Is the Enlightenment ideal on the rocks or is it merely a bit shaken?

MT: The three answers that we received to this question are wildly divergent from each other. Partly this is because in common usage the term enlightenment tends to denote not just the idea that reason can be used to build authoritative systems of logic, aesthetics and ethics, (a concept rooted, as Robert Freeman points out below, in the idea of the perfectibility of man) but also the wider concept that the application of reason through the scientific method is the best way to understand the physical world.

Some transhumanists have advocated the “uplifting” of primates. Do you see any merit in this idea?

The inspiration for this Brain Parade comes from my readings of thinking in the transhumanist movement. I agree with the transhumanists in a lot of things. They’re right to say that our response to ethical challenges posed by future technologies should be informed by something more than yuk factor.

I was going to post a frivolous Brain Parade up tonight but as I’m all grumpy and introspective from my battles with nicotine withdraw I can’t be asked to write anything funny. So today I’m going to give you a bit of controversy by asking whether scientists should criticize religion or if this is counterproductive?