Perceptions of science. The anatomical mission to Burma.
(1/18)
Until the 1830s, most Americans were unfamiliar with the images of anatomy. Then a small vanguard of reformers and missionaries began to preach, at home and around the world, that an identification with the images and concepts of anatomy was a crucial part of the civilizing process. In his essay, Sappol charts the changes in the perception of self that resulted from this anatomical evangelism. Today, as anatomical images abound in the arts and the media, we still believe that anatomical images show us our inner reality. (+info)
Why we think it is important to discuss intelligent design.
(2/18)
Belief in God and belief in the science of evolution are not mutually exclusive concepts. Thousands of scientists who believe in God are able to separately study and teach evolution. As scientists and parents, we owe it to our children to ensure that public school science curricula teach the science of evolution and not promote a particular religious faith or belief system. (+info)
Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action.
(3/18)
We review here the current political landscape and our own efforts to address the attempts to undermine science education in Wisconsin. To mount an effective response, expertise in evolutionary biology and in the history of the public controversy is useful but not essential. However, entering the fray requires a minimal tool kit of information. Here, we summarize some of the scientific and legal history of this issue and list a series of actions that scientists can take to help facilitate good science education and an improved atmosphere for the scientific enterprise nationally. Finally, we provide some model legislation that has been introduced in Wisconsin to strengthen the teaching of science. (+info)
Science, medicine, and intercessory prayer.
(4/18)
Among the many recent attempts to demonstrate the medical benefits of religious activity, the methodologically strongest seem to be studies of the effects of distant intercessory prayer (IP). In these studies, patients are randomly assigned to receive standard care or standard care plus the prayers or "healing intentions" of distant intercessors. Most of the scientific community has dismissed such research, but cavalier rejection of studies of IP is unwise, because IP studies appear to conform to the standards of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and, as such, would have a significant advantage over observational investigations of associations between religious variables and health outcomes. As we demonstrate, however, studies of IP fail to meet the standards of RCTs in several critical respects. They fail to adequately measure and control exposure to prayer from others, which is likely to exceed IP and to vary widely from subject to subject, and whose magnitude is unknown. This supplemental prayer so greatly attenuates the differences between the treatment and control groups that sample sizes are too large to justify studies of IP. Further, IP studies generally do not specify the outcome variables, raising problems of multiple comparisons and Type 1 errors. Finally, these studies claim findings incompatible with current views of the physical universe and consciousness. Unless these problems are solved, studies of IP should not be conducted. (+info)
Cui bono? A review of breaking the spell: religion as a natural phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett.
(5/18)
The three requirements for a Darwinian evolutionary process are replication, variation and selection. Dennett (2006) discusses various theories of how these three processes, especially selection, may have operated in the evolution of religion. He believes that the origins of religion, like the origins of language and music, may be approached scientifically. He hopes that such investigations will open a dialog between science and religion leading to moderation of current religious extremism. One problem with Dennett's program, illustrating the difficulty of breaking away from creationist thinking, is Dennett's own failure to consider how Darwinian methods may be used to study evolution of behavioral patterns over the lifetime of individual organisms. (+info)
Scientists, bioethics and democracy: the Italian case and its meanings.
(6/18)
In June 2005, Italy held a referendum on repealing the law on medically assisted fertilization (Law 40/2004), which limits access to artificial reproduction to infertile couples, and prohibits the donation of gametes, the cryopreservation of embryos, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PDG), and research on human embryos. The referendum was invalidated, and the law remained unchanged. The Italian political e bioethical debate on assisted reproduction was manipulated by the Catholic Church, which distorted scientific data and issues at stake with the help of Catholic politicians and bioethicists. What happened in Italy shows that some perverse socio-cultural e political mechanisms are spreading the absurd and anti-historical view that scientific and technological advancements are threatening democracy and personal freedom. Scientists should not only contrast the political attempts at limiting freedom of scientific research, but also tell politicians, humanists and citizens that the invention of Western science with its view of scientific community as an "open society", contributed and still contributes, through scientific education, to the construction and maintaining of the moral and political values underlying Western democracies. (+info)
The threat from creationism to the rational teaching of biology.
(7/18)
Most biologists outside the USA and a few other countries, like Australia and Canada, are under the impression that the threat to the teaching of biology represented by creationism does not concern them directly. This is unfortunately no longer true: the recent growth of creationism, especially in its pseudo-scientific manifestation known as "intelligent design", has been obvious in several countries of Western Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Poland, and it is beginning to be noticeable in Brazil, and maybe elsewhere in Latin America. The problem is complicated by the fact that there are not just two possibilities, evolution and creationism, because creationism comes in various incompatible varieties. Turkey is now a major source of creationist propaganda outside the USA, and is especially significant in relation to its influence on Muslim populations in Europe. The time for biologists to address the creationist threat is now. (+info)
You say you want an evolution? A role for scientists in science education.
(8/18)