{"id":2510,"date":"2008-08-12T13:14:09","date_gmt":"2008-08-12T18:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2008\/08\/12\/objectivity\/"},"modified":"2008-08-12T13:14:09","modified_gmt":"2008-08-12T18:14:09","slug":"objectivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2008\/08\/objectivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Objectivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an interview with Professor P.Z.
\nMyers from the National Catholic Register<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I decided to call his bluff. “Has
\nChristianity contributed anything to humanity?” I asked him.<\/p>\n

“Well,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “there is this general
\nproperty of religion — it’s great at building community. Religion has
\nbeen a good thing for many individuals; it has brought them together
\nand given them comfort. But over all, religion … holds back humanity.”<\/p>\n

What, I asked, about the Church’s role in founding the first Western
\nhospitals, universities, banks and even many breakthroughs in science?
\nHe interrupted me, irate and incredulous:<\/p>\n

“No, people made those contributions to
\nWestern Civilization.” \n<\/p>\n

What a cringe-inducing answer.  It really makes me sorry for
\nhim that his hatred of Christianity has destroyed any vestige of
\nobjectivity.  Say for example somebody asked me.<\/p>\n

“Do you think science has contributed to humanity?
\n What about science’s role in developing medicine, technology,
\nand helping us to come to a greater understanding of the universe?”<\/p>\n

“No, people made those contributions to
\nWestern Civilization.”<\/p>\n

I would deserve a good slap to my head for
\nsuch an answer.<\/p>\n

Jeff Gardner of NCR sums it up.<\/p>\n

As I talked with Myers I was struck by
\nan
\nirony: For a scientist whose
\njob it is to observe cause and effect, he has a poor understanding of
\nthe cause, Catholicism, and its effects on world culture. He does not
\nsee Christianity as an elevating force in the world, but rather as a
\nstrange superstition — akin to banging a pot to scare away the moon.<\/p>\n

Fr. Stanley Jaki showed how it was the
\nCatholic Church because of her
\ntheology became the midwife for the scientific method in the first
\nplace in his must-read book “Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to
\nan Oscillating Universe<\/a>”  The title is a bit
\noff-putting, but it gives an in depth overview of cultures and how
\ntheir understanding kept them developing science.  Carl Olson
\ncomments on the article and
\nsays<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Perhaps this will help do away with one of the greatest myths of our
\ntime: that scientists are objective, ideologically-free, and
\nintellectually-balanced people who care only about the facts. Not so.
\nNot even close. They put on their pocket protectors one pocket at a
\ntime, just like the rest of us, and some of them, like Myers, are
\nintellectually brilliant in this or that scientific discipline, but are
\ncompletely clueless about nearly anything else, including basic respect
\nand common civility. That we are shocked that Myers talks and acts as
\nhe does indicates that the joke is on us–except, of course, it isn’t a
\njoke. It is, I think, far more common than most people realize. Perhaps
\nit’s time we stopped buying the bill of goods sold by those like Myers
\nwho claim to be intellectually superior and scientifically objective
\nwhile all they really want to do is gleefully slash our tires. Kudos to
\nGardner for helping expose this jerk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From an interview with Professor P.Z. Myers from the National Catholic Register. I decided to call his bluff. “Has Christianity contributed anything to humanity?” I asked him. “Well,” he said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}