Re: paleonet Moral Values Means Anti-Science

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This is the kind of response I was afraid of getting from your family.

I'm sorry, but 50% isn't good enough!!!

________________________________________
Margaret L. Fraiser
Department of Earth Sciences
Zumberge Hall 117
3651 Trousdale Parkway
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740
phone: 213-821-6290
fax: 213-740-8801
E-mail: fraiser@usc.edu
http://earth.usc.edu/research/paleolab/margaret_fraiser.htm

----- Original Message -----
From: John F Bratton <jbratton@usgs.gov>
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 11:35 am
Subject: Re: paleonet Moral Values Means Anti-Science

> 
> Lisa Park wrote:
> 
> >>The time is now for all of us to come together and realize what is
> happening.  One THIRD of Americans are evangelical Christians.  They
> interpret the Bible literally, which means that they do not believe 
> Earthis >>4.6 billion years old, but do believe that the Flood 
> caused the Grand
> Canyon.  What was once thought of as a "fringe" element in American 
>
 societyhas become the majority and, as witnessed on Tuesday, they 
> >>VOTE.
> 
> >>The question is?..what are we going to do?  To borrow from two 
> recentcampaign ads: there ARE wolves lurking in the forest?are we 
> going to bury
> our heads in the sand?
> 
> Richard Dawkins has said, "It is absolutely safe to say that, if 
> you meet
> somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is 
> ignorant,stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider 
> that)."
> 
> Nice.
> 
> 
> According to Barna (
> http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=11) only 8% of
> Americans were evangelical Christians in 2000, but 43% of Americans 
> areregular churchgoers.
> 
> 
> Equating opposition to abortion and gay marriage with being anti-
> science is
> a gross mischaracterization.  For example, Catholics make up about 
> 24% of
> the U.S. population.  Well over half voted for Bush, even though 
> Kerry is
> Catholic, particularly because of abortion, gay-
marriage, and stem 
> celldifferences.  The Catholic church has no problem with 
> evolution, and
> insists only on the special creation of the human soul.  Continuing to
> sweep all religious people into a "fringe" fundamentalist bin and
> demonizing them as the enemies of science and reason only 
> perpetuates the
> faulty warfare description of the relationship between science and
> religion.  Over 50% of Americans believe evolution happened, and 
> 75% of
> those believe in God.  Abstracts of some of the presentations from 
> a GSA
> session last year on the topic may be informative [see
> http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/session_9703.htm ]
> 
> Damnant quod non intelligunt cuts both ways.
> 
> 
> -John Bratton
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>