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This is from an article in the current Scientific American, entitled
Antiscience
Beliefs Jeopardize U.S. Democracy

It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable for U.S. politicians
to be antiscience. For some two centuries science was a preeminent force in
American politics, and scientific innovation has been the leading driver of
U.S. economic growth since World War II. Kids in the 1960s gathered in
school cafeterias to watch moon launches and landings on televisions
wheeled in on carts. Breakthroughs in the 1970s and 1980s sparked the
computer revolution and a new information economy. Advances in biology,
based on evolutionary theory, created the biotech industry. New research in
genetics <http://www.scientificamerican.com/topic.cfm?id=genetics> is
poised to transform the understanding of disease and the practice of
medicine, agriculture and other fields.

The Founding Fathers were science enthusiasts. Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer
and scientist, built the primary justification for the nation's
independence on the thinking of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and John
Locke—the creators of physics, inductive reasoning and empiricism. He
called them his “trinity of three greatest men.” If*anyone* can discover
the truth by using reason and science, Jefferson reasoned, then*no one* is
naturally closer to the truth than anyone else. Consequently, those in
positions of authority do not have the right to impose their beliefs on
other people. The people themselves retain this inalienable right. Based on
this foundation of science—of knowledge gained by systematic study and
testing instead of by the assertions of ideology—the argument for a new,
democratic form of government was self-evident.
Read on. . .

martin
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–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Martin Weiss, PhD
Senior Scientist
New York Hall of Science
mweiss at nyscience.org
cell   347-460-1858
desk 718 595 9156

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