By DONALD DeMARCO
It is commonly believed that science and faith are incompatible with each other. The truth is that science itself rests on faith, namely, faith that the world which scientists study is intelligible and will yield its order to them in a consistent fashion.
Science and politics is a different matter. Politics is often at odds with science. In such cases it often presumes itself to be a higher authority while reserving the right to modify or even veto scientific findings.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to this danger clearly and eloquently in an address he gave to the Massachusetts Medical Society back in 1860: Although “theoretically medicine ought to go on its own straightforward inductive path without regard to changes of government or to fluctuations of public opinion . . . the truth is that medicine, professionally founded on observation, is as sensitive to outside influences, political, religious, philosophical, imaginative, as the barometer to the changes of atmospheric density.”
Dr. Holmes drew attention to the disturbingly close “relation between the medical sciences and the conditions of society and the general thought of our time.” He urged doctors to hold firm to the principles of their science.
The following recent event makes this dichotomy between science and politics sufficiently clear. The Conservative Party in Ontario ousted Jagdish Grewal, a popular pro-life and pro-family federal candidate (October 2015) from its ranks after an article surfaced from earlier this year in which he stated his belief that it is possible for homosexuals to benefit from reparative therapy.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair as well as Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called for Grewal to be dropped as a candidate. The Conservative Party acted quickly and acceded to their demands.
At the same time, Gwen Landolt, national vice president of REAL Women of Canada, criticized the Conservative Party for dropping a candidate over outlining a legitimate position on therapy for homosexuals. “It’s unfortunate this happened. Mr. Grewal has every right to express an opinion that many Canadians would agree with. He’s been badly treated in this because he’s really speaking from a legitimate perspective when it comes to human sexuality.”
Landolt went on to say that the topic of homosexuality is driven by “so much political correctness” rather than evidence-based science to the point that no one can even rationally criticize tenets of homosexual ideology without being attacked as a ‘homophobe’ and a ‘bigot’.”
Science as science is fairly constant. Politics, on the other hand, fluctuates from politician to politician, from party to party, and from period to period. Organizations can capitulate to the popular mood as if science was entirely irrelevant.
Planned Parenthood’s 180 degree change is a case in point. In 1963, ten years before Roe v. Wade, it published a pamphlet entitled, “Plan Your Children for Health and Happiness” which answered the question “Is birth control an abortion?” “Definitely not,” it stated, “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it.”
Today, a different period of time and a different political mood, Planned Parenthood is a leading proponent of abortion in the world. It advertises abortion as merely an option. Websites now present the unborn baby as simply a “clump of cells.”
The Communist government in Russia under Stalin suppressed pure science, regarding it as a morbid symptom of class society. The irony here is that although the Russian government subordinated science to the practical needs of Marxist socialism, it continued to claim that Marxism was founded on science.
In Canada, psychiatrist Thomas Verny’s book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, was the fruit of what the author described as “six years of intensive study, thought, research, and travel.” Yet, his manuscript was initially rejected by six Canadian publishing houses. After it was finally published, by Doubleday in the United States, Verny rapidly became a non-person in the scientific community, shunned by his colleagues, and was no longer invited to speak at science seminars.
Although Verny does not oppose abortion and is a self-declared atheist, he has spoken before pro-life audiences. He discovered that pro-life people are more interested in what science reveals about the unborn child than were many of his own fellow scientists. Verny claims in his book that the scientific research of a variety of neurologists, audiologists, and obstetricians provides “incontestable physiological evidence that the fetus is a learning, sensing, feeling being.” “We now know,” he informs us, “that the unborn child is an aware, reacting human being.”
The abortion establishment, needless to say, does not want the public to know the truth about the nature of the unborn child.
Today, science has shed far more light than ever before on the nature of the unborn, the hazards of abortion, and the dangers of homosexual activity. At the same time, political correctness has outpaced science, dismissing its findings while accusing its adherents of some kind of personal disorder.
As the disharmony between science and politics intensifies, so, too, does the disharmony between morality and political correctness. Science is a legitimate source of knowledge. Its current and shameless subordination to politics is analogous to a person who closes his eyes and then insists that what another person sees with his eyes wide open is not true.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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