It's A Dangerous World Out There!

Throughout the history of civilization, one of the things crucial for science to fluorish is the free exchange of ideas unencumbered by oppressive centralized government and religion. As Carl Sagan pointed out in his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark, the values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. On this page, I want to talk a little about how science has been attacked in the past, and touch on some important attacks of the present. A Brief History of Science and the World Forces The Inquisition Science Under Attack in Today's World A Brief History of Science and the World Forces Science -- and democracy -- had their roots in ancient Greece, the Hellenes of the ancient world. Scientific inquiry spread with the Hellenistic culture as the Greeks, and later the Romans (who absorbed the Greek city-states), conquered the Western world. Rome started out as a democracy (509-278 BC), but by the time it ruled the world (starting about 146 BC) the Roman Republic had been undermined and the Empire was ruled by dictators (the rise of Caesarism). This centralized political power knocked out one of the pillars necessary for science -- that is, political and social freedom. However, while science did not thrive under Roman rule, it was not explicitly attacked. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, science went into centuries of decline. These "Dark Ages" started about 200 AD. When the Roman Empire disintegrated, the infrastructure in which learning and science could develop had ceased to exist: the large cities disappeared, roads and aqueducts fell apart, and trade became more limited. Another of the pillars necessary for science to thrive is the lack of a strongly organized priesthood or monolithic religious hierarchy. In their book, The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science, Hellemans and Bunch note that, during the Dark Ages, the Christian Church developed a centralized hierarchy and became a strong political force in Europe. Those who did not accept the Church's teachings were suppressed. Secular knowledge and science became associated with heathenism. Science rebounded when Europeans began trading with the Moslem world and showed a renewed interest in learning, the latter beginning in 787 when Emperor Charlemagne decreed that every monastery in his empire must establish a school. Science was on its way to making tremendous progress during The Renaissance and The Scientific Revolution of the 15th to 17th centuries. The scientific and technological advances of today can be most directly traced to these bold scientists and philosophers of five centuries ago. Science Under Attack in Today's World Science has a self-correcting process in place to ensure its integrity and accuracy. The peer review process purges bad methodologies and conclusions while the discovery of new knowledge helps improve and correct old theories and conclusions. This process works well. It has gotten us to where we are today. But in today's western democracies (most notably the United States), science is under attack by those with their own agendas. These attackers include politicians who view the scientific search for truth as a threat to their political power, multinational corporations who feel their corporate profits threatened by the economic alternatives revealed by scientific endeavors, and a resurgence of religious fundamentalism which brands as heresy anything that disagrees with their misinterpretation of "divine truth". Specific branches of science which come under constant and increasing attack include evolution, climate science, geology, and cosmology, but there are more -- essentially anything which seeks to reveal the truth.

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