How Fundamentalism Fails America
Gandalf Grey
HOW FUNDAMENTALISM FAILS AMERICA
by Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.
DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Can a country where more people believe in the Devil than
in evolution maintain its leadership in the sciences?
That's a question that David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and president of the
California Institute of Technology, asked in a recent op-ed piece in the Los
Angeles Times.
Baltimore believes that "Asia has the potential to blow us out of the water"
because their scientists and engineers "are as good as ours, as imaginative
as ours - they work longer hours and are more dedicated."
The numbers bear him out. India's colleges and universities are turning out
more than 40,000 computer science graduates each year, and the enrollments
in those programs are rising while U.S. colleges struggle to fill their
science programs. And China produces more 325,000 engineers each year, or
five times more than the United States.
By contrast, Baltimore wrote that our nation has a "lack of federal
leadership in funding schooling that emphasizes math and science" with a
"fragmented educational system that leaves much to local control" and an
attitude of "general anti-intellectualism."
China is not a paradise politically, but it isn't having arguments over
whether Darwin's theories are correct. It isn't rewriting science textbooks
to give the Biblical version of creation equal weight with evolution. It
isn't letting narrow political agendas or special interests trump scientific
or medical facts.
Anti-intellectualism has always been a powerful force in America. Combine
that with religious fundamentalism and you have a recipe for economic,
scientific and political disaster. Because scientists in secular societies
like Asia and Europe aren't fighting fundamentalist dogma and political
hackery at every turn, they are now poised to kick our collective butts. And
when this happens, most Americans will never know what hit them.
Why are we still arguing about Darwin? Why are more schools around the
country forcing teachers to treat "intelligent design" (the new euphemism
for creationism) as something as valid as evolution? Why do two-thirds of
Americans (according to a CBS News poll taken last month) favor teaching
creationism and evolution side-by-side in public schools?
This is happening because America is now a post-literate, post-logical
society where truth and reason no longer matter. Fundamentalism appears to
be gaining on modernism and what's become known as the "reality-based
community" is treated with total contempt by people willing to distort
science (and facts in general) for political gain. All you have to do is
look at the way the Bush administration - that perfect nexus of religious
fundamentalism and cynical politics - treats science.
Take the issue of global warming. There is little doubt in reputable
scientific circles that the earth's climate is changing and that those
changes - mainly brought on by the burning of fossil fuels - will ultimately
cause major environmental problems.
The rest of the world's reaction to this is to work on ways to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Europe has taken the lead in this area, developing
new technologies to reduce energy use and pollution. The United States lags
behind because it has been decided by the Bush administration that global
warming is a myth. The United States - the nation that consumes about a
quarter of the world's energy and natural resources - has rejected the Kyoto
Protocol and any other steps toward reducing energy use.
This sort of willful blindness infects every bit of the Bush
administration's treatment of science. If the facts conflict with their
beliefs or the ability of their corporate patrons to make more money, they
either ignore the facts or fund studies that give them the version of the
facts they want.
The anti-intellectual, anti-reason myopia that now infects America will come
back to haunt us. As this nation turns into a religious cult with nuclear
weapons, scientific innovation will migrate to places where radical clerics
and corrupt politicians aren't calling the tune. Just as our manufacturing
base has migrated overseas, our scientific and intellectual base will travel
the same path.
Baltimore wrote in his piece for the Times that the thousands of
international students who once filled our math and science programs are now
staying home because the schooling in China and India is as good as
America's, while the Bush administration has made it increasingly difficult
for international students to study here. Both China and India have poured
huge sums of money into education, while American schools are falling
behind.
The countries not held hostage by fundamentalism will ultimately overtake
the United States. The technological lead the United States once had will
vanish. We will become an industrialized nation without industry, a
technologically advanced society without technologists.
The future belongs to those who aren't slaves to dogma and are willing to
innovate. It belongs to societies where intelligence and hard work are
rewarded and excellence is celebrated. Sadly, these qualities are not in
great supply in the United States today.
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles
we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
--Thomas Jefferson
Roedy Green
<ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote or quoted :
>This is happening because America is now a post-literate, post-logical
>society where truth and reason no longer matter.
Canada is hiring away 100 of America's top research scientists
to chairs at Canadian universities. How?
1. academic freedom
2. freedom to do basic research, not just act for immediate corporate
interest.
3. political freedom
4. rational ethos
The hope is that getting the top people will attract many more wanting
to work with these people in a stimulating environment.
"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed.
Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor of Hitler
nor of Mussolini."
~ Mehmet Elkatmi, head of Turkish parliament's human rights commission
on Bush's atrocities in the Iraq war.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes
Roedy Green
<ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote or quoted :
>Baltimore wrote in his piece for the Times that the thousands of
>international students who once filled our math and science programs are now
>staying home because the schooling in China and India is as good as
>America's, while the Bush administration has made it increasingly difficult
>for international students to study here.
Bush's Yale and Harvard degrees did irreparable damage to the
reputation of American universities.
The man is a drooling idiot who can not even compose a sentence.
He has an MBA from Harvard, no kidding:
"We can cut the deficit in half over the next five years."
~ George W. Bush, 2004-01-20 in SOTU address
"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More
things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good
thing."
~ N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors.
Explaining why George's record for exporting American jobs to India
was a good thing.
Bush signed his report.
"We already gave the rich a tax cut so why are we giving them another
one?"
~ George W. Bush at a staff meeting reported by Paul O'Neill,
Secretary of the Treasury.
"We will spend $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years on top of --- on
top of the $1.9 trillion budget. We still have trillions of dollars
left in the surplus."
~ George W. Bush, Inside Politics, 2000-08-22
"We must create a [economic] crisis in order to ensure that there is
no alternative to a smaller government."
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
This may explain why brother George seems to be intentionally
attempting to tank the economy.
"To bring about a genuine political realignment, Republicans must kill
the Government Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs -- the very Goose they
have fought so hard and long to possess."
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
In other words, Jeb wants to stop the functions of government that
create prosperity. The man is either nuts, or has the same problems
with English as his brother.
"We mustn't assume that we are going to deinvent government solely
from inside the Beltway or within one or two sessions of Congress. We
will do it one step at a time, in one community at a time – at the
local level and through local institutions like churches, nonprofit
and volunteer organizations, and families."
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
Jeb wants to destroy democratic government and hand the reigns to
private corporations, much the way society was organised in the 1800s,
without any regulation on the robber barons. He must have been
impressed by the 1975 sci fi movie, Rollerball, starring James Caan.
"Sometimes things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to
accounting procedures."
~ George W. Bush
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
~ George W. Bush
2000-05-05
"It's your money. You paid for it."
~ George W. Bush
2000-10-18
Roedy Green
<ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote or quoted :
>The countries not held hostage by fundamentalism will ultimately overtake
>the United States.
Our forefathers in Europe once allowed the fundamentalists to take
over. Nothing happened for hundreds of years other than the black
plague and the inquisition. We call that time the "Dark Ages" for good
reason.