According to a Nov. 30 editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, we're about to lose two of the best geneticists in the world.
Former Cancer Institute scientists Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins originally planned to move to Stanford University and take advantage of $3 billion the state of California recently approved for stem cell research and the search for a cure for cancer. But anti-abortion groups have filed lawsuits that prevent the release of those funds. Thus, Copeland and Jenkins have decided to wave goodbye to America and work for the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore, the article said.
This is what we get for letting religious zealots dictate science policy. While we once led the world in scientific research and development, we are losing the position - and now even the scientists themselves - to Europe and Asia.
One of the most telling examples of this is the current "controversy" concerning Intelligent Design. No controversy exists - biologists, geneticists, anthropologists and other scientists who specialize in evolution are not sitting in greasy spoon restaurants and debating ID over coffee and cigarettes.
To put it simply, ID is not scientific because it relies upon belief in a supernatural being whose existence can't be directly demonstrated by empirical means. Whether or not scientists have sufficiently explained the complexity of life on earth, they must base any explanation they give on what they can directly perceive with the five senses in order for that explanation to qualify as scientific.
Contrary to what many on the religious right would have us believe, however, science does not rule out the existence of deities, the transmigration of souls or other supernatural beings or phenomena. Rather, it simply doesn't concern itself with the empirically immeasurable.
On the other hand, a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible does rule out rational, scientific inquiry. If you unswervingly believe that the world is only a few thousand years old, then it's unlikely physical evidence proving otherwise will sway you - whether it's the existence of living cultures that predate the Bible by millennia, genetic evidence, C-14 dating or potassium-argon dating - because anything that goes against your preconceived worldview will come across as open to speculation or as an outright lie.
Somehow, I can't help but detect here a touch of cognitive relativism - a postmodern philosophy that denies the existence of overarching truth or falsity. Instead, the philosophy goes, what people accept as facts are little more than subjective interpretation.
Cognitive relativism, which Larry Laudan referred to in the book "Science and Reason" as "the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time" - exceeded only by American political campaigns - gives the religious right just the opportunity it needs. Now, politicos with a bone to pick but few if any scientific credentials have obtained equal footing with geneticists, biologists and anthropologists who have doctorates.
And those religious right groups, though they might honestly believe they mean well, will do nothing but hurt this country with their benighted self-righteousness.
If the moral values mob had its way, we'd breed entire generations with an utter ignorance of evolutionary theory. Meanwhile, our best scientists, unable to access the resources they need for their research, would go to countries where ideology doesn't stand in the way of discovery, taking their knowledge and ingenuity with them.
And those other countries would leave us in the dust.
At least we'd have moral values.
And to paraphrase Abercrombie and Fitch, who needs brains when you have those?
Write to Alaric at
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