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The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
The Magic of Reality
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Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
We need to be careful here! I think an important point, is that "science" was named "Natural Philosophy" in the centuries before the name "science" became used.
Science has since gradually branched into different parts - physics, astronomy (via astrology), chemistry (vis alchemy), biology etc which were studied as separate fragments before the more extensive modern studies of recent decades joined most of them up.
The wooists however have hung on to the "Natural Philosophy" name, and pretend that there are "intangible residual woo-factors which remains in it, - separate from the objective sciences into which it has divided.
There is of course genuine philosophy associated with objective science, but wooists will make every effort to mix and confuse the two, in order to drag the debate into a wooist argument rather than a scientific debate.
I, personally would treat "philosophers of science", who are not also scientists, critically with suspicion.
Not really! At school level, unless you are teaching something to do with history or social structures involving religious activities or interventions, just get on with the science of how things work in the natural world and ignore the religious side-issues.
Permalink Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:17:16 UTC | #949390