Faith and science sit at the opposite ends of the spectrum of how people view the world and the causes and effects of their experiences. Now, faith in science is falling which may favor the arguments for faith in general.
The president of the National Academy of Sciences, Ralph Cicerone, said at a speech at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “There is evidence that the corrosion in the public attitude to climate science has spread over to other areas of science.” It was recently discovered that a research group at the University of East Anglia in the UK withheld critical data from a study of global warming.
The cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere and record snowfalls across Europe and some parts of the US have already caused the average man to believe that global warming is an excuse to keep scientists and researchers employed. How, many people argue, can the world be blanketed with cold and blizzards if the temperature of the earth is inexorably on the rise? Global warming experts argue that the route to a hotter world is never a direct one and that there will be periods when it appears that coolness has gotten the upper hand. That works nearly as well as telling people that Toyotas were once safe and will be safe again.
If the public’s skepticism about global warming research has moved to other parts of research it is no wonder. One day a pharmaceutical drug or some human habit is dangerous for people’s health and the next day it is shown to have benefits. One set of scientists say that nuclear power is a threat to people who live near plants and another group say that these plants are perfectly safe.
Scientists have become like politicians. Each “party” on one side or the other of a major scientific issue tries to shout the other down in public. Science, once cloaked in some degree of mystery, is on the front pages, and that has gone a long way toward ruining it.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks