I believe there's an excuse for the Salem people - they were off their heads
on the effects of eating mouldy bread - maybe you'd best check bread supplies
to government offices ?  or mould in the air-con ?

Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>:

> The "Founding Fathers" were indeed an exceptional group of educated men and
> they lived long enough to rebel, create and serve in the government they
> invented.  We haven't seen their likes for a long time.
>
> They were definately not the Cotton Mathers of Massachusetts who is like so
> many of the present day neo-Puritans.
> The Puritans of old Salem went on a witch hunt.  The dark unenlightened side
> of our history is active again, opposing science and spreading superstition.
>
> Ray
>
> Rayilyn Brown
> Board Member AZNPF
> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
> [log in to unmask]
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 11:37 AM
> Subject: Re: Age of "Unenlightenment" could continue
>
>
> > That's odd, given that America was populated by people who got restive
> > with
> > living in Europe, indicating they were the more innovative members of
> > their
> > society.
> > Didn't current Americans inherit their grandparents willingness to look
> > over
> > the horizon ?
> >
> > Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>:
> >
> >> Referencing historical backaground:  the thinkers of the 17th century
> >> "Age
> >> of Genius" produced those of the 18th century Age of Reason or The
> >> Enlightenment which produced the US Constitution.  I thought the religion
> >> vs. science thing was pretty much over with the Scopes trial in the
> >> 1920's
> >> even though Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in his science
> >> class.
> >> George Bush has spearheaded a new Age of Unreason and his faith-based
> >> policies have cost us PWP's dearly.
> >> Ray
> >>
> >> Blumner: Could another scientific illiterate replace Bush?
> >> By Robyn Blumner
> >> Tribune Media Services
> >> Article Last Updated: 12/08/2007 12:48:25 PM MST
> >>
> >> What happened to Christine Comer makes me wonder whether America is
> >> really
> >> emerging from its Age of Unenlightenment.
> >>
> >> Comer was forced to resign her position as director of science at the
> >> Texas
> >> Education Agency because she forwarded an e-mail about a lecture on the
> >> fallacy of "intelligent design" and creationism as a scientifically
> >> grounded
> >> alternative to evolution. Comer, who spent 27 years as a science teacher
> >> and
> >> had been in her post at the agency for nine years, was told that the
> >> agency
> >> must remain "neutral" on the subject.
> >>
> >>     Neutral? Are they kidding? On the one hand you have a theory that has
> >> been successfully tested using the scientific method for more than 100
> >> years
> >> and whose accuracy has been repeatedly affirmed by the vast fields of
> >> biology and genetics. On the other hand you have a hypothesis that relies
> >> on
> >> supernatural intervention for which there has been no legitimate
> >> scientific
> >> testing or objective proof.
> >>
> >>     Florida is also now in a dust-up because the teaching of evolution
> >> has
> >> been included in its proposed science standards. Donna Callaway, a member
> >> of
> >> the state Board of Education - appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush - said
> >> she'll oppose the new standards because of it.
> >>
> >>     Really folks, in this information age, when scientific innovation is
> >> the
> >> key to our nation's future, we don't have the time to be mucking around
> >> in
> >> this tired debate. You don't produce doctors and scientists by teaching
> >> science from the Bible. Period.
> >>
> >>     Not surprisingly, a former advisor to George Bush as Texas governor,
> >> who
> >> also worked in his federal Department of Education, provoked the Comer
> >> witch
> >> hunt. Lizzette Reynolds, deputy commissioner for statewide policy and
> >> programs, complained about Comer's e-mail and called for her termination.
> >>
> >>     These are the kinds of dim-witted people that have been elevated to
> >> key
> >> posts in the Bush administration, marking it as one promoting loopy
> >> religiosity over fact and evidence.
> >>
> >>     Think about some of the administration's policies that have emanated
> >> from President Bush's radical religious views:
> >>
> >>     The suspension of most federal funding for embryonic stem-cell
> >> research.
> >> (Bush to Parkinson's patients: Drop dead!)
> >>     The spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on demonstrably
> >> useless
> >> abstinence-only sex education. (Why Johnny has herpes.)
> >>     The effort to prevent emergency contraception from being sold over
> >> the
> >> counter. (How to guarantee increased abortions.)
> >>     And the retraction of appropriated international family planning
> >> money.
> >> (Ditto.)
> >>
> >>   Bush's Iraq "crusade" is perhaps the most disturbing example of his
> >> Christian Manichaeism, but even his administration's long-standing
> >> antagonism toward the evidence of manmade global warming has religious
> >> overtones, with a hint of The-End-Times-Are-Nigh lack of interest in its
> >> consequences.
> >>
> >>     Yet in every case where the administration ignored objective fact or
> >> science in favor of religion, Bush took this country down the wrong path,
> >> harming people's lives and endangering health.
> >>     The "salvation" for those of us in the reality-based community is
> >> that
> >> the Bush administration is soon looking at its last year in office, and
> >> maybe, finally, the war on science is also coming to an end.
> >>     But maybe not.
> >>
> >>     Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is gaining as a GOP presidential
> >> contender. He may be a friendly face, but the ordained Baptist minister
> >> is
> >> no friend to reason. In the Republican primary debate last May, he was
> >> one
> >> of three in the field to raise his hand to proclaim that he does not
> >> believe
> >> in evolution.
> >>
> >>     In a later debate, Huckabee rejected for himself the belief that we
> >> are
> >> "descendants of a primate," magnanimously suggesting that it was OK if
> >> others chose to believe it. Gee, thanks.
> >>
> >>     Pretty much all the presidential candidates, both Democrats and
> >> Republicans, are freely spouting off about the centrality of faith in
> >> their
> >> lives (with Mitt Romney promising that his is not too weird), but it is
> >> only
> >> Huckabee who is the dogma-driven real deal - a man who as president would
> >> follow in Bush's anti-science, anti-intellectual footsteps, a man who
> >> would
> >> feel "chosen" for the job and licensed by a power higher than the will of
> >> the voters.
> >>
> >>     The mission-zeal with which Bush has arrogated power and his maniacal
> >> unwillingness to compromise is packaged righteousness, pure and simple.
> >> Remember that Bush said he appealed to a "higher father" for strength
> >> when
> >> journalist Bob Woodward asked him if he'd consulted his father before
> >> invading Iraq.
> >>
> >>     Who needs information grounded in experience when you have prayer and
> >> prophesy?
> >>
> >>     And Huckabee would be Bush redux.
> >>
> >>     Here is something scary-ignorant. Last week, the Web site
> >> ChristiaNet.com, which bills itself as "the world's largest Christian
> >> portal," cheered the results of a survey it took finding that half of its
> >> 1,400 Christian respondents said that dinosaurs and man roamed the Earth
> >> at
> >> the same time.
> >>
> >>     Putting aside that the schoolteachers of these people should be
> >> slapped
> >> silly, these are Huckabee's peeps. We can't afford to put this kind of
> >> backward thinking and scientific illiteracy in the driver's seat again.
> >>     ---
> >>     You can respond to Robyn's column at [log in to unmask]
> >>
> >> Rayilyn Brown
> >> Board Member AZNPF
> >> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
> >> [log in to unmask]
> >>
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