the war on Science

by Shawn Lawrence Otto

This dumbing down of the people for ideological reasons is, of course, not new. It is an age-old authoritarian tactic. It happened in China during the Cultural Revolution. It happened in the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Renaissance Italy, twentieth-century Russia, and Nazi Germany—all of them societies whose leaders turned their backs on science, making it subordinate to an authoritarian ideology, and the societies collapsed.

“I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when parishioners listen to this divisive nonsense on AM talk radio instead of the teachings of their own pastor,” Westphal says. “It doesn’t get us anywhere as a people. All I see it producing is anger and fear. Jesus questioned. He wanted people to open their hearts and their minds and let go of fear.” Westphal has had scientists and science advocates lead discussions about evolution and the big bang in his church. “Protestants started out by questioning,” he says. “These things don’t have to be in conflict. By meeting scientists and talking openly about these things, people can let go of their misconceptions and see why scientists think the way they do—and that they are our friends and neighbors, not threats or opponents.”

“The assumption of creationism is that natural phenomena require supernatural explanations. I’m not saying science is atheistic about ultimate reality. It isn’t. To say that you can explain something using natural causes is not the same thing as saying there are no supernatural causes. Science is atheistic in the sense that plumbing is atheistic. It limits itself to the study of natural causes.”

“The evidence for the reality of human-caused climate change gets stronger with each additional year. Greenhouse gases don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Nor do the ice sheets. Unfortunately, some have found it convenient to politicize the science, as others have with the science of tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion, stem-cell research, human health, environmental contaminants, etc.”

John Hubble, father of Edwin Hubble, was a staunch Baptist and an insurance underwriter, and he wrote in 1900 about the core human conflict of self versus the collective that was captured by insurance. “The best definition we have found for civilization,” he wrote, “is that a civilized man does what is best for all, while the savage does what is best for himself. Civilization is but a huge mutual insurance company against human selfishness.”