One of the more nonsensical memes infecting public discourse is that America is diminished by the religious beliefs of a significant portion of the population.

Americans have long been ambivalent about science. Conflicting attitudes toward science are not uncommon among industrialized countries—Canadians, Europeans, and Japanese, for example, also appreciate the benefits of science but worry about potential impacts on society. What sets Americans apart is that their reservations center primarily around religion. And now, as the United States struggles to maintain its undisputed position as world leader in science and technology, religious ideology has spilled over into the public sphere to a degree unmatched in other industrialized societies. Religious groups are turning scientific matters like stem cells and evolution into political issues.

Rubbish. All rubbish. The reservations of the other cited societies - Canadians, Europeans, and Japanese - also are religious. America is not different. The religions are different but in each case the reservations about science have a religious cast and are based on a type of magical thinking, belief without evidence. It seems that a significant majority of people everywhere and every when do this.

The United States does not struggle to "maintain its undisputed position as world leader in science and technology". Where does such a silly idea come from? The US clearly is the most prolific scientific society and has been so for a long time. This isn't something to wish for or be proud of, it's an indication of the debilitating effects of those other national religions, especially in Europe. It is in the interest of the US for those laggard societies mired in primitive fundamentalisms to stop shirking, stop free riding on the US, and make contributions to science commensurate with their wealth and education. The US would benefit from this as much and perhaps more than the Europeans.

The chief problem for the Europeans is that their "religious ideology has spilled over into the public sphere to a degree unmatched in other industrialized societies." Every facet of their intellectual life is so politicized and ritualized according to their religious demands that they are severely impeded.

The US is far less limited by the religions of its people. Part of this may be due to the wide variety of religions in the US, which has always been diverse and becomes ever more diverse as time passes. Part of it is due to the structure of government - multiple levels, each with competing branches and a history of distaste for established religion. No single religion ever got a grip on the US the way it did most other societies, and the idea of uniformity and conformity is in a sense un-Amaerican.

The author, Liza Gross, bases her nonsense accusation on only two issues - stem cells and evolution - and on only a single facet of each issue. Neither stem cell science nor evolutionary theory are in any danger in the US, but Gross has a political axe to grind and so makes outrageously inflated assertions as red meat for the faithful. Very religious of her.

I find her religion, and that of the Europeans, as alien and unconvincing as that of many American religions. I find her politicization of these issues repellent and anti-intellectual. It would be better for scientific progress if none of these religious beliefs existed. It is likely that economic progress and world development would improve as a consequence, and there are other benefits that would, I think, be likely. I also know that this isn't all there is to life and that many, many other people have a bewildering variety of what they find to be higher values. Religion and its limiting effects on society will persist.

For the US to continue to thrive it is necessary to refute the religious and political claims of activists like Gross. Her attack on some American religions and some American political views, though tarted up as scientific concern, is akin to the claims of creation science or some of the more extreme political views of her opponents. She's just the other extreme and nothing she says has any bearing on science.

Update:

International squick

Across the EU different countries have widely differing laws and attitudes towards stem cell research.

The stem cells are removed from human embryos left over from fertility treatment, but the process results in the destruction of the embryo.

"We must conserve human life from its conception. We want no financial incentives to kill embryos," German Research Minister Annette Schavan told fellow ministers. . .

Finland, holder of the EU's rotating presidency, suspended debate until after lunch in an attempt to find a compromise that would satisfy Germany and seven like-minded countries - Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Slovakia.

Together they could block adoption of the EU's 54bn euro (£37bn) research budget for 2007-13, of which stem cell research forms a very small part. . .

Some of the countries which oppose stem cell research are influenced by Roman Catholic teaching.

In Germany, memories are coloured by Nazi experiments during World War II.

The BBC's Alix Kroeger in Brussels says they also object to funding research that is not allowed in their own countries.

The idiocy of Gross' claims are underscored by the debate among EU ministers.

Note that the debate and the bans only affect funding, not research. In my view this is the real issue. National funding of research is problematical for any number of reasons but that it is hostage to political whim is surely a major defect. Those who cry the loudest about limits to national funding for such research tend to also be authoritarians intent on ever increasing control of society by national and even international institutions. That funding is available from private sources and local governments (in the EU case "local" means individual nations, and in the US it means individual states) isn't satisfactory for authoritarians since there is too much freedom of choice. They want uniformity and conformity.

We would be wiser to support multiple, independent funding streams. They are much less susceptible to interruption due to temporary political whims, and when interrupted are not so devastating to science since there are alternatives. Diversity in funding is simple good sense, more robust and resilient.

Update:

This is how it works

President Bush’s veto of legislation to expand federally financed embryonic stem cell research has had the unintended consequence of drawing state money into the contentious field and has highlighted the issue in election campaigns across the country. . .

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican who helped Mr. Bush win a second term but has long disagreed with him on this research, cited the veto as he lent $150 million from the state’s general fund to pay for grants to stem cell scientists. In Illinois, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, a Democrat opposed to most every White House initiative, offered $5 million for similar grants in his state.

Before the announcements, the only money available was $72 million that five states had allocated for the research and $90 million that the National Institutes of Health had provided since 2001 for work on a restricted number of stem cell lines. . .

Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, the lead lobbyist for the bill Mr. Bush vetoed, said, “In terms of actually getting some resources to the scientists, it turns out like it may be a good week.”

I doubt that this was unintended since it could not possibly have been unanticipated. It was a certain and obvious consequence of federal funds denial, widely discussed and understood.

The same is true for the political opportunism and scrambling to get right with constituents. Who is actually surprised by this? However scientists politicians argue.

While stem cell scientists applauded the states’ efforts, they cautioned that such an approach was not ideal.

“In the long term, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have individual states trying to mount efforts which are going to be more piecemeal, less effective and take more time than a federal effort,” said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University. “I don’t think states should mount their own militias either.”

Can't have those pesky states making decisions, taxing and spending. All money and power belongs to the feds. Jerk!

Update:

Focusing the Kaleidoscope

In the NSF Strategic Plan, the life sciences (i.e., biology) are not included as an area that needs improvement in infrastructure or translation of research into new products. Is it too cynical to think that the Bush Administration purposely left out biology? After all, this is the same administration that has repeatedly altered or removed sections of scientific reports that offend various political constituencies. (Maybe I should let them know I wasn't serious about the whole Imperial Stormtrooper thing...)

Reasoning from evidence? Clear and useful thinking? No, just politics and religion.

. . . this is partly because the Clinton administration embarked on a committment to double the funding for life sciences research (through NIH and NSF), which saw a dramatic increase in those areas, while physical science funding was relatively flat. The "American Competitiveness Initiative" is focussed on physical science precisely because those areas have lagged somewhat in the last ten years.

There may be darker political motives at work as well, but according to the NSF official who spoke at DAMOP, that's the reason for the physical science focus.

Of course there are political motives, just as there was for the Clintons and for every political group that has ever gotten its people elected to anything. Dark? The darkness is in your eyes.

What we can sensibly do is debate policy. Was the Clinton focus good policy? Does the Bush focus on physical sciences undo a wrong or make another mistake? Why can't we fund both at levels that satisfy? (I know, there is no satisfying anyone, and egalitarian whining in funding decisions is dumb, but can a sensible argument for increased total funding be made?)

Update:

As Umberto Eco wrote:

Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century. They insisted that they were describing the universe in rigorously materialistic terms - yet at night they attended seances and tried to summon up the spirits of the dead. Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious - to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest.

[via IFTF's Future Now]