"... Endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combatted by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and of bigotry; they too have their anti-philosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates."
Jefferson is focussing here on a specific group of people,
but it seems to me that his remarks are quite generally applicable.
"Some of them are just ignorant or naive, but are willing to learn; this page is not about them.
It is easy to distinguish the quacks; although they may seem reasonable at first, they degenerate into absurdity progressively with any conversation.
Quacks want only to talk and not to listen. They are paranoids with delusions of grandeur: Their theory could never be wrong; therefore everyone else's must be. Eventually the true quacks make the same remarks, some version of almost all those listed below. Generally, their comments are of 3 types: ...
'That's what they told Galileo.'
I know Galileo, and you're no Galileo. On the contrary, you're one of "they", people who, without any evidence in their favor, contradict real scientists."
"Postmodernism, say the authors, is the deliberate negation of the Enlightenment project, which they hold to be the construction of a sound body of knowledge about the world. The academic left generally believes that the reality of the Enlightenment has been the construction of a thought-world designed to oppress women and people of color in the interests of white patriarchal capitalism. Or possibly capitalist patriarchy. Anyhow, fashion has it that the Enlightenment was a bad idea. Now that modernity is about to end, say the postmodernists, the idea is being refuted on every hand. Actually, it seems to many people of various ideological persuasions that the end of modernity is indeed probably not too far off: no era lasts forever, after all. However, it is also reasonably clear that postmodernism is not on the far side of the modern era. Postmodernism is simply late modernity. Whatever follows modernity is very unlikely to have much to do with the sentiments of today's academic left. ...
It would be folly to dismiss so great a pulse of human history as the Enlightenment with a single characterization, either for good or ill. Everything good and everything bad that we know about either appeared in that wave or was transformed by it. Its force is not yet wholly spent. However, one important thing about the Enlightenment is that it has always been a movement of critique. It is an opposition to the powers that be, whether the crown, or the ancient intellectual authorities, or God. The authors of Higher Superstition tell us that the academic Left hopes to overthrow the Enlightenment, while the authors cast themselves as the Enlightenment's defenders. The authors are correct in seeing the academic left as silly people, who do not know what they are about. The authors are mistaken too, however. The fact is that the academic left are as truly the children of the Enlightenment as ever the scientists are. Science was once an indispensable ally in the leveling of ancient hierarchies of thought and society, but today it presents itself to postmodern academics simply as the only target left standing. Is it any wonder that these heirs of the Enlightenment should hope to bring down the last Bastille?"
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"We demanded evidence, and what evidence there was was not very good. But now the evidence is much better, and people are more willing to believe the results. I find this very heartening: scientists can change their minds, given proof. I think most people believe that scientists are stodgy, and unwilling to let go of old precepts, even when those precepts are profoundly out of date. I think this shows that stereotype to be false. Show us, we demand. And if you can come back and do that, your theory will be taken seriously. But as it should be, the burden is on you to prove it, and not on us to believe you."
“... 30 inches of mercury remained standing, supported by nothing, apparently. It was either magic or else Aristotle was wrong and air had weight.
There was no choice; air had weight.”
"The conservative case against this study is easy to make. Sure, we're fonder of old ways than you are. That's in our definition. Some of our people are obtuse; so are some of yours. If you studied the rest of us in real life, you'd find that while we second-guess the status quo less than you do, we second-guess putative reforms more than you do, so in terms of complexity, ambiguity, and critical thinking, it's probably a wash. Also, our standard of "information" is a bit tougher than the blips and fads you fall for. Sometimes, these inclinations lead us astray. But over the long run, they've served us and society pretty well. It's just that you notice all the times we were wrong and ignore all the times we were right."
"I don't care to think of myself as a person who would attack evangelicals — not for their being evangelicals, anyway. ...
Now, of course, lots of Christians don't believe in the crank pseudoscience about the Earth being 6,000 years old, or even in the very-slightly-lesser crank pseudoscience of Intelligent Design ...
Thus, if I attack Creationism or Intelligent Design — and I do, with relish and glee, every chance I get! — I am attacking evangelicals, aren't I?
Well, yes, I guess I am. There is no avoiding the fact. If, at the core of your religious faith, there is an obviously preposterous belief about the physical world; and if I point out that it is preposterous, and that if you make it known that you believe preposterous things about the physical world, you may reasonably expect to be mocked; then I have attacked your faith. I don't see any way around this. Guilty, yer Honor. ...
The physical world — including the living things that inhabit it, and including even humanity ourselves — has been, and is being, scrutinized (with great thoroughness) ... by men and women of science. There are millions of them and they have been at work for centuries, observing, measuring, classifying, comparing notes, forming discussion societies, arguing, presenting theories, discarding theories, slowly and painfully coming to broad agreement ...
(Scientists, and those who respect them and the Scientific Method, are) free to tell evangelicals that while we (well, some of us) respect their spiritual quests, should they attempt sorties into the territory science has occupied and tamed with such arduous exertions, and sneer and scoff at our hard-won understandings, then they are attacking us, and should not be surprised if we stage a vigorous defense."
"In this line of work you sit alone tapping away for hours on end, coming up with things to say about this and that, sometimes thoroughly engaged, sometimes tired and bored, sometimes ill, or drunk, or hung over .... (And here's an apt Winston Churchill quote, from memory: 'Most of the world's work is done by people who are not feeling very well.') ...
Once in a while, though, usually without particularly intending to, you write something that makes you think, on re-reading it: 'Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to say. I believe it, and it came out just they way I wanted, plain and clear.' "
"The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, and social. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the esteem of our peers. For most people, wanting to know the truth about the world is way, way down the list. Scientific objectivity is a freakish, unnatural, and unpopular mode of thought, restricted to small cliques whom the generality of citizens regard with dislike and mistrust. There is probably a sizable segment in any population that believes scientists should be rounded up and killed."
"... I can tell you from years of fielding reader e-mails in this zone, as well as numerous platform appearances, that lots of conservatives do have negative attitudes to science per se. There are two big reasons and a host of smaller ones. Top of the list:Big reason 1: Science has no moral content. This is simply appalling to a lot of conservatives — that a body of knowledge with so much prestige and importance can be morally empty. Human beings want to know how to live, and a mass of knowledge that contains no guidance on this is just abhorrent to many, most of them self-identifying conservatives. ...... One could go on indefinitely.
Big reason 2: Scientists are irreligious. They mostly are. On the broadest definition of "scientist," over 60 percent are unbelievers. Up at the highest levels of achievement, unbelief is wellnigh total, though there are differences between the various scientific disciplines. Details here.
Small reason 1: Science is incomplete. ...
Small reason 2: Scientists are left-wing. ...
"The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total.
Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample ....
This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents."