If you’re a fan of Sagan, you might be interested to hear that he considered that “science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality”.

Religion might be noise for you, but for countless people across history, it has been what has helped them to cut through noise. Religion unequivocally does not contradict scientific thinking — what we understand as scientific thinking wouldn’t even exist today if not for religion.

Things don’t have to be a binary of religion vs science. Religion has so often been the driving inspiration for brilliant scientists across the world, for much of recorded history. And in parallel, there have been religious scholars who find spiritual awe and fulfillment in seeing scientific advances.

That definitely doesn’t mean that everything is always great between religion and science — I’m very much not a fan of things like evangelical Christians who claim that dinosaurs weren’t real, or the Taliban who prevent women from being educated. Those are examples of religion being used as a cudgel against science, but if we want to genuinely resist that kind of thing, it’s not productive to instead try to use science to bash religion. Our best resistance is to embrace the fact that science and religion can and do coexist, in many different shapes and forms.

Part of my stance here is pragmatic — I’m a scientist myself, and I am filled with dread when I see how anti-science rhetoric is flourishing nowadays, and I am resentful as hell towards the many religious assholes who are feeding that. However, if I direct my beef towards religion as a whole, then that’s a heckton of people that I’ve given up on trying to convince. I believe that the scientific method should be a tool that everyone has available in their toolbox, even if it’s not something their daily life often requires — it’s a useful perspective to have on hand no matter your background.

However, I’m realistically never going to convince someone to give up their faith in exchange for this tool, especially as I am not religious myself and thus don’t properly understand what purpose religion serves them. I can make a far more compelling case for science if it isn’t framed as something that seeks to displace their faith. And you never know, once someone does have scientific thinking as a tool in their toolbox, and they know how to use it, they might end up relying on it more and more. I personally know many scientists who have experienced this kind of journey. Though giving up on faith entirely isn’t required, as evidenced by the many excellent scientists I have known whose religious faith drives their passion for research — the best biochemistry tutor I ever had was even a reverend.

Science and religion are not incompatible, and there is evidence of that strewn across history and society. To ignore that fact would be to betray the principles of empiricism that the scientific method is built upon.

Is there a particular instance you’re referring to here? Because contrary to popular belief, the church has historically been big on investing in what we now call science.

For instance, although the trial of Galileo is often characterised as “big bad church holds us back because religion is opposed to heliocentrism”, there was actually a lot of legitimate scientific beef against Galileo. Although he ended up being right about heliocentrism, he didn’t really have good evidence to support his claims; He didn’t understand Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, and his telescope produced so many aberrant artifacts that astronomers who use it were reasonable to be dubious of his claims.

If you’d like to learn more, here’s an excellent video by Dr Fatima, an astrophysicist turned science communicator. The philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend also uses Galileo as a case study in his book Against Method

From what I’ve heard about the upcoming arc, I’m glad they’ve done it this way. Although S2 is shorter than expected, I’ve heard a lot of good things from manga readers about how well these episodes have fleshed out what, for many, was a rather forgettable string of chapters.

I really appreciate the OP of this (nontanne) for making me see the poetry in something I was familiar with, but had never considered in this way before. I think it actually works really well as a poem, and I feel like I’m going to remember this each time it’s extremely windy

I read a thing recently that argued that “purity” is one of the most distinctive thematic motifs in fascistic thinking, and examined how that is a means by which people can slide into right wing ideologies from an initially left wing position.

It was striking because it made it clock for me why there seems to be a “crunchy eco-leftist turns right wing” pipeline. To attempt to summarise some of the article and my own thoughts following it: A purity oriented framework of health situates “toxins” and the like as the Big Bad Other. Many of us are aware of how dangerous the notion of a Big Bad Other is if we’re thinking about people, but it can creep up with us in contexts like this because it doesn’t seem harmful initially. However, by thinking about health in this way, we train ourselves to think in terms of the Big Bad Other, and condition ourselves towards thinking about things in a black and white manner.

Not necessarily. There was a dude who was studying some plant and was measuring their leaves, and discovered that touching them to measure them stunted their growth. It confused him a lot at first.

I think the plant was mimosa pudica, but I will double check the story when I have had some sleep. I just wanted to add this briefly because it’s a very funny story. The dude was super confused when it happened, because I think that science didn’t realise the extent to which plants could detect and respond to touch at that time

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” - C. S. Lewis

And Steve probably wouldn’t blame you for that either. He’d just try to soften your heart by being his usual, earnestly enthusiastic self.

Damn, this thread (and replying to your comment in particular) just hit me with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. I’m so glad that I got to grow up at the time when I did, because now I have the privilege of grieving for Steve Irwin. Steve will always be a part of my fond childhood memories.

Oh my God, I fucking love this. I mean, I absolutely hate that this is the optimal way to pack 17 squares into a larger square such that the size of the larger square is minimised. However, I love that someone went to the effort of making a waffle iron plate for this. High effort shitposts like this give me life