4th January 2008, 1:36 PM
I lost any confidence in Ron Paul the moment he decided science was secondary to placating religious extremists by saying he doesn't think evolution "matters" (a PR movement on his part most likely). Well, anyone who thinks that they can play it safe by not having an opinion and just saying the safety phrase of "how we got here isn't important" is an idiot. Yes, it does matter. A massive chunk of modern biology is directly based in evolution. Ditching evolution damages as much of our current understanding of biology as ditching GRAVITY damages physics.
Case in point? Our current method of developing vaccines is directly tied to evolutionary theory. Every single year, scientists have to develop a new flu vaccine. The flu mutates every single year. Evolutionary theory has a complete enough picture of the process that the methods of defense more likely to adapt in the flu can be predicted, and a vaccine can be developed ahead of time for this most likely flu strain, and it is. Evolution directly ties into our ability to survive the flu each year. That's just a small example. A politician that ditches any part of science just to cater to the masses loses any interest I have in them, as it is science and technology that is most important to us.
Another clear example are those people that refuse to acknowledge general and special relativity as having any merit (the GPS network WORKS, this is evidence enough that those two things are true as the GPS satellites have to be programmed to take time dilation effects into account in sending their data, if that correction was based on something inaccurate, our GPS systems would be woefully inaccurate in giving us our position). Yet another, quantum physics. Now granted, very few lay people know anything about quantum physics compaired to the wide knowledge of newtonian and relativistic stuff, but this is largely due to frauds who don't know anything about it just saying quantum physics as a buzz word for "my crazy thing works because quantum". However, the reality of it, such as the nature of certain metals at an extremely small scale actually acting as a resistor instead of a conductor, are how iPod hard disks work, hence iPods are evidence of quantum physics (though maybe not string theory).
So when people say that this or that well established scientific bit of knowledge "doesn't matter" or that this or that thing should be "thrown out" because of some insane controversy, I get mad. I get mad because it does matter and they don't seem to have researched nearly enough to find out that these things are NOT disconnected, that all of it is interconnected to the point that saying this or that bit of physics or biology is wrong is really saying that the majority of the modern world doesn't exist.
Case in point? Our current method of developing vaccines is directly tied to evolutionary theory. Every single year, scientists have to develop a new flu vaccine. The flu mutates every single year. Evolutionary theory has a complete enough picture of the process that the methods of defense more likely to adapt in the flu can be predicted, and a vaccine can be developed ahead of time for this most likely flu strain, and it is. Evolution directly ties into our ability to survive the flu each year. That's just a small example. A politician that ditches any part of science just to cater to the masses loses any interest I have in them, as it is science and technology that is most important to us.
Another clear example are those people that refuse to acknowledge general and special relativity as having any merit (the GPS network WORKS, this is evidence enough that those two things are true as the GPS satellites have to be programmed to take time dilation effects into account in sending their data, if that correction was based on something inaccurate, our GPS systems would be woefully inaccurate in giving us our position). Yet another, quantum physics. Now granted, very few lay people know anything about quantum physics compaired to the wide knowledge of newtonian and relativistic stuff, but this is largely due to frauds who don't know anything about it just saying quantum physics as a buzz word for "my crazy thing works because quantum". However, the reality of it, such as the nature of certain metals at an extremely small scale actually acting as a resistor instead of a conductor, are how iPod hard disks work, hence iPods are evidence of quantum physics (though maybe not string theory).
So when people say that this or that well established scientific bit of knowledge "doesn't matter" or that this or that thing should be "thrown out" because of some insane controversy, I get mad. I get mad because it does matter and they don't seem to have researched nearly enough to find out that these things are NOT disconnected, that all of it is interconnected to the point that saying this or that bit of physics or biology is wrong is really saying that the majority of the modern world doesn't exist.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)