Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Is US becoming hostile to science? (Reuters)

Sarebbe una bella domanda da porre anche in Italia? Ci vorrebbero pero' 
i sondaggi...
Am.
 Is US becoming hostile to science?
By Alan Elsner  Fri Oct 28,10:13 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in 
U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, 
and some senior academics warn that science itself is under assault.In 
the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the 
dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on 
this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.
"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science 
sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which 
extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a 
letter posted on the school Web site on October 3.
Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the 
university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science 
represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of 
evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed.
Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious and 
philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division 
replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers," 
he said.
Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are 
too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have 
been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be 
identified as God.
AT ODDS WITH BUSH
In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at 
odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global 
warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent 
scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing 
science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other 
research.
Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful 
position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including Bush, 
can afford to ignore their views.
This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo earlier 
this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to keep a 
woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her husband's 
wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture of life."
The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least 
mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a 
Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the 
country.
The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents 
backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered schools 
to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them 
that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps 
exist in it.
The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory and 
recommended students to read a book that explained the theory further.
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the 
anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a 
large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist 
Christianity and science.
"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them 
that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have 
to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not 
at all true," he said.
On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American 
Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between 
science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.
"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at 
a forum on the issue last week.
Proponents of intelligent design deny they are anti-science and say 
they themselves follow the scientific method.
AMERICANS DON'T ACCEPT EVOLUTION
Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at 
odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month 
found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in 
their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation was 
guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less 
advanced life forms over millions of years.
Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept the 
Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the concept 
is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.
"When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20 percent 
turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller, director of 
the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern University.
He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most 
U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and general 
scientific ignorance.
U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests 
of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed 
24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy 
of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.
Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified U.S. candidates for 
postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and 
currently fill around a third of available science and engineering 
slots with foreign students.
Northwestern's Miller said the insistence of a large proportion of 
Americans that humans were created by God as whole beings had policy 
implications for the future.
"The 21st century will be the century of biology and we are going to be 
confronted with hundreds of important public policy issues that require 
some understanding that all life is interconnected," he said.


Dal punto di vista strettamente scientifico, la scienza dà ragione ai 
creazionisti e torto agli evoluzionisti:
Dagli Usa arrivano i post-darwinisti
http://lgxserver.uniba.it/lei/rassegna/010407b.htm
Niente antibiotici agli antievoluzionisti
http://www.effedieffe.com/interventizeta.php?id=712&parametro=scienze
DARWIN E IL CARDINALE: A CHI SERVE L'EVOLUZIONISMO?
http://www.effedieffe.com/interventizeta.php?id=529&parametro=scienze

 
http://www.effedieffe.com/interventizeta.php?id=529&parametro=scienze
Sparateli in vena nel cervello gli antibiotici, chissa'che non migliori 
le prestazioni, Homo Ebetensis.
Am.