In "Science and the Religious Right," biophysicist John Jagger discusses false scientific and social positions of the Religious Right, including the ideas that the earth is only six thousand years old, evolution never occurred, and the United States was founded as a Christian nation. At best, such stances of the Religious Right have produced extensive political turmoil; they undermine true understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

Many Americans know little science and are thus easily confused by such positions of religious fundamentalists. Jagger begins with a scientific primer for the intelligent and curious nonscientist, with simple explanations of such highly successful theories as relativity and evolution. He then discusses religion, explaining why many scientists become freethinkers after the models of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who did not believe in a personal God. He shows that, while mainstream religion largely accepts modern science, the Religious Right holds anti-science and anti-intellectual ideas that have great social and political consequence-they want to replace teaching of evolution in our public schools with creationist ideas that are totally unsupported by science.

"Science and the Religious Right" shows why knowledge of some basic science, as well as of correct religious history, is essential for understanding false stances of the Religious Right that threaten American values and scientific truth.

. . . human kind cannot bear very much reality. T. S. ELIOT, Four Quartets When I was a little child, I lived in an old and somewhat rickety house by the sea. When the winter wind blew, the house would shake and tremble, and cold drafts would whistle through cracks in the walls. You might have thought that lying in bed in a dark room on such cold, windy nights would have frightened me. But it had just the opposite effect: having known this en vironment since birth, I actually found the shaking of the house, the whistling of the wind, and the crashing of the sea to be comforting, and I was lulled to sleep by these familiar sounds. They signaled to me that all was right with the world and that the forces of nature were operating in the normal way. But I did have a problem. On the dimly lit landing of the staircase leading up to my bedroom, there was a large and dark picture of a male lion, sitting as such lions do with his massive paws in front of him and his head erect, turned slightly to the right, and staring straight out at you with yellow blazing eyes. I had great difficulty getting past that lion. Someone would have to hold my hand and take me up to bed, past the dreaded picture."

In "Science and the Religious Right," biophysicist John Jagger discusses false scientific and social positions of the Religious Right, including the ideas that the earth is only six thousand years old, evolution never occurred, and the United States was founded as a Christian nation. At best, such stances of the Religious Right have produced extensive political turmoil; they undermine true understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

Many Americans know little science and are thus easily confused by such positions of religious fundamentalists. Jagger begins with a scientific primer for the intelligent and curious nonscientist, with simple explanations of such highly successful theories as relativity and evolution. He then discusses religion, explaining why many scientists become freethinkers after the models of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who did not believe in a personal God. He shows that, while mainstream religion largely accepts modern science, the Religious Right holds anti-science and anti-intellectual ideas that have great social and political consequence-they want to replace teaching of evolution in our public schools with creationist ideas that are totally unsupported by science.

"Science and the Religious Right" shows why knowledge of some basic science, as well as of correct religious history, is essential for understanding false stances of the Religious Right that threaten American values and scientific truth.