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| Editorial Wichita Eagle August 6, 2005 |
What do science's foes want?
The battlefronts differ, along with the aggressors in some cases. But on issues from evolution to stem cells to climate change to even water fluoridation, a war on science seems to be under way.
The pattern goes like this: Those who don't like what established science means for politics or religion (or both) mount an attack on the science, calling it "suspect" and too inconclusive, and pointing to "scientific" research seemingly to the contrary.
In some cases, the critics are connected to organizations and institutes with credible sounding names and formidable resources, suggesting a phony equivalency between their cause and the science it targets.
The assault doesn't have to change any minds or hearts. It's enough to confuse leaders and citizens alike to the point of debilitation. Doing nothing will do nicely, as leaders blame their inaction on the issue's "divisiveness" (fluoridation in Wichita) or the need to await more definitive scientific evidence (global warming in Washington). Meanwhile, the breakthroughs of foreign-based researchers multiply.
The tack of attacking the science was employed again after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., announced he would support expanding federal funding for stem cell research. President Bush, whose administration has been fairly criticized for cherry-picking or withholding scientific data to serve a political end, didn't ease fears this week by suggesting that both intelligent design and evolution "ought to be properly taught" in the nation's public schools.
Bush's words brought to mind the warning issued in March by the National Academy of Sciences to its members, of a "growing threat to the teaching of science through the inclusion of non-scientifically based 'alternatives' in sciences courses throughout the country."
What's particularly unsettling, especially in a nation already lagging in the test scores in science and math, is what we're risking by letting science get tangled up with advocacy. To what end is this war being fought? And at what cost to knowledge and the nation's future progress and position in the world?
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman