Notes from Evil Bender

DI Fellow John West is upset that scientists don’t change their views based on his religious preferences:

Increasingly, self-proclaimed defenders of science have tried to turn “science” into an ideological weapon to attack any questioning by religious believers of the “consensus view” of scientific elites on embryonic stem-cell research, global warming, Darwinian evolution, and similar issues.

How do you know when a wingnut is projecting? His mouth is moving. The irony is truly amazing: a man who’s trying to force science to become religion arguing that scientists are mean for explaining what their research indicates.

This attempt to suppress dissenting views in discussions of science and public policy is fueled by the anti-religious orientation of the majority of America’s elite scientists. Nearly 95 percent of biologists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, identify themselves as atheists or agnostics.

More projection. Simply stating that many scientists are atheist doesn’t mean those scientists are trying to suppress religious views. Meanwhile, even religious scientists are trying to suppress ID for one simple reason: it’s not science.

The anti-religious fervor of leading scientists was on clear display last year at a conference on science and religion at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. According to one participant quoted by the New York Times, “with a few notable exceptions, the viewpoints at the conference have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”

Oh! An anecdote. Well, that’s certainly proof of the Vast Scientific Conspiracy Against Religion. Is West even trying? Is he so pathetic he can’t come up with any real argument? Well, obviously he is:

Given the effort to exclude people of faith from public debates in the supposed name of science, is it any wonder that many in religious communities are pushing back?

No one is trying to exclude “people of faith” from science. You don’t see Dawkins or PZ Myers arguing that religious people shouldn’t study science–quite the opposite, in fact. What West is trying to do is conflate the refusal to let religion dictate science with some attempt to silence religion. I’m a staunch supporter of religious freedom, yet I don’t think “my faith says this” is an adequate scientific explanation. West disagrees, but he can’t put it that way, so he has to be spectacularly dishonest instead.

The current state of affairs is tragic, because religious voices in the public square can serve as a valuable check on the prejudices and pretensions of scientific elites.

What if he said religious voices could check the pretensions of engineers who think they understand how skyscrapers should be built? Or of football coaches who think they understand how to win a game? Or of mental health professionals?*

During the early decades of the 20th century, America’s leading evolutionary biologists at institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia promoted eugenics and forced sterilization. Traditionalist Catholics and evangelicals were among the handful of voices challenging the validity of the eugenics crusade at a time when scientific dissenters were scant.

Distortions, lies and non sequiturs: the Discovery Institute in brief.

Scientists have their blind spots just as much as any religious believer. If they genuinely want more discussion over science and public policy, they could start by inviting religious believers to join the conversation.

“We need to let Creationism Intelligent Design in schools, because some scientists supported bad public policy! We should let religious people make scientific decisions because they can be trusted to do that way better than the actual experts!”  The Discovery Institute’s public policy: let the uninformed decide.

*Oh that’s right, people like West do think they know everything, especially about science and mental health. They just can’t explain why.