[milo]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

There have, over the years, been an extremely large number of different people trying a wide variety of different methods to try to educate people about the sciences, and the scientific method. They have, in many cases, completely failed. How this, in your mind, points to a failure of an individual argument is beyond me, and it completely ignores the lack of other arguments. The trend is obvious.

I'm unsure what your point is or where this came from since i was evidently referring to Dawkins in that passage, but yeah id say that the statement 'people aren't accepting this and don't listen to us' is a pretty obvious failure to convert.

The main problem is that most people do not understand how science works, or what it is.

The scientific method is merely a way of observing and predicting trends based on experimental evidence. This would, for example, include the "supernatural", if evidence for such things existed. To quote Alpha Centauri:

This is not entirely accurate, as universal skepticism is a vital part of science, but it's close enough.

Again im unsure where this has come from since i've never questioned the scientific method, that has nothing to do with my argument. I'm not denying darwinism, i just don't care whether anyone else accepts it or not as long as they leave me alone (which they do).

Furthermore, many of the more outspoken scientists, no matter their methodology, are subject to both threatened and actual violence from some of the more extreme religious groups. Dawkins certainly didn't start this "war", if war it is.

I never said war!!! Religious violence against scientists hasn't been an issue in...centuries surely? Every case i can think of and the overwhelming majority (assuming i missed any) is the result of animal rights nutters.

The Catholic Church's view on contraceptives as a method for STI prevention actively harm those who follow its teachings. This isn't a "What do you prefer? Red or Blue?" argument, unless you find the colour blue, for example, going around killing people.

Why should i care? I have an anarchist pov on this. Their life their choice, its no different to me than someone preaching against drug use because it harms people.

Mellowed out hippy types would generally be the people who'd support the wishy washy jehovah's witness-style argument, unless you think the opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons by said group was down to the fact that they weren't being used to kill enough people. You're just lazy.

I'm part of a hippy splinter faction, we disagreed on the big book of what hippies should be and formed our own ideology.

I have no idea what nuclear weapons has to do with any of this, assuming you're vaguely bringing in al-queda, i'd say that geo-political factors have a much greater role in the support for AQ than religion.