Dan writes
quote:
Just thought this was worth noting, for the next time someone says organized religion isn't out to stifle knowledge.
Organized religion isn't out to stifle knowledge anymore than just about most other organizations and institutions that have ever existed.
Some examples...
Some elements of the Bush Administration have been known to withdraw fundings from science research groups whose conclusions contradict the Administration's claims in environmental issues. A recent one is when fundings were withdrawed from a group that have found that salvage logging hinders a burnt forest's recovery.
Harvard president got canned after remarking that perhaps the reason so fewer females are in the fields of science than males is because of the differences in brain physiology... or something like that.
The US government traded some Japanese war criminals' freedoms for mountains of data on research in biological warfare. These warcrimes were forgotten for a very long time.
Even the scientific community from time to time rejects outright certain modifications in worldview. Big bang, Evolution, ID, etc. have all gone through a period of hardship.
Now, Whether these hinderings of development of certain concepts were justified or not is another matter.