Don't let it happen again
This gave me chills. Carl Sagan contemplates the possibility of the loss of past discoveries. While on the surface of it, it seems unlikely, and most people will say, "That could only happen in Islamic fundamentalist cultures", keep in mind that there are organizations here in the U.S. devoted to rolling back the Enlightenment.
Hat tip: Pharyngula
4 comments:
It was Christians who flayed Hypatia (in a church, no less!) and burned the Library of Alexandria, mot Muslims. That happened in 415 CE, well before Mohamed -- he died in 632 CE.
Indeed it was the Christians. I apologize, my intent was not to point out that Muslims were responsible for the burning of Alexandria, but rather to point out the bias in our society to assume that the anti-civilization and anti-intellectual forces in the 21st century are solely from Islamic fundamentalists. There are religious folks of many persuasions that are interested in destroying scientific knowledge.
Gotcha. I shouldn't have jumped to a conclusion.
Backsliding into superstition and ignorance can come from many sources--and does.
A nice coincidental post; as I note on my site, I finally picked up Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. Great stuff.
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