Adam Savage of MythBusters fame is one of my heroes. We definitely need more popular folks like him speaking on behalf of science!
As off-the-shelf as some of your MythBusters rigs can be, your show is still, in a couple ways, a lot better funded than even some of the top research labs in this country. What’s the fundamental problem with supporting the sciences beyond high school and in, you know, graduate schools? Do you not see that as a huge issue?
What I do see as a huge issue is a very anti-science vibe. Like I said, the newspapers talking about evolution versus creationism is very much an attack on science as a type of religion—believing that the scientific method is some type of religious belief. And it’s not! That kind of attack absolutely is damaging science exploration across the whole country. I do think that’s a significant problem. And until we can get our head out of the sand and realize that science isn’t about truth—it’s why this debate about the “theory of evolution” bugs the hell out of me. What scientists mean by theory is very different than what people think.
Adam hits the nail on the head. Thanks for posting this!
I thought science was about truth. But I digress. He’s right. We need more science.
I’m guessing that he meant that science is about evidence rather than big-T absolute truth. But it is “true” when compared to, say, creationism. 😉
“But it is “true†when compared to, say, creationism.” Does that mean you consider them both lies?
ABO:
Creationism: completely contradicted by the evidence
Evolution: supported by the evidence
Thus, in the vernacular, creationism is false and evolution is true.
ETA: I don’t include our friends in the evolutionary creationism movement in my statement above, since they accept scientific evidence and are basically theistic evolutionists of the evangelical tradition. I mean YEC, OEC, ID, and various antievolution strains.