The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

The New Inquisition

I came across just a great editorial in the Cincinnati Enquirer today.

The author, Clyde E. Stauffer, has a PhD in biochemistry and makes a ton of sense in a short letter. He starts off strong and goes from there:

In the 16th century a large, powerful institution saw itself as threatened by heretics - people who didn't agree with all its dogmas - so it began to identify and punish those dissidents. Five hundred years later a similar effort is under way.

In the 16th century it was the Roman Catholic church; today it is Big Science. The only real difference is that today heretics are simply deprived of their livelihood; burning at the stake is no longer in vogue.

Dr. Stauffer makes the point that in today's world, self-annointed "scientists" have declared certain truths to be dogma, and above questioning. It has become heresy to even so much as question the dogmas of the secular establishment: global warming, evolution, the Big Bang theory. Dr. Stauffer gives a few examples of scientists who have been run out of the academy because they dared question the establishment. Far too much of what passes as science these days is merely political correctness dressed up with scientific terms.

As a doctoral student I was taught that good science sought reliable facts about the world around us, and hypotheses followed wherever those facts lead. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case. Instead, selected facts have led to politicized conclusions, and countervailing facts are no longer tolerated. This is not good science.

This letter is worth reading, especially by those high priests of secularism who have no real answers but revile those who do.