Religion News in Brief (2016/10/09)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/10/09
Anti-scientific politicians a growing problem in the U.S.
According to Scientific American, in an article by Shaw Otto, there is a warning about a growing anti-scientific movement, which appears to gaining momentum and possibly becoming a “growing problem in American democracy.”
That is, politicians holding anti-scientific beliefs can instantiate positions in direct opposition to “the core principles that the U.S. was founded on,” which are founded in “no king, no pope and no wealthy lord” being more “entitled to govern the people than they [are] themselves.”
Otto describes the current political situation as a post-fact. The regularized denial of scientific principles, laws, and facts become dangerous to an informed electorate. The normalization comes from “political, religious or economic agendas of authority.”
Native Americans are not anti-science
According to Salon, authors Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker, the Native Americans, or American Indians, have fewer reasons to be anti-science than most and there is a history of “science…used in service of U.S. political agendas to dispossess them of their lands and subjugate them.”
Jason Antrosio, Professor of Anthropology at Hartwick College, claimed “many Native Americans refuse to participate in genetic studies,” where there seems to be a “belief
that Indigenous Americans somehow owe their DNA to genetics studies…”
“…and that when they disagree, they are automatically deemed to be against science.” The authors note the case of astronomy, which appears to be one of the first sciences. They state the commonality of all people, at one time or another and as with Indigenous peoples, through reading “the heavens to keep track of time.”
Other primates can read minds like humans
According to Science Magazine, there’s a classic experiment to test for theory of mind (ToM), which is “the ability to attribute desires, intentions, and knowledge to others.” That is, the test is for the ability to have an internal model of another mind.
Humans were thought to be unique in this capacity. As it turns out, other primates might have this ability that, to a limited or less great extent than, human beings. In particular, there’s the phenomena of knowing when someone holds a false belief, a counterfactual view
It is an ability “believed to underlie deception, empathy, teaching, and perhaps even language. But three species of great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans” can tell if an individual has a false belief.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 