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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (37741)	11/20/2001 11:45:36 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Galileo, the scientist, was thrown in prison by the Pope and forced to recant. He wasn't thrown in prison by scientists, he was thrown in prison by religion. I'm sure some segments of religion are no more free of ridiculous value judgments about scientists than they were then. Scientists, on the other hand, don't force each other to recant by resorting to torture, or the abusive use of the law.

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (37741)	11/20/2001 11:53:49 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Are we more enlightened, and value-free, in our science today? I think not. Well, I don't recall Hoyle being banned for proposing Steady-State, or (with Wickramsinghe) being tortured for proposing that life did not originate on Earth... so I'd say we are. Although as X says there are no doubt some religious societies or states which would impose torture for such beliefs, and ban such knowledge. But surely no modern, democratic state free from superstition would ban the teaching and best wisdom of science, would they? Where provable hypothesis contradicts religious teaching, one would have to be extremely superstitious - backward even - to suppress the former at the expense of the latter... <gg> yes, I know. Even Kansas recanted.