From: ripng@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au (PAUL NG)
Subject: God & Science
Summary: History!!!!!
Organization: Halls of Residence, Monash University 
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 13:57:40 GMT

In any society at any time in history, the intellectual freaks have had to 
be sorted out from those who really know what they are on about.  The 
process of peer review for scientific publications is the best 
modern-day illustration of this mechanism.

Today this "filter mechanism" tends to be secular - but that's only because 
society and its governmental institutions have become secular.  IN the past 
the Church was the filter because the Church -was- the government; 
and because society was dominated to a larger extent by religious 
institutions than they are today.  The filter criteria have changed in 
tandem with the constitution, attitudes and store of knowledge held by 
society; but the essential point is that there has always been and always 
will be a need for such a "filter mechanism".

Galileo and Copernicus and a few others were success stories; those who 
ultimately passed the filter mechanism - and everybody seems to love to bash 
the Church for suppressing what later turned out to be correct.  

NOBODY cares or hears about the million and one freako theories postulated 
by countless others - theories that were definitely wrong and were 
consequently rejected by the Church - BECAUSE they were rejected as wrong, 
and were ultimately wrong, and therefore they are not worth hearing about 
today.

Now some hundred years down the line we are going to hear about some theory 
that everybody thought was freako when it was first published, but was later 
vindicated by research and evidence.  In fact, we are hearing about it 
now.  There is a scientist at Monash whose astrophysical theories were 
thought to be cracko by most of his contemporaries - until measurements made 
using his theories turned out to be more accurate than any others.  Then 
everybody shut their big mouths up.  He's made quite a few trips to NASA 
to help the poor sods out.  

What I'm trying to say is this: Suppression of ideas subsequently proven 
correct has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION AND CERTAINLY NOTHING TO 
DO WITH CHRISTIANITY OR THE CHURCH.  The Church was just doing its job as an 
important element of government.  It tried to carry out its function as a 
"filter" as best as it could, just like modern scientists function today as 
checks on their colleagues' competency, via peer review.

It seems to me to be the height of arrogance on the part of non-historians 
who don't know what they are talking about, to bash the Church and religion 
generally for suppressing Galileo (among others); if the Church wasn't 
there to do it somebody else would come along and do it - otherwise society 
would be flooded with useless ideas.

People should instead be thankful (partially) for the fact that some 
institution was around for the better part of European history after 
Christ, to manage the flow of information in that society.  It wasn't 
perfect but at least it was there.  So stop bashing religion for Galileo; if 
you (whoever you are - atheists included) were alive then, you'd press for a 
public examination of Galileo's ideas too.  And if you were alive then, 
you'd look at Galileo's ideas through mediaeval eyes.  So you'd probably 
reject Galileo's theories like the Church did.  

So to all the anti-Church and anti-religionists out there, put up and shut 
up.



 
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