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Saturday, May 10, 2014

Why Science Education Doesn't Matter

Science News recently had an article lamenting the sorry state of science education. This is actually just an example of a larger class of articles, in which scientists get upset that no one values them in the way they feel they ought to be valued (whether anyone really is valued in that way is a subject for another post).
As per usual, there was some moderate grousing about the religious right in the comments. So, I spent some time pointing out the facts about science education, to wit, complaints about the state of science education imply the existence of God.
After all, if you are an atheist, if you really believe the universe is just random and meaningless, then you have to recognize that whatever meaning you want to assign to your life is purely idiosyncratic.
If you recognize that your own life-meaning is peculiar to you alone, and no one else is bound to accept or believe it, then you cannot logically be very concerned about the state of science education in regards to other people. 
They do what they want, you do what you want, none of it ultimately means anything anyway. We all just fiddle with whatever we like until we die. Wine, women, song, science - each one is an equally valueless way of passing the time while we wait for self-awareness to cease, wait for our components to collapse back into entropy. 
Of course, you can argue that since you can COMPEL them to be interested, you have a RIGHT to force them to be interested: "might makes right". Which, in an atheistic universe is as reasonable a principle as any other, I suppose. 

But if that is your argument, and if you want to deal in reality, then you have to recognize that science education is thereby essentially a violent imposition of your beliefs on others who do not share them.

For some reason, atheistic science types violently reject the idea that their work is ultimately meaningless. Too much Christianity in their cosmos, I suspect. 

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