A Cascade of Errors

It's amazing how some mechanisms in the human body work.  Blood clotting is one example that has always struck me as nothing short of miraculous.  Seemingly the whole system had to be in place from its onset because of the "cascade" effect of thinning and thickening required for a cut on the human body to heal over without either bleeding out or seizing up.  In some instances in human thought, however, the cascade effect is obvious and just as disturbing and the blood clotting mechanism is fascinating.  In an article in our local paper today originally published by the McClatchy News Service, author Shawn Lawrence Otto has written a book about the lack of scientific discussion by political candidates (particularly presidential candidates) in recent history. You can link to the article here. 

Mr. Otto begins innocently and correctly enough by postulating that there is a necessity in an efficient government  for a well-informed electorate.  He states that "Without the mooring provided by the well-informed opinion of the people, governments may become paralyzed or, worse, corrupted by powerful interests seeking to oppress and enslave."  He also plumps for decisions to be made on information based in factual reality.  Beyond these opening points, however, there is a cascade of poor reasoning.  He goes on to suggest that politicians in general, and the Republican party in particular, have jettisoned all acknowledgement and reference to science in making policy decisions due to the influence of religion.  He states that the Republican party has "gone anti-science" partially due to the fact that "evangelicals got involved in politics."  So apparently for those belonging to the Republican party, there is a pre-requisite or at least an overwhelming pressure to be "anti-science" because the party is "pro-evangelical."

My nature prior to my conversion to Christianity was to be sarcastic to the extreme.  I fight against the continued temptation to be snarky and sarcastic in any thought process or discussion.  In this instance I will go with a measured response only laced with sarcasm pointed directly at the idea just posited, not at Mr. Otto personally.  To wit:

"So the idea is that those who have a cogent and internally consistent answer for the four most important questions in human existence; those of origin, meaning, morality and destiny, and have among their ranks a host of the most prominent names in many of the most important scientific discoveries in human history, and have a good reason both to engage in the discovery of new empirical physical truths and an explanation for the ought of the usage and temperance of use and distribution of new discoveries should be expelled from the discussion because those who are politicians by career take advice from their advisors and political constituents policy decisions with an emphasis on scientific data less than would be deemed necessary by those who choose for their careers fields in the scientific - is that correct?"

It just seems so blatantly ridiculous to even bring the evangelical view into the discussion in the first place.  It seems the spectre of "separation of Church and State" raises its head to choke off serious consideration of deeply important topics any time politics and government is involved.  Of course science is important and should be considered as the data is available on policy issues in which science comes naturally to the fore.  However, it seems wildly irresponsible to accuse evangelicalism as the primary source of a lack of drive to enact laws relative to global warming (or climate change as it has now been articulated).  What I find most ironic is the charge that the one area of human reasoning that can even speak about the morality of laws being adopted, the only realm that can make decisions of ought that would hold abuse and corruption in check (namely the Christian world and life view) is summarily discarded because of its stand against science, which is in itself a complete misrepresentation and misapplication of any reasonable Biblical position.

I guess i'm just continually flummoxed by the inability to recognize that one recognize that science is absolutely critical for making empirical evaluations for the physical issues experienced and influencing all of humanity and that science must be tempered by religion because of its complete impotence with regard to the metaphysical and moral issues that run hand in hand with any scientific discovery.  The Bible is not a science textbook and was never intended to be such, and science has been and will continue to be fruitful in making amazing discoveries relative to the make-up and intricate workings of the universe we inhabit, but science cannot and will never be able to stand alone in providing any information whatsoever as to how we ought to engage in or properly utilize that information within the interpersonal reality of human existence.  It seems inevitable that the two must not be put at odds with one another, but rather be inextricably tethered, else monstrous results be manifest.