Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mcnc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!bch From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Dark Ages Message-ID: <2398@mcnc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 13:09:23 EST Article-I.D.: mcnc.2398 Posted: Sun Dec 2 13:09:23 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 06:36:41 EST References: <729@oliven.UUCP>Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service Lines: 61 Summary: In article esk@wucs.UUCP (Eric Kaylor) writes: >Just a historical note here. At least in my history books, the dark ages >are referred to as the time from the fall of Rome to the early medeival >period, i.e. 500-1200. Far from having 'caused' the dark ages, the church >was probably one of the few factors that saved much of civilization during >this time of turmoil. The inquisition was mostly a factor during the late >medeival and rennaissance periods. Although organized religion has been >responsible for many problems, the dark ages are not one of them. Agreed, the Roman Church didn't 'cause' the dark ages, the sources of that long period of human stagnation are too complex to lay on one component of civilization. It can, in fact, be said to have 'saved' civilization -- if by that you mean locked up and threw away the key. The Church was simply more interested in spreading Christianity than knowledge. While much was maintained in monastary libraries, it was generally inaccessible to any but certain of the church heirarchy. If any group can be said to have saved civilization for a time, it is the Moslems (notably the Abassiaean Caliphs) who maintained and expanded on Greek philosophy, developed algebra, and built the foundations for what we now know as science. Unfortunately, we can also hold the Caliph of Egypt responsible for the burning of the library at Alexandria, clearly one of the great losses in history. Both cases are illustrative of the problem when religious forces take complete control of the educational system. Knowledge gets somehow divided into to categories -- heretical and orthodox. To paraphrase the rationale behind the burning of the Alexandrian library, "if it isn't in the inerrant-book-of-your-choice, it's heretical. If it is in the interrant-book-of-your-choice, it's redundant." One has to be very careful in pointing to creationism as the possible precursor to a 'new Dark Ages' (which is, I think, what we're talking about here.) I've seen little evidence that creationists actually want to destroy knowledge by burning books (though there is some, which frightens me.) The real danger of the creationist goal, the teching of creationism side-by-side with evolution in the school, is the dilution of discipline in scientific inquiry. More than a collection of hypotheses, facts and relationships, the conduct of science is a way of thinking about the natural world which requires self-discipline in proceeding from a set of stated assumptions to a set of tentatively drawn conclusions. Along the way there are lots of hurdles, pitfalls, shortcuts and reasonably subtle traps which one needs to become aware of and avoid. My experience has been that most creationists and many evolutionists are really unaware of scientific conduct and its implications. I attribute this to massive failures already in the educational system in teaching science as a way of thinking. Were the conduct of science well-taught in schools then I would have absolutely no objection to the teaching of creationist principles. Unfortunately it is not and that, more than any notion of competition between science and religion, theories and non-theories, bodes ill for the development of civilization. -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch