Battle For The Soul Of American Science

Traditional science is under attack in the US. “A new climate has emerged under the Bush administration: one driven partly by close relationships with big business, but just as much by a fiercely moral approach to the business of science.” Instead of attacking theories like evolution in favor of creationism, critics propose alternative “scientific” ideas like “intelligent design.” “The approach is not exclusively religious, nor exclusively rightwing, but is spreading worry as never before through the nation’s laboratories and lecture halls. These aren’t the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other.”