Topic awaiting preservation: American Science (Page 1 of 1)

Quite a long article but interesting:
www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,933055,00.html

I know that there are already scientists coming to the UK so they can conduct stem cell research and work on 'therapeutic cloning'. British research (carried out in really poorly funded conditions) is creating some amazing breakthroughs in such a wide range of diseases that the future looks very impressive:
www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,926887,00.html

Although it looks like EU rules may impede research:
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,934363,00.html

Are issues like ID and Creationism really such a big 'problem' as it suggests? Its something we can't really grasp on this side of the Pond. Also the article has a follow up on the professor who refused to give references to people who rejected the theory of evolution - nasty business.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

It's not so much scientists as politicians -- the very rich and the very poor in America tend to have very traditionalist values, and this includes a certain tendency toward religious fundamentalism. Most of the "educated class" (and I use this term both loosely and ironically) tends to have an "enlightened" (this one too) view of science.

edit: Found on Mark Pilgrim's site: The Religious Beliefs of Americans 2003.

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 04-11-2003).]

Go genetic research! I think this area really needs to be explored, given the promise of what can be done with it.

So according to religious guys, Dolly had no soul?

Well, the idea that animals have souls seems to have fallen out of favor in modern Xian theology but I think some of the early Xian writers felt animals had lesser souls than humans. But today, it I think most people would scoff at that notion. Me? I'm still working on that one

About these articles. I'm torn. ID is great but just like anything it can be abused and I think I'll need to see more about how it's being used in the local school districts. Not to mention the idea of ID to students seems odd since evolution does not exclude design. Any evolutionist who says it does has crossed the line of science into opinon... in my opinion.

I'm sure, however, that a great deal of ID is seen by the more fundamental crowd to be a "stealth creationism" as was coined. I am not interested in taking evolution out of our schools but rather expunging the anti-religious bias that has dominated for decades now. But you can see how I am caught between a rock and a hard place on this. On one side I oppose those who want to eliminate religion from public life and on the other those who want to take away the gift of science.

Remind me please someone, when we talk about all the stem cell research, are we talking about *after* conception of sperm and egg? That truly does raise ethical problems. But I thought I had read somewhere a while back that scientists were beginning to find stem cells in areas other than embryos and it looked very promising. Wouldn't that avoid having to do research on embryos and therefore find a happy compromise to this issue? You'll have to forgive my ignorance on the details of this bio stuff.

[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 04-19-2003).]

The chemical basis for life's origin is well documented. Once you've got a certain mixture of molecules floating around in the "primordial soup," and we're talking zillions of cubic liters of these molecules, bombarded for a billion years by reaction-causing UV rays, sooner or later they're going to latch together into a bacterium. The molecules are like Legos -- they can only fit together so many ways, and they have a natural tendency to "snap" together. (I'm drawing this straight from my scientific "common knowledge" -- I don't have references off the top of my head.)

Science is able to explain the basic origin of life, the grand mystery of how life arose from unlife. ID, as far as I can tell, refutes that explanation, and says instead that God manually created the first bacteria.

I believe a sort of variant of Intelligent Design -- I believe that at the moment of the Big Bang (itself caused by God, presumably), God set the starting characteristics of the universe; and his foreknowledge and subtlety were such that he could arrange for the future position and destiny of every joule of that energy.

That type of design is considerably more "intelligent" than just having God create a miniscule flesh-blob using lightning from heaven -- and it doesn't invalidate any existing science.

ID is an interesting theory but is an 'arguement from disbelief' i.e. "I can't believe that something like that could occur naturally" (and in the 'stealth creationism' case its more of "I don't want to believe......"). Technically the Theory of Evolution doesn't rule out some kind of designer but that is no reason one should be ruled in (Occam's Razor looms again).

Like all science there will be gaps in our understanding of various processes but do we accept that this is where we need to apply more research or do we try and sneak a myterious extra guiding hand to account for it?

[edit: It also introduces complications if you ty and use this for the presence of God - it would imply that species get on with their evolution over millions of years then he gives them a little poke in a certain direction (not just on the large scale but even down to the evolution of bacteria). This raises issues about a non-interventionist God and in fact it would make more sense to have such a Designer as some more advanced alien species than a divine being].

[edit2: In fact this is such a big issue that the good people at Talk.Origins:
www.talkorigins.org

have a site devoted to Talk.Design:
www.talkdesign.org

which looks to be another important resource]

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Exactly, Emperor -- if God is fiddling with things from moment to moment, it denies the idea that all things are an expression of God's will. Whereas my little "sharp-eyed watchmaker" version allows science's explanations and God's plan to coexist -- because they'd be one and the same.

Not that you were responding to me specifically, I'm just soapboxing.