? Though in the meantime, I for one take comfort in knowing that all the leftover fertilized eggs in fertility clinics around the country will be flushed down the toilet tonight instead of be used for that wicked, immoral research stuff that biologists do -- and that flusing sound, by the way, is exactly the fate of the thousands of embryos which are now off limits for scientific use.
I would also argue that if you include economics as a "soft science" then that doubles his sins: nearly all economists (except the ones he chooses to give him his daily briefings in lieu of actually reading a newspaper) think that the skyrocketing national debt due largely to his 4 trillion plus tax cut going almost exclusively to the upper 5% of wage earners is an absolute time-bomb ticking. Greenspan even said this several times but noone seemed to pay attention. This may seem irrelevant at first to science, but it will mean in the future less money for public education on all levels, less money for basic R&D in all sciences, less federal funding for the kinds of scientific projects that have resulted in such fundamental knowledge in all fields.
There is a definite pattern here: don't do the hard work of studying the issues ahead of time, hire only people who will tell you what you want to know, then pick and choose information and sources which will go and confirm what you wish to be true -- that way you can take comfort in thinking that no, there is really is no problem called global warming; or when the evidence for that gets so overwhelming that it can no longer be denied, then you come up with a new argument: okay, so maybe it's happening, but it's not caused by humans.
I'm getting heated about all this, I know, and should probably be more detached about these issues, but the kinds of suffering that these decisions around scientific and related issues in the future will cause is immense. As a middle-class, home-owning, health- insurance having American, I and my family will be mostly shielded from it, but there are millions of people in this country and elsewhere who will not be so lucky.
Anyways, I promise to be more civil and change the topic back to science minus the politics the next time I venture into a discussion, and I think I'll pull a Whitman and go outside to look at the stars now!
Mark
p.s. And I'm quite proud that the LDS Church has no official position on evolution, getting back to that original topic -- I think it's the most sophisticated and sane position to take and I think that in most LDS wards now it is no big deal to embrace both evolution and religion. There are still some who will think you are a bit 'secular' if you do, but I would say that in most wards I've been in where over half the congregation would have some kind of college education, that evolution is no big deal -- which is exactly the way it should be. And reminds me of the argument of the late Stephen Jay Gould: we need both religion and science to be a healthy, caring society.
Mark K. Burns mark.burns@byu.edu (801)422-1855 3027 JFSB (Dept. of HCCL) Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602
On Jan 24, 2006, at 11:44 AM, Richard Tenney wrote:
I find it interesting Mark, that considering yourself and the biology staff at BYU devout Mormons when embracing Darwin's theory on the origin of man is in direct conflict with LDS church doctrine.
On this point you are flat wrong Steve. The LDS Church (of which I too am an active HP) CONTINUALLY REFUSES TO TAKE A DOCTRINAL POSITION ON HOW HUMANS WERE CREATED. However, commonly held LDS belief that God somehow created humans (completely separate from all other life forms) with a magic wand in a puff of hocus pocus, or from a literal lump of clay is simply pure ignorant superstition (from a literal reading of the creation myth in Genesis/Moses) that flies in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary. Such a position in fact paints a doctrinal picture in which either God is a capricious, wicked prankster that loves to decieve his curious children, or one in which He is laughing His head off (or shaking it in amazed disbelief) at our gross myopia and willful ignorance of what He has placed here all around us to discover and learn for ourselves.
Can someone please tell me why there are seemingly so many of you (fellow Mormons) that insist that creation == magic?
Why is (creation == evolutionary_process) such a bitter, difficult pill to swallow? I simply do not/cannot understand it.
-Rich
PS, As to any political overtones you might object to, Pres. Bush opening his politically-motivated mouth on the subject of ID is in fact the very ammunition Butters cites to pursue this ridiculous bill of his, and citing that is relevant to such a discussion, unfortunately. So fault him and his fundamentalist "christian" supporters, not folks like Mark that object to what is clearly political hay-making by the president (and one has to believe Buttars, who doesn't have a doctrinal leg to stand on).
Any politician that insists on micro-managing professional science educators should first be forced to pass a basic HS science exam, which Buttars would clearly fail to do.
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