After an eight year false start....

[Aviation Pro]

...I believe we are on the cusp of a new scientific age of enlightenment. The number of magical thinkers and evangelical sky wizard worshippers will continue to decrease and I predict that the Obama administration will, through a number of different programs, reward those who pursue hard sciences in government, academia and private industry.

[Greyhound]

1. Does that mean I and the millions like me can have our lives back?

Clinton took it and Idiot Frat Boy made sure there was nothing to replace it and I think 6 years is enough penance for daring to be happy for a while.

[amitten]

2. A lot of us have faith in both God and science.

Please don't count us out.

[Aviation Pro]

3. Faith in God....

...is a personal virtue and should never be forced on a group. Faith in science is a group effort that requires orders of understanding. The two can exist together as long as they are separated.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

5. I like the way you think.

[amitten]

7. I didn't say it should be forced on anyone.

I said don't count us out. I prefer not to be shunned because I believe in a higher power in addition to science.

[Odin2005]

4. This Transhumanist/Techno-Utopian agrees.

We are on the cusp of a new Renaissance powered by clean-yet-cheap energy, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and AI. Computers will be as intelligent as us within 30 years. Environmental destruction, aging, disease, and hunger will be a thing of the past. Global Warming will be stopped, the Biosphere restored.

[Recursion]

6. This techno-dystopian is cautious

The first thing robots were ever used for was fire control: whatever Asimov may have thought, robots have always been used to kill our fellow human beings. The second thing they were used for was to fatten corporate bottom lines at the expense of workers.

The Internet can help people like us organize for good reasons, and it can help the next Hitler organize and communicate for bad reasons.

Medical research can stop horrible diseases, but for the past several decades it's been used to make dubious, profitable treatments for chronic symptoms, and also used as the excuse to keep health care unaffordable or barely affordable for working people.

Science is like a gun: to produce it, or master its use, requires decades of discipline and dedication. But to just use it naively takes a second and can have disastrous consequences. Until we learn that economics are meant to serve humanity, not the other way around, scientific advances will always be a double-edged sword.

[Odin2005]

8. Yes, technology is a 2-edged sword, which is why we need Progressive government.

n/t