August 03, 2005 - The President has thrown his political weight into the balance of scientific truth along with that of his base on the religious right. If he and his base have their way scientific truth will henceforth be decided not by rigorous scientific observation and experimentation but rather by religious orthodoxy imposed for political points. The President suggests that our schools must teach as equal alternatives the scientific proposition of natural selection and the religious conception of “intelligent design”.

This is, of course not a new approach to scientific thought. As recently as 500 years ago scientific theory was subjected to rigorous religious review. If the Church taught that the earth was the center around which the sun, moon, stars and planets revolved then any observation to the contrary was heretical. Just as Mr. Scopes was prosecuted for teaching Darwinian Theory so too was Galileo prosecuted for teaching Copernicus’ observations. In that regard Mr. Bush’s position is an advance. He would not ban the teaching of science – just give irrational belief equal footing.

The idea may be extended, of course. We may begin to see the proposition that minerals, rocks, impacts and volcanism shaped the moon given equal billing with the Green Cheese theory. We may require the study of pre-Columbian civilizations to be leavened with the Book of Mormon or the legend of Prince Madoc of Wales. And, of course we can extend the equality of fact and faith beyond the realms of science and education as the idea resumes its hold on the human imagination.

We might, of course, have foreign policy determined by faith held in equal measure with fact. For example the fact may be that a regime is no threat to us; is essentially disarmed; and without the capacity to do us substantial harm but those facts must give way before the faith that the regime is dangerously armed with fearsome weapons. Social policy may be determined by balancing the fact that poverty is an affliction primarily impacting the rural white population with the Reaganesque myth of the urban Black Welfare Queen driving a Cadillac to collect her food stamps.

Those extensions of the President’s ideas on the teaching of science are, of course, grotesque examples of the idea of “balance” gone wild in an effort to give fantasy equal footing with observable fact. We could never expect to see the nation go to war on such a basis. We could never expect to see social policy determined in such an exaggerated manner – could we? But then this IS America where anything is possible!