We’ve heard the claims before: science is just like religion.
These claims always carry with them a certain “I know I am but so are you!” defensiveness — implying that scientists are no less dumbfounded and dogmatic than their faith-based rivals — because we never hear them made by the team promoting (reputable) science.
But what might our world look like if people really practiced science as they practice religion?
I’ll let the papers tell the story …
"LONG LIVE THE DIRECTOR!"
BETHESDA CITY — After five days in seclusion, the conclave is over. The 266th director has been chosen.
He has chosen the name Director Francis.
The throng at the National Institute of Health's Bethesda campus, as large as 50,000 people, many of them with tears in their eyes, chanted "Long live the Director!" Crowds went wild as military bands marched through and around the research center, followed by Doctoral Guards in tasseled silver surgical caps and antiseptic regalia.
White smoke poured out from NIH headquarters shortly before 9:30pm, signaling that the new director will appear on the balcony within the hour. Francis will change into his office's customary white labcoat and hairnet, and one-by-one the vice-directors will approach him to swear their obedience. He will then emerge and deliver his first public words as the leader of the world's approximately 7 million full-time scientists.
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ISIS BEHEADS SCIENCE JOURNO
A video released by radical insurgents pledging allegiance to International Scientism is Supreme (ISIS) shows the beheading of Huffington Post science infotainment editor Carlton Pepper and threatens the life of another American if President Deepak Chopra doesn't end his administration's policy of "global alt-medistasis" to promote planetary quantum healing.
In the video posted Tuesday on YouTube, Pepper is seen kneeling next to a man wearing a labcoat and surgical mask in what appears to be a lecture hall. Pepper tearfully recites a message, presumably scripted by his captors, that his "real killer" is pseudoscience and that "this will definitely be on the exam."
Then, as his executioner explains — in bullet-points via Powerpoint slide presentation — the physiological processes involved in human decapitation, Pepper is then humanely put to sleep and beheaded in accordance with Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare policy.
Chopra was briefed about the video, and "he will continue to ask the nation to channel positive potentialities toward a solution," White House apologist William Lane Craig said.
ISIS has carried out executions, including beheadings, as part of its global online teaching initiative to establish an "Empirical empire" that stretches "from continental plate to plate".
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SUICIDE BOMBERS ASSASSINATE UCHICAGO BIOLOGY HEAD
CHICAGO, IL — A department head of biology and at least seven others were killed overnight when epigenetic separatists attacked the University of Chicago, security officials said on Tuesday.
Prof. Pat Fitzgerald was killed when four suicide bombers attacked an entrance to the campus and clashed with developmental biologists in tense classroom to classroom fighting, according to the department spokesman.
Epigeneticists and their sponsors the Lamarckian Brotherhood have claimed responsibility for a string of attacks in recent weeks in and around the University which have killed more than 35 people.
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200 GIRLS ABDUCTED BY EVO PSYCHO
STANFORD, CA — As many as 200 coeds were abducted from their dorms at Stanford University by heavily armed Evo Psycho militants who arrived in trucks, vans and buses, officials and witnesses said.
The group of radical evolutionary psychologists has recently stepped up attacks in the region, and its leader released a video last month threatening to kidnap coeds from area universities.
The gunmen then burned homes and businesses in Stanford as they fled with the girls, witnesses said.
A spokesman in the region declined to comment on the abduction, saying the University Campus Security office would issue a statement later.
In an effort to scare entrants away from rival programs, Evo Psycho and other militants have attacked 15 schools over the past year, killing more than 100 students and 70 teachers. Thousands across the northern part of California have been forced to flee their schools because of the violence.
Some of the girls have reportedly been married off to the militants, who often have difficulty meeting women. Others have been forced to participate in surveys, research projects and faculty mixers.
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MINISTER FIRED OVER EVOLUTION HEADING TO SUPREME COURT
WASHINGTON, DC — A 20-year Ohio Baptist minister who was fired for referencing evolution in his sermons will have his day in the Supreme Court on Wednesday when his lawyers will argue that his firing was a violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech and science.
"In oral arguments before the Supreme Court tomorrow, The Christian Scientism Institute will defend the right to liturgical freedom of a Baptist minister fired for encouraging congregants to think critically about the church's services, particularly as it relates to creation myths," said John Jason, president of the Christian Scientism Institute in a statement released Tuesday.
"Unchallenged privilege was once the bedrock of American religion. That is no longer the state of affairs, as this case makes clear," said Jason in the release. "What we need today are more preachers and ministers who understand that believers don't need to be indoctrinated. Rather, they need to be taught how to pray for themselves. By firing Rev. Morgan Lewis for challenging his flock to think outside the pew, church officials violated a core First Amendment freedom — the right to pray and worship ideas contrary to established views."
"Churchgoers everywhere deserve to hear all the accounts," said Jason. "Preach the controversy."
Church officials called the lawsuit just the latest in a very long line of attempts to undermine the preaching of certain biblical accounts that militant scientists don’t like, especially six-day Creation and the Flood.
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CLERK SUED FOR NOT ISSUING ZONING LICENSE FOR "ARK PARK"
PETERSBURG, KY — A county clerk who refused to issue a zoning license for a Christian-themed "Creation Museum" has said her atheism would not allow her to issue the permit.
Kenneth Ham, a promoter of the development nicknamed the "Ark Park", testified on the second day of the high-profile legal action against clerk Kimora Davis being heard in Kentucky's Boone County Court.
Ham claimed he was left feeling like "not even a citizen" when he was denied a permit.
The permit is necessary before construction can begin on the proposed site.
Davis told the court: "My respect for people's intelligence will not permit me to put my stamp on this colossal monument to willful ignorance."
Ham told the court yesterday that he was left "shocked" and in "disbelief" when Davis told him she would not be processing the permit he had already paid for.
Davis told the court: "The problem was with the entire premise of the enterprise and, as a rationalist, I cannot allow the intellectual capital of our state to become compromised or reversed."
Under cross-examination, Davis told the court she had been an atheist since the age of fifteen and "sought to follow Socrates and Descartes" in how she led her life.
Davis decided against resigning from her post, because doing so, she said, would only infringe on her right to not do her job: "If I resign, the next person might grant the license. That helps nobody. Plus, I’d be out of a job."
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DIRECTOR FRANCIS: "HAN VS. GREEDO: NEITHER SHOT FIRST"
BETHESDA CITY — Director Francis has formally decreed official teaching and guidance on the question of "Who shot first?", approving a report released Friday that said there was reason to believe that underworld enforcer Greedo and outlaw smuggler Han Solo fired their weapons simultaneously.
Francis approved the findings of the Curriculum Commission, which issued its long-awaited document regarding the legendary confrontation on “Conclusions”, the documentary service of Science News Service, the news agency of the American Research Conference.
"We can say we have many reasons to hope that this is vindication for both Han and Greedo," Prof. Ruiz Lazario, a socio-archaeologist who is the commission's secretary-general, told The Associated Press. "Both fired in self-defense. Intensive analysis of existing accounts confirm that each preempted any move they correctly guessed the other was planning to make."
Although archivists have long believed that Greedo fired first, until today Bethesda had no formal finding on the matter. Director Francis had urged further study on the shootout, in part because of "the pressing need to clear the record", sparked by the number of online flame wars being taken offline and onto the streets whose increasingly destructive results threaten to embarrass the institution, the report said.