Thank you for summing up exactly why I want to go into science when I’m finally in college and afterward!

The main reason we don’t see much conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism is because most of the practitioners of those religions live in very poor countries with little science anyway. Both religions teach things that are conflicted by science and that lead to policies that are detrimental to people’s health and happiness and contradicted by science, but there is nobody standing up for science and telling them to do things differently (Or not enough people at least).

Lilian:
“I don’t see any conflict whatsoever between Hinduism or Buddhism and science. Nor between the liberal branches of Judaism or Christianity and science. And Islam at one time was a haven for science when Europe was in the dark ages.”

Here’s the thing, Lilian. Europe was in the Dark Ages largely, if not exclusively because of Christianity running the show and banning any pursuit of knowledge that even MIGHT run contrary to the Bible and whatever orthodoxy they were peddling. Islam WAS a friend to science in the latter part of the first millenium, but that was, as the Indians used to say, at least on TV, “many moons ago.” Lately, “not so much.”
What you describe as “liberal” branches of Judaism and Christianity appear to me to be more properly described as “nominal” Christians and Jews whose “religion” has lost any vestiges of the god-myth and the supernatural. They keep the name but have thrown out virtually all the dogma to their mortal credit. I have very limited interaction with Muslims, but based on what I think I know about them, I have tremendous difficullty associating them with the word “liberal” or “buddies of science,” except for purposes of becoming nuclear powers. Doesn’t the word “Muslim” mean or derive from the word meaning to “submit”? Not “submit to science” as I understand the Quran. Religion and science are antithetical to one another. Unfettered science will continue to eat away at every core religious belief until their are none left. Unfettered religion will bring back burning scientists, and any other perceived “heretics” at the stake, unless they can think of an even more painful and cruel way to “purify” them. Why should anyone expect science to fare better with any given religion than another religion? I can’t recall any religion getting along that well with other religions EXCEPT when “politics makes strange bedfellows,” e.g. Christians all pretending to make nice with each other to tear down separation of Church and State and to promote creationism/ID.

“Or you can get the Manhattan Project or the big pharmaceuticals who use science for politics or profit.”

Wasn’t there, like, a BIG war going on at the time of the Manhattan Project and tens of thousands (millions?) of innocent people being killed because of Nazi and Japanese agression? Weren’t the Germans ALSO trying to develop an atomic weapon? Is your argument that we should have hoped NOBODY would develop an atomic bomb because all the good scientists worldwide would refuse to do so on humanist grounds? Or are you saying we should have allowed the Germans or Soviets to develop it first? Neither argument sounds prudent to me.
Despite my discomfort defending BIG PHARMA, how will new drugs be developed for use “by good science” without a profit incentive? Do scientists really love us that much?

Thanks a lot.:-( It used to be an easy answer.

Oh – Great post!