Home to Roost...

Newsflash: there are no major differences in the neoliberalism machinations of "no child's behind left" and "race to the bottom." Middle and high school teachers are tasked to "teach-to-the-test" (and told to lie they are not) if they want continued employment. With that coerced "foundation," it's no wonder today's college graduates are not developing the critical thinking skills and problem-solving acumen necessary for global competitiveness. We are all hostage to the testing-industrial-complex (TIC) that thinks once we've cajoled children in Pavlovian fashion to regurgitate answers, we'll still be the "shining city on a hill" of our own self-deluded mythology and design the next great invention. The faux controversies between evolution, the age of the universe and "intelligent design" only throws gasoline on a glowing funeral pyre that was once our country, and confuses the hell out of a lot of young people. Evidence shows others have moved on and advanced beyond our demented imaginations and fantasies.

Are science and religion doomed to eternal "warfare," or can they just get along? Philosophers, theologians, scientists, and atheists debate this subject endlessly (and often, angrily). We hear a lot less from economists on the matter, however. But in a recent paper, Princeton economist Roland Bénabou and two colleagues unveiled a surprising finding that would at least appear to bolster the "conflict" camp: Both across countries and also across US states, higher levels of religiosity are related to lower levels of scientific innovation.

"Places with higher levels of religiosity have lower rates of scientific and technical innovation, as measured by patents per capita," comments Bénabou. He adds that the pattern persists "when controlling for differences in income per capita, population, and rates of higher education."

That's the most salient finding from the paper by Bénabou and his colleagues, which uses an economic model to explore how scientific innovation, religiosity, and the power of the state interact to form different "regimes." The three kinds of regimes that they identify: a secular, European-style regime in which religion has very little policy influence and science garners great support; a repressive, theocratic regime in which the state and religion merge to suppress science; and a more intermediate, American-style regime in which religion and science both thrive, with the state supporting science and religions (mostly) trying to accommodate themselves to its findings.

Mother Jones: Study: Science and Religion Really Are Enemies After All,
Chris Mooney

Related book links:

Susan Jacoby (see video embed) - The Age of American Unreason:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson, 1816

The three Great Premises of Idiot America, Charles P. Pierce:

· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units
· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough
· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

Eric Fromm - Escape From Freedom:

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm’s work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

Tomorrow: Peace Dividend