What motivates human beings to start from a preconceived and possibly meaningless pseudo-premise and devote their whole life to trying to get others to agree it’s true? Let’s get some of these freaks (check out chapter 2) into the lab and see what makes them tick. We might find out something interesting and extremely useful about religious extremism and how to foster open minded dialogue.
Even Bush is on the case now: “Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about … Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.” This is a very insidious argument. Should we also teach people ptolemy’s ideas on astronomy as a “school of thought”?