Progress on ScienceDebate2008 : Pharyngula

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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Progress on ScienceDebate2008

Category: Politics
Posted on: December 27, 2007 10:20 AM, by PZ Myers

Well, they've got one Republican and one Democratic congressman to agree to co-chair a presidential debate on science, which is good news. The framework for the debate is coming together…now all they need is some debaters.

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Comments

Posted by: Lucy | December 27, 2007 11:39 AM

This makes me so happy...thanks for the good news, needed it...especially after what happened in Pakistan

Posted by: Chris Bell | December 27, 2007 11:51 AM

If you attend a university and you don't see your administration on the list of signatories - agitate.

Posted by: Arnaud | December 27, 2007 11:56 AM

Le Monde had a mention of this a few days ago in a piece about the dominance of religion in the US political landscape.

A group of scientists, including several thousands researchers and more than a dozen nobel prizes, are asking for a TV debate on science, environment, medicine and technology. This organisation, ScienceDebate2008, ask for all candidates to participate in at least one public discussion on these subjects. Lawrence Krauss .../... declared having been convinced of the necessity of this debate after hearing Mike Huckabee, ex republican governor of Arkansas and a baptist minister, defending creationism against darwinism.

Some good statistical data towards the end of the article:

In the society at large, the religious phenomena seems declining. According to polls taken by the Pew Research Centre and published in March, 45% of US citizen still say that praying is an important part of their daily life, 10% less than seven years ago. Between 2003 and 2007 the percentage of people who affirm never doubting the existence of god has lost 8 percentage points (still high at 61%). Pew Center analysts say that the '90s tendency of augmentation in religiosity, has been reversed. The proportion of agnostic Americans still stay infinitesimal (12%) but is in augmentation among young people: nearly 20% of whom are without religious affiliation or atheists.

How much of that is due to outspoken "militant" atheists, I wonder, and how much thanks to framing...

Posted by: danley | December 27, 2007 12:23 PM

Get Slimy Sal to chair. He's young republican, just like his cosmos.

Posted by: rp | December 27, 2007 12:39 PM

Between 2003 and 2007 the percentage of people who affirm never doubting the existence of god has lost 8 percentage points (still high at 61%).
Never doubting??? I never believed. I used to try to believe, when I was like 10 and my mother made my father haul me to Sunday school (luckily, he used to come back to get me afterwards), but I always thought it was just fairy stories, or maybe the history of delusional people, but I never did believe.

Posted by: Doug | December 27, 2007 12:49 PM

How much of that is due to outspoken "militant" atheists, I wonder, and how much thanks to framing...

My vote is education. That's how my spouse's and her siblings broke the chain. However, that's only the ones who have technical degrees. The non-technical siblings still believe in Jebus.

Posted by: Helblindi | December 27, 2007 12:59 PM

I will be mightily impressed if scienceblogia (is that the current term?) actually manages to pull this off - a science debate would be a far better proof of the power of the net community in these elections than mushy YouTube recordings of candidates and their loving families. I wish we'd have something like that over here...