As a sixty-year-old with three degrees in "science", research work with papers published,

[PCIntern]

and an avid reader of scientific publications I think I have some qualifications to make this statement.

The "error" which the powers-that-be committed following the Sputnik launching was to subsidize University education without limiting it to the physical and biological sciences. They created a "monster" of edumacated (sic and sick) individuals who could actually base conclusions upon a foundation of science and, quite frankly, higher-order truth, rather than upon superstition, proverbs, cliches, and misinterpretation of writings which date back to a time when Mankind was struggling just to survive.

To correct this path, the notions of having an informed population, or more exactly, electorate, had to be negated. What better manner of execution of this than the use of religious writings, which, taken out of context, seem to negate much of what had been taught in schools and in higher educational facilities. The vast majority of the politicians who are promulgating this no more believe in its truth than Ronnie Reagan believed in the sanctity of the lives of the unborn. This is a given.

By re-introducing so-called creationism ( I shall not capitalize that word and lend it credence) they posit that no scientific principle is truly valid, it is merely an appearance and a generalization; a fossil record, for example, appears to be millions of years of age, but it is perceived to be God's testing of us or some other rationalization for having to face a fact which is inconsistent with their ultimate "Truth". It is intellectually and rationally repulsive to attempt to engender this way of thinking in a society to achieve the ends of Power and Money. But since people historically wish to believe that bad things are "God's Will" or "God's Plan" of that "Everything happens for a Reason", it is effective in its implementation.

The effect of this technique of manipulation is that it maintains subservience and fosters ignorance which is of course, anti-Democratic and anti-intellectual. Without referencing the entity which causes many to precipitously and unwarrantedly reject a sound argument in toto, please allow me to state that all of this is just a variance of The Big Lie. It is an attack upon the Progress of Civilization and unfortunately, it is working to a fair extent. They are well aware that more efforts need to be expended, but they are willing to fight the long war, and accept setbacks with their usual aggression, anger, and hatred doubled and redoubled.

The problem for all of us, including for them, is that occasionally there is an event of a Cosmic scale which demonstrates that their willful repression of Nature's principles is dangerous for the Many. I am not referring to horrors such as the Newtown, CT shooting, or the grotesque lying which submerged us in Afghanistan and then Iraq: I am talking about the laissez faire attitudes which will someday cause massive destruction of property and lives irretrievably. We are not talking about Sandy or Katrina, which have already been papered over: we are talking about, say, the inundation of the entire South of New Jersey, Eastern Maryland, and Delaware by rising ocean levels which will be unstoppable; the loss of fresh drinking water and potable water for agriculture in great areas of the country due to pollution caused by fracking and spillage of toxic waste. Those of us who lived through Three Mile Island here in Pennsylvania might recall the fact that millions of acres of dairyland were threatened and exposed to radiation which was never acknowledged, but occurred without question, despite the utiities' and Governments' insistence that it had not. The final results will never be known but many clinicians ascribe certain pathologies and incidences thereof to the Event. These are formally denied...with a wink.

It doesn't matter what any of us believe or do not believe if society does not slow its pace to a different version of Armageddon. The Truth, the higher order Truth will someday prevail, despite what someone such as Senator Sessions claims he believes.

[KG]

1. the ultimate irony is how much technology the science deniers use to deny science, as if

scientific research and discovery doesn't make modern tech possible.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Anyone can test the God hypothesis.

I have yet to see any convincing evidence.

[Vashta Nerada]

3. You have higher hopes for this country than I do.

I really do believe that we're going to have to get out of the United States to advance science. There's just too many religionists in this country that are so anti-science that we're not going to be able to achieve anything here.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. It's not just a United States

In fact, we may be better than most other countries.


https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa12/miller.cfm

But having a major political party pander the the most scientifically illiterate and both parties to industries that have an powerful economic interest in pupressing scientific inquiry and progress, is a a road to disaster.

[reformist2]

4. The biggest threat of all to them is that the masses are just as educated as they are now.

Any claim they may have had to rule over us is gone. And naturally, it follows that their wealth has little to do with any special talents, only special luck or pull, or worse.

[hunter]

5. Scientists and engineers are decent people but are not equipped to deal with the scammers.

I disagree with your premise entirely.

Some scientists and engineers are attracted by the "certainty" of their fields, and this bleeds into their social beliefs too. The racists remain racists, the fundamentalists remain fundamentalists, the nationalists remain nationalists. Uncertainty makes these sorts of scientists and engineers uncomfortable.

As humans, we will never know anything much about "Nature's principles" or "The Truth" for the simple reason that the universe is very big, and our minds, and even our society, are infinitesimally small.

We can all be humanists, however, imagining the sort of society we would like to live in while respecting the rights of others who are imaging their own utopias, and meanwhile rejecting the fundamentalists of all stripes who would wish to impose their own "utopias" on others by force, sometimes extreme forces -- war, murder, prison, and so on.

My primary training is as an evolutionary and environmental biologist (in my mind the same thing...). I'm also fortunate to have a very good Liberal Arts education. (Religious Studies, History, English...) What I've learned, and what I've experienced is that nature is indifferent to humans. We are all creatures of this earth, this earth is not ours. Species that experience exponential growth such as ours have come and gone before. We are nothing "special" except as we choose to be among ourselves. A million years from now our civilization is an odd layer of the geologic record and nothing more.

In my personal philosophy that's why we have to be kind to one another, and look out for one another. But "The Truth," doesn't factor into that equation at all. Nature will do what Nature does.

It is possible to be a humanist, "to make the world a better place" as an artist or a scientist. I dare say that science itself is another sort of human art.

I can find truths in a scientific paper, I can find truths in a book of fiction, I can find truths in the oratory of a religious leader.

I might also find deception, sometimes of the most vile sort, in all these venues.

[RobertEarl]

6. Science is nothing more than reading the signs of nature

It takes many languages and much thinking to discern what's happening in all of nature.

Anyone telling you they can read it all and tell you what will happen is not to be taken too seriously.

The one sign we as humanists can read is the one that shows humans are the greatest, most capable animals the earth has ever created. We are powerful. The most powerful animal ever created. We are special. Denial of that natural fact is not too smart.

A Reading of the future signs, all the while looking back to see where we humans have come from to see where we are going, is seeing a display of a cinema of future possibilities.

And one possibility is that our forced changes on nature will be changes that mark a galactic shift of life on this planet over a relatively short time span.

Another is we could revert to a simpler lifestyle and not cause so much change. Given our increasing numbers, tho, it seems our forced changes will make for quite an alteration in global records.

[hunter]

7. That sounds like an anthropocentric religious belief to me.

When all is said and done, humans exist at the pleasure of the plants and fungi.

Personally my humanist leanings are reinforced by the belief that we are NOT special.

Power, greatness, wealth... all those sorts of things are delusional.

We are not "special," except that all humans are special, and the environment we exist within is special. That's the reason we have to look out for one another. Not just humans looking out for other humans, but humans looking out for all the beings we share our short time on this planet with.

If we can't control our own population, nature will. If our civilization does not respect the natural environment, the civilization will cease to exist.

This "civilization" some of us now enjoy is not sustainable; it is doomed, probably sooner rather than later.

Then what?

Personally I'd like a lower energy society where consumerism is dead and I have plenty of time to read a book, grow a garden, and share some local beer with friends and family. I don't want to live in a world of control freaks, no matter their intentions, good or bad.

Anyone who desires to be an "architect" of society, of industry, of government, hell, even architect of a house or garden not their own, they are all suspect to me.

[RobertEarl]

8. Sounds like?

No. This idea that humans are not the best animal nature ever produced is just foolish.

We are the epitome of nature's creation. We as humans do create. And, as you have done, we even create denial.

Most of the humans that ever lived on this planet live as you wished you did. Well, what's stopping you?

There are many humans who can see the earth changes being wrought by increasing human populations and the increase in using the creative human engineered tech we employ. Some of those have attempted to design a better, more balanced and less destructive society. It behooves everyone to join with those types and begin making progress.

We can create a different environment than the one we are currently creating. Morally, we must. It is in our power to do so.