I don't think I'd call it censorship, what Dglenn is talking about. I'd call it truth in labeling. Letting Creationism's statement that it is science stand is as disingenuous as letting them claim it's math. As my father, an esteemed working research scientist and fervent agnostic said, "Engineering answers the What. Science answers the How. Religion answers the Why; Why is above my pay grade."
But this is the thing I keep coming up against. There is a difference between "label it correctly" and "stamp it out." (Okay, a label can be a stamp, but I'm fairly sure that's not what dglenn meant.) "Stamp it out" means get rid of it, stop it happening...censor it. Let's not be afraid of naming what we want to do, if we truly want to do it.
As I note below, the issue (for the reasonable segment of folks; there certainly are a share of people who want to eliminate the concept, but that's not me) is the insistence of Creationists on teaching their material in science curricula. Since it's not only completely unsupported by scientific evidence, but the theory of evolution (and of abiogenesis, which is the ACTUAL scientific theory dealing with the creation of life) IS supported by scads of evidence, this is a problem.
If supporters of Creationism (ID, etc.) want to teach it as literature, myth, or religious belief, that's fine. But science classes are right out. So is any kind of state support (e.g., the advertising money for a Creation museum provided by Mike Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas). If a Creation Museum is fully privately supported and in no way purports to be scientific (i.e., claims that "this is all belief with no scientific evidence"), then why not? The one that, for example, Scalzi (and others) mocked didn't do that -- it claimed that theirs was the one and only Truth, and that evolution and abiogenesis were discredited, which is WHY they were mocked.
Shorter me: dglenn and kathrynt's point about labeling it correctly.
I don't want to stamp out the beliefs; I want to stamp out the fraud or the egregious error (hey, it might be the second sometimes) of misrepresenting those beliefs as science.
My main point is that pseudo-science is the misrepresentation of something else as science -- often deliberately by the initial perpetrators, then mistakenly echoed/perpetuated by the gullible. (Except that in the specific case of creationism, it seems an awful lot of the folks spreading it are being as intentionally deceitful as the instigators.)
I think that the world would be poorer without some of these ideas in it (though I know a couple of rationalist-materialist friends and acquaintences will disagree) ... but I do not think we would lose anything of value by insisting that magic be called magic, religion be called religion, gut feelings be called gut feelings, and only science be called science.
Since you've raised the censorship issue (I hadn't said anything about which means are justifed in the cause of stamping out pseudo-science yet): I'm pretty sure that laws against fraud and false advertising are not censorship in a legal sense, but you raise an interesting point -- do they count as an acceptable-to-most-people form of censorhip in a philosophical sense, or are they inherently in a different class? (I would hope that pseudo-science could be stamped out through education rather than censorious policies anyhow.)
Thing is, if we label things correctly, that will have the effect of doing away with pseudo-science, because pseudo-science is mislabelling. If you say that astrology is occult divination, then it is either superstition or mysticism, not pseudo-science. If you say that astrology works because God is putting clues there for us to peek at if we want and ignore otherwise, then it is religion, not pseudo-science. If you claim that astrology works because the gravitational effects of planets several light-minutes distant affect the development and functioning of our cells to a greater degree than immediate environmental factors, quantum 'noise' in the electrical and chemical processes, and genetics, then you have pseudo-science -- all the more so if you invent (or distort) references from astronomers and physicists to make that claim sound like it's backed up by physics. We do not have to abolish astrology in order to do away with pseudo-science.
Creationism attracts a larger share of criticism and pushback than, say, Hinduism, because creationists are actively attempting to get religious ideas taught in science class by turning religion into pseudo-science. Folks content to teach religion in church or temple instead of science class don't get the same kind of response.
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If supporters of Creationism (ID, etc.) want to teach it as literature, myth, or religious belief, that's fine. But science classes are right out. So is any kind of state support (e.g., the advertising money for a Creation museum provided by Mike Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas). If a Creation Museum is fully privately supported and in no way purports to be scientific (i.e., claims that "this is all belief with no scientific evidence"), then why not? The one that, for example, Scalzi (and others) mocked didn't do that -- it claimed that theirs was the one and only Truth, and that evolution and abiogenesis were discredited, which is WHY they were mocked.
Shorter me:
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My main point is that pseudo-science is the misrepresentation of something else as science -- often deliberately by the initial perpetrators, then mistakenly echoed/perpetuated by the gullible. (Except that in the specific case of creationism, it seems an awful lot of the folks spreading it are being as intentionally deceitful as the instigators.)
I think that the world would be poorer without some of these ideas in it (though I know a couple of rationalist-materialist friends and acquaintences will disagree) ... but I do not think we would lose anything of value by insisting that magic be called magic, religion be called religion, gut feelings be called gut feelings, and only science be called science.
Since you've raised the censorship issue (I hadn't said anything about which means are justifed in the cause of stamping out pseudo-science yet): I'm pretty sure that laws against fraud and false advertising are not censorship in a legal sense, but you raise an interesting point -- do they count as an acceptable-to-most-people form of censorhip in a philosophical sense, or are they inherently in a different class? (I would hope that pseudo-science could be stamped out through education rather than censorious policies anyhow.)
Thing is, if we label things correctly, that will have the effect of doing away with pseudo-science, because pseudo-science is mislabelling. If you say that astrology is occult divination, then it is either superstition or mysticism, not pseudo-science. If you say that astrology works because God is putting clues there for us to peek at if we want and ignore otherwise, then it is religion, not pseudo-science. If you claim that astrology works because the gravitational effects of planets several light-minutes distant affect the development and functioning of our cells to a greater degree than immediate environmental factors, quantum 'noise' in the electrical and chemical processes, and genetics, then you have pseudo-science -- all the more so if you invent (or distort) references from astronomers and physicists to make that claim sound like it's backed up by physics. We do not have to abolish astrology in order to do away with pseudo-science.
Creationism attracts a larger share of criticism and pushback than, say, Hinduism, because creationists are actively attempting to get religious ideas taught in science class by turning religion into pseudo-science. Folks content to teach religion in church or temple instead of science class don't get the same kind of response.
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