Honest Debate or Culture War?

If the controversy over creation and evolution were actually an honest debate, the issue would probably not be nearly as rancorous as it has become. Because the contemporary situation is practically a reverse of that depicted in Inherit the Wind, however, the "debate" has become a war. In the Tennessee of the 1920s, it was fundamentalist orthodoxy that tried to silence advocates of Darwinism and science education and persecuted those who resisted. Today it is the self-appointed protectors of established scientific orthodoxy who brook no criticism; their allies in the media control the microphone, and so Darwinism's critics get no fair hearing.

Why is debate disallowed? Much of it comes down to worldview. Defenders of materialistic naturalism or "scientism" sincerely believe in the rightness of their opinions and the pre-eminence of "reason" or rationality that they contrast to "faith" (a synonym for irrationality in their thinking), or they really want there to be no God (Romans 1:18 ff.) and materialistic naturalism permits them to deny God. No one ever seems to consider that suppression of honest debate is actually bad for science, as the history of science itself teaches. Perhaps the favorite historical example used by people to warn against the influence of religion over science is the treatment of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Church. The boogeyman priests held up the progress of science by their persecution of a man who simply tried to follow the facts--this is how the story gets told. And yet Galileo's story is really that of a man with a minority viewpoint challenging the received scientific orthodoxy of his day, a man trying to point out that the facts are at variance with accepted ideas, that worldview has controlled interpretation of truth. Sound familiar? Precisely the same thing is happening today; the priests have simply exchanged clerical vestments for lab coats.