'However questionable the moral or spiritual progress of humanity may be,Quotations from: 'The flight from Science and Reason',Science and antiscience
1996, P. R. Gross, N. Levitt and M. W. Lewis, Editors,
Annals of the New York Academy of Science, vol. 775'HUMAN BEINGS DO NOT NATURALLY THINK SCIENTIFICALLY.'
[Lewis Wopert, 'The Unnatural Nature of Science', in James Alcock, "The Beleif Engine",
from Rothman, S. & Lichter, S.R., 'Is Environmental Cancer a Political Disease?' p. 231
science has vastly enhanced our capacities and perspectives.'
[D.R. Herschbach, D.R., 'Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads', p.11.]'A department of crystallography is no place for believers in the psychic power of crystals.
An astronomical observatory is no place for people
who believe that the planets are pushed by angels.
A biology department would close its doors to anyone who rejects genetics.No one who denies the existance of Nazi concentration camps
or Communist labor camps
would be able to teach history at a decent University.No mathematics department would tolerate anyone
holding that logic is a tool of male domination ...
No Jungian psychology is taught in any self-respecting department of Psychology.Whoever believes in homeopathy cannot make it into an accredited medical school.
To generalize: neither proven falsities nor lies
are tolerated in any scientific or technological institution.
And for a good reason, too: namely, because such institutions
are set up with the specific purpose
of finding, refining, applying, and teaching truths.....we must also teach that ignorance can be gradually overcome by rigorous research,
that falsity can be detected, that partial truth can be attained and perfected .....Rationality is .. a necessary component of democratic life,
just as irrationality is a necessary ingredient
of the dressage of a faithful loyal subject of a totalitarian regime.Every academic body has the duty to be intolerant to both counterculture and counterfeit culture.
[M. Bunge, 'In Praise of Intolerance to Charlatanism in Academia', p.96.]'..Only through scientific investigation
can we know the origin and magnitude the planet's problems..
only through science can we devise less harmful technologies
that will allow us to continue to enjoy the fruits of modernity..
..without undercutting natural systems in the process.
By attacking science and reason, ecophilosophers assail their potential allies,
jeopardizing the environmental cause....The overriding attraction of a postmodern attitude
is that it annuls the inconvenient requirement of empirical confirmation...all forms of modernity generate profound discomfort
among large segments of the population...
Antimodernism has perennial appeal...More significant global challenges to modernity are associated with reactionary politics,
identified with religious fundamentalism [Christian .., Hindu .., and Muslim ..]
and extremist nationalism, which could easily turn into full-fledged fascism ....radical ecophilosophy itself has deeply conservative roots..
. most evident in the rejection of modernity
and the romantic longing for a premodern existance....before the population decline of the fourteenth century
many european societies were approaching local ecological limits
and were suffering severe consequencies.
When one look at deforestation and the steady diminution of wildlife,
the evidence of premodern European ecological despoliation is overwhelming.
[M.W Lewis, 'Radical Environmental Philosophy and the Assault on Reason', p.209.]'Liberalism and Science are both products of the Enlightenment..
...both are relativist and pragmatic...
liberals and scientists make few presumptions about absolute truth.'
[Jackman, S., ' Liberalism, Public Opinion, and their Critics:
Some Lessons for Defending Science', p.346.]On the contrary [the worst error]:
'The essence of religious fundamentalism is its claim to absolute truth.'
[Gilkey, L., 'The Flight from Reason: The Religious Right', p.523.]