>Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 02:14:13 -0400
>From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
>Subject: RE: Fermi Paradox, etc.
>
>Michael Wiik wrote,
> > I don't discount the possibility that we have 'fatal memes' in US
> > culture.
>
>What about the creationist anti-science meme? [...]
I would certainly agree that that's a bad meme, but I'm not sure that it
would be fatal. Certainly I can think of some bad scenarios, including a
return to the Dark Ages (which would include a lot of die-off as our
technological infrastructure crumbled), but I'm having trouble imagining a
case where the species was either wiped out or permanently hobbled. The
only one that I can think of would be a case where an Apocalyptic
fundamentalist cult would deliberately initiate the extinction of the
species, but I would say that, in such a case, the immediate cause wouldn't
be the anti-science aspect of the beliefs but rather the religious zealotry
of the followers taking advantage of scientific advances.
Or perhaps I'm picking at nits. :-)
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