War on Science

Just watched this documentary on TV. It's from BBC's "Horizon" series, and it's called "The War on Science", the subject being intelligent design on the rise in United States. Standardly good stuff from BBC, though without a sorely needed perspective that would recognize the fundamental historical cultural malady at the root of this "controversy" (which is actually nothing of sorts), namely materialistic reductionism as a shadow of the scientific revolution. Fundamentalist ignorance is insufficient to explain the whole issue in 21st century, just like darwinism is and will remain insufficient to explain awareness (or even just intelligence). But that's a story for another documentary.



My favorite here is Father Coyne (you may skip to minute 41), a vocal opponent of intelligent design, and former director of the Vatican Observatory. His comments are sufficient to complete what is said by Dawkins and Attenborough. Time 50 minutes. Enjoy!

For a more productive and more intelligent observation on the "science and spirituality dialogue" (versus "reason and faith debate"), see this piece by Francisco Varela at the Mind and Life website. I know, Buddhism is a religion without a Creator, but some Buddhist schools have their own creation narratives (NB: not all narratives are myths), and Buddhists are generally quite ready to improve it if necessary.