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Check out this blog entry for commentary on a new “peer reviewed” creationist science journal. It got me to pondering again the Fundamentalist effect on science and education. (In the past I’ve talked here, and here about science and Christian education.)

I’ve often wondered what would happen if the fundies won and taught their view of the world. How catastrophic would it be? I’ve met brilliant “young earth” fundamentalists who have done things like plot ICBM courses for a living and others who could write FFT code off the top of their heads. They made it through life and acquired useful learning. Their religion didn’t reduce their capacity to learn hard stuff. Maybe we’d be ok as a society if people like them set all the rules.

Let’s imagine a world where schools everywhere are run by people like the idiot in my home state, Texas, that fired a science curriculum director for mentioning evolution.

My best guess is that engineering and experimental sciences would survive, math would flourish, the liberal arts would be bombed back to the middle ages and genetic research would die. Things like comparative genetics would be right out (imagine their reaction to cool stuff like this, or this), geology would look more like the 16th century, and biology would be reduced to debating how many “kinds” of animals the Ark carried.

Could the world really keep working? Imagine thinking like a physicist who believes rainbows literally first started happening after Noah got off the Ark. Surely that would blind you to something important.

I’ve seen it. I’ve talked with them and I know they sincerely believe what they believe and adamantly refuse to consider contradiction as anything more than a mystery of the one true God. Seeing smart people fall for this self inflicted form of lunacy is the most amazing religious phenomena I know. And it’s not just Christians. You can’t make it through engineering school without encountering dozens and dozens of intense followers of Islam, some with even scarier ideas. I think the math attracts them.

I’d be interested in other’s thoughts on this subject. What would happen to medicine? Psychology? History? Political Science? Economics?

Maybe there should be an atheist response to “Left Behind” ( I reluctantly admit reading 3 or 4 of those books in a masochistic attempt to better understand my co-workers). Working title: “Taken Over: A Novel of Earth’s last days of progress and reason”

I’m pretty firmly in the “religion is harmful” camp, but I sometimes wonder if I’m being unreasonable. Maybe it isn’t that religion makes people into intolerant, science rejecting, xenophobic jerks. Maybe some people are naturally intolerant, science rejecting, xenophobic jerks, and would be so if the only social gathering they had were crochet clubs. Perhaps church is the only thing holding their murderous impulses in check.

To help decide, I focus on the role of the pastor. Are they calming the flock and making them into better people, or whipping them into a hateful frenzy? Most public statements I hear from the clergy are divisive and negative. Hypocritical “be like Jesus” claptrap is sandwiched between support for evil acts like tormenting pregnant school girls and gays or supporting a government that favors torture. So overall I doubt the second premise. (Ever noticed how little “turn the other cheek” you hear from fundamentalists compared to old testament terror mongering or militant support for actions they would view as evil if perpetrated against them? If Christian fundamentalists believed in Christ I’d have a lot less trouble listening to them.)

Recently, however, I saw one of the first generally positive acts ever from the clergy (I’m excluding the in-group acts of support such as visiting sick church members, and the work of proselytizing missionaries) and it impressed me a great deal. Way to go Rev. Troy!

From now on I’ll have a example of something good happening because people went to church and were willing to listen to you.