Ben Carson: Religion is needed to interpret science because ‘maybe it’s just propaganda’

[DonViejo]

Source: RawStory

DAVID EDWARDS
01 MAR 2015 AT 13:56 ET

Possible Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson suggested over the weekend that religion was necessary for testing scientific theories because the science could be “propaganda.”

On Sunday, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Carson, a former neurosurgeon, how science could coexist with his conservative Christian principles.

“A person’s religious beliefs are the things that make them who they are, gives them a direction in their life,” Carson opined. “But I do not believe that religious beliefs should dictate one’s public policies and stances.”

“I find, a very good measure of correlation between my religious beliefs and my scientific beliefs — people say, how can you be a scientist, how can you be a surgeon if you don’t believe in certain things?” he continued. “Maybe those things aren’t scientific. Maybe it’s just propaganda.”

-snip-

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/ben-carson-religion-is-needed-to-interpret-science-because-maybe-its-just-propaganda/

[Fred Sanders]

1. The "scientific theories" that permitted freaky Dr. No to do heart transplants was not tested by religion.

Worked out pretty good tested by actual fucking reality.

Remember all the science you learned in medical school, all untested by religion, are you wanting all of that to be tested now?

The Scopes Trial is over. You religious freak jobs lost. And will lose again forever and ever, amen.


How does such a person still think himself worthy of leadership of anything other than his tiny religious cult?

How does such a person still be seen by any media as anything other than a viable candidate for a good mocking?

[rickford66]

8. I think the religious freaks won the Scopes tial. n/t

[Panich52]

11. Scopes was found guilty, but later overturned on tech

[rickford66]

13. Agreed. Scopes was found guilty at the trial. n/t

[Fred Friendlier]

46. News Flash

While Carson's beliefs are ridiculous and an utter embarrassment to American Civilization, his tiny religious cult has a lot more adherents and a lot more influence than does atheism. I think we need to take care not to get so caught up in sneering and self satisfaction that we make it easy for the bad guys to eat our collective lunch.

[Fred Sanders]

49. You be friendly with the science deniers and Man in the Sky folks, I will continue my snark, OK?

[Arugula Latte]

54. Yes, yes. We all know there is NEVER a correct time to say anything

remotely unpleasant about religion. NEVER! Jamais! Perish the thought!

[gregcrawford]

2. This IS the 21st century, right?

Then how the bloody blue blazes can any sane, rational person believe this shit?!!?

[LiberalElite]

3. "A person’s religious beliefs are the things that make them who they are, gives them a direction..."

So, O learned physician, if a person has no religious beliefs, what makes them who they are and how are they directed?

[DetlefK]

5. Come on. Atheists worship Satan. Everybody knows that!

You made a classic mistake there: You cannot reason with religious beliefs because they are not part of the realm of logic. That's the core of religion: Believing, no matter what the facts say.

I have read an interesting theory that religion would actually collapse if the existence of God were somehow proven. From that point on, believing in him would no longer be a mission, a statement, a sacrifice, a noble deed, a glorious struggle against doubts, a meaning for your horrible hopeless life. From that point on, you and everybody else would know that God exists.

You know that Earth made and supports mankind. Do you worship Earth?
You know that electricity keeps our civilization running. Do you worship electromagnetism?

[LiberalElite]

9. True. I should'a known better. nt

[Orsino]

23. And which specific religious tenets taught Carson to whore for Fox News? n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

47. he thinks he's Mary Magdalene.

[daleo]

42. Sometime, it directs them to kill people

Actually, religion does that rather a lot.

[HoosierCowboy]

53. Right now that direction

is on a plane to Turkey and will cross the border into the Islamic State....

[Gore1FL]

4. A better use for religion in medicine is to transubstantiate internal organs from bread.

After all, what body would reject the internal organs of the risen lord and savior?

[Maineman]

6. The idea that science might just be propaganda suggests ignorance of what science is.

Is this guy Carson an MD? MDs are practitioners who have taken several basic science courses. They are not scientists. Neither am I, but I know what a scientist is.

[bananas]

30. Unfortunately, a lot of science is propaganda.

For example, tobacco industry scientists routinely skewed their results:

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/01/11261/tobacco-company-misrepresented-danger-cigarettes-study-finds

Tobacco Company Misrepresented Danger from Cigarettes, Study Finds
Toxicity Levels Obscured, Increasing Risks of Heart Disease, Cancer
By Elizabeth Fernandez on January 06, 2012 | Email | Print

A new UCSF analysis of tobacco industry documents shows that Philip Morris USA manipulated data on the effects of additives in cigarettes, including menthol, obscuring actual toxicity levels and increasing the risk of heart, cancer and other diseases for smokers.

Tobacco industry information can’t be taken at face value, the researchers conclude. They say their work provides evidence that hundreds of additives, including menthol, should be eliminated from cigarettes on public health grounds.

<snip>

They also found, after obtaining evidence that additives increased toxicity, that tobacco scientists adjusted the protocol for presenting their results in a way that obscured these increases.

<snip>

The results of “Project MIX” were first published as four papers in a 2002 edition of Food and Chemical Toxicology, a journal whose editor and many members of its editorial board had financial ties to the tobacco industry. While Philip Morris was trying to get the papers published, the company scientist who led Project Mix sent an email to a colleague describing the peer review process as an inside job.

<snip>

You see the same thing with the nuclear industry, pharmaceutical industry, fossil fuel industries, etc.

That's why watchdog groups like CMD, UCS, and others are so important.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/
http://www.ucsusa.org/
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/04/beyond-coal-plant-activism

[bvf]

36. Manipulating research results

and protocols in service of a particular viewpoint definitely ain't science.

Otherwise, I agree completely.

[Fred Friendlier]

45. a lot of science?

How about "some science" is propaganda - and let us not forget the obvious fact that the bad corporate science was overthrown not by cynical activists but by honest scientists doing better science.

Going down the road of "a lot of science is propaganda" allows people to sneer at results they don't like, simply because they don't like them. Down that road lies disaster: dead people and shattered economies.

[Cryptoad]

7. Vatican should have let the Scienist free.....

its been downhill ever since

[appalachiablue]

10. Wonder if his medical training at Johns Hopkins University was science based or just propaganda.

He's enjoying this and doing fine.

[Panich52]

12. And just what part of religion is NOT propaganda?

[Arugula Latte]

20. Well, it is ... uh ...

I've got nuthin'.

[blkmusclmachine]

14. Crazy talk.

[lastlib]

15. "Science flies you to the Moon. Religion flies you into buildings."

No, "Dr." C -Arse- on, it's the RELIGION that's propaganda, NOT science. It's the job of SCIENCE to interpret science, you delusional fool.

[William Seger]

16. “Maybe those things aren’t scientific. Maybe it’s just propaganda."

Science is the method that enables us to distinguish fact from propaganda, idiot.

[wolfie001]

17. Let's bring back "Trial by ordeal"

Surely the big guy upstairs will point the way. This clown is a complete jackass outside of a medical facility. I'm sure his primary motivation is to remove ANY impediment between his (the doctor's) wallet and the patient. Maximize profits at ANY expense. No way he's that dumb. But the average voter seems to be.....dumb that is.

[hifiguy]

35. Sir Bedevere: "And what do we use to burn witches??"

Angry peon: "MORE WITCHES!!!!"

[Adrahil]

18. Oh there's propaganda going on here for sure.... n/t

[MrScorpio]

19. At this point it's clear that he's pandering to the nut jobs

Hell, if he ran as a GOPer just ten years ago, he wouldn't have to sink this low in order earn support.

It's clear, if anything, that he's trying to out-crazy the craziest fucking Teabagger because he doesn't want his own blackness to cast doubt on whether he's worthy enough to support.

He must have made a conscious decision to look like he's lost his fucking mind.

[immoderate]

29. I think he really is that wacko.

He is a Republican. That's how they think. If anything, I sense that he's reigning in his wackiness to seek the nomination. Herman Cain and Alan Keyes are also smart guys. Are they "pandering to the nut jobs" also? I think they say what they mean. Being smart does not preclude wacko.

Please note that I have been DU for long time, and this is the first time I have found reason to express disagreement with you.

--imm

[MrScorpio]

37. Whatever he's doing can be percieved in different ways

So any disagreement here is no problem.

Neither one of us really know what's going on in that head of his.

[immoderate]

39. Uh-huh. I'm just guessing.

But I still think he's a wacko.

--imm

[Bluenorthwest]

50. I love this new trope-Republicans used to be reasonable- in 1992 RNC Keynote Speech was Pat

Buchanan. Buchanan was Reagan's Director of Communications. Buchanan was a candidate that year, along with Ron Paul, Harold Stassen and David Duke he lost to George HW Bush who was then supported by Republican but defeated by Democrat Bill Clinton. I voted for Clinton. Republicans back then were fully bat shit crazy, Duke, Paul Buchanan crazy. They were not 'moderates' back then and voting for them then was the same as voting for them now. Same.
Here are some excepts from Buchanan's 92 RNC speech. This is what anyone who was a Republican in 92 was responding to:
"George Bush is a defender of right-to-life, and lifelong champion of the Judeo-Christian values and beliefs upon which this nation was built. Mr Clinton, however, has a different agenda.
At its top is unrestricted abortion on demand. When the Irish-Catholic governor of Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, asked to say a few words on behalf of the 25 million unborn children destroyed since Roe v Wade, he was told there was no place for him at the podium of Bill Clinton’s convention, no room at the inn.

Yet a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that convention and exult: “Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history.” And so they do.

Bill Clinton supports school choice–but only for state-run schools. Parents who send their children to Christian schools, or Catholic schools, need not apply.

Elect me, and you get two for the price of one, Mr Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse. And what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have a right to sue their parents, and she has compared marriage as an institution to slavery–and life on an Indian reservation.

Well, speak for yourself, Hillary.

Friends, this is radical feminism. The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America–abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat–that’s change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country."
http://buchanan.org/blog/1992-republican-national-convention-speech-148

I suggest all Democrats review that speech when they feel like claiming that Reagan/Bush era Republicans were somehow 'better'. Revision of that history is not acceptable.

[Monk06]

21. There is no such thing as a 'scientific' belief. There is scientific method which produces

knowledge.

That process does not require you to believe anything.

Science is demonstrative not contemplative.

[yurbud]

22. the product of the method is tentative "beliefs" that can be discarded if better evidence

proves them wrong.

That can't be done with a religious belief.

[hifiguy]

34. Not only that, the essence of the scientific method is self-correction

when confronted with new data; constant objective testing is the crux of the scientific biscuit. Religion has been the same old tired horseshit for centuries and never changes or corrects itself no matter how overwhelming the evidence conclusively falsifying religulous claims about the world.

[Fred Friendlier]

44. I highly recommend Thomas S Kuhn

Reading and understanding the Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good step down the road to Wisdom.

[MisterP]

24. while it seems oddly true that anyone who tries to escape theology ends up leaping headfirst right

back into it, and the notion of an irredeemable conflict between science and religion is a canard debunked by anyone who's studied the matter for more than 5 seconds (and is currently held by the sort of chap that thinks Bush was too soft on the Muslim world); usually those preaching trying to tell us otherwise is insisting that technocracy is hale and hearty while showing us nothing but its dead bones

but, no, Ben. just, no

[Jefferson23]

25. What tone would be appropriate to combat this horse shit, I wonder. n/t

[Turbineguy]

26. Comedy

writes its self with these guys.

[bvf]

38. It's comedy until you realize

that there are actually people out there who eat this bullshit up and ask for more. Carson and his ilk wouldn't spout such crap otherwise.

[Half-Century Man]

27. I say the United States should suspend his license to practice medicine

At the least stop his ability to write prescriptions, I'd swear he found out how to write one for mescaline.

[Cary]

28. I saw this and wanted to puke.

I just don't know who sickened me more Carson or Todd.

Doctors are not scientists. They have studied science and they use things that science has uncovered in the art of the practice of medicine, but they aren't scientists. Ben Carson is a serious idiot and I would not let him anywhere near me with a scalpel.

[valerief]

31. Using religion to validate science? What a stupid, assholey thing to say. nt

[Doctor_J]

32. Gravity - Newton's Greatest Propaganda Hoax!

Hey, Ben. Go jump off the top of the sears tower and if you're right, you've got my vote.

[hifiguy]

33. This is so far beyond the cretinous, incredulous and imbecilic

it doesn't even deserve to be called wrong.

[YOHABLO]

40. Why does Meet the Press have Ben Carson on in the first place? Is he that relevant? He's crazy.

[shenmue]

41. Uhhhhhh

Duh.

[Fred Friendlier]

43. Ben Carson is an idiot

Ben Carson is a religious person.
Therefor, all religious persons are idiots. QED

Also, too, Raw Story.

[truthisfreedom]

48. "Not believing" versus "Believing." Foolishness.

We all know exactly what "propaganda" means. We also all know what science is. The search for truth will go on, despite the bizarre things happening in our society right now.

[Xipe Totec]

51. They need to go back and read the definition of the word propaganda

propaganda (n.)

1718, "committee of cardinals in charge of Catholic missionary work," short for Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "congregation for propagating the faith," a committee of cardinals established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is properly the ablative fem. gerundive of Latin propagare (see propagation). Hence, "any movement to propagate some practice or ideology" (1790). Modern political sense dates from World War I, not originally pejorative. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929.

Look up propaganda at Dictionary.com

So these yokels who invented the concept of propaganda are worried that science may be propaganda?

How absurd can you possibly get without cracking a smile?

[HoosierCowboy]

52. Not Enough...

...now for a GOP Candidate for President to just kiss Fundies on the backside, now the ante is up to a rim job. Which GOP candidate will be the first to put their tongue in???