Politicians whose entire world view is determined by religion will have a hard time making decisions on scientific matters.
We all know of the vocal opponents of climate change data who think that there is a massive conspiracy among scientists to hide the facts about climate change. Apparently the motivation of these evil scientists is to fabricate the facts so they can get more grants to fabricate more facts. However, there is an even bigger conspiracy going on out there: hiding the fact that galaxies do not exist.
Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and half the Republicans running for President in 2008 believe that the world is 6,000 years old because the Bible says so. This is quite a discrepancy from the age of the universe established by scientists - right around 15 billion years. They are within their rights to believe this, but it leads to a few questions:
- Do they believe that the universe outside our galaxy does not exist? The closest galaxy to us is 2.5 million light years away. Light from Andromeda could not possibly have originated millions of years ago because nothing existed then. Are the billions of images of even more distant galaxies the result of a light show put on for our benefit by the Devil? Has he been doing this for the last 6000 years or just since we invented telescopes that could see galaxies, say the last 100 years or so? In any case, we should stop studying astronomy because their results are meaningless. Shut down those observatories and send the scientists home.
- Are all fossil records likewise a result of trickery by the Devil to keep our minds off the Bible? In Huckabee and Palin's America there is no need to study dinosaurs or fossil men, so we can pretty well shut down the paleontology departments of all universities, although Palin does allow that dinosaurs roamed the Earth right after creation, even though the Bible neglects to mention them. Perhaps the giant carnivorous dinosaurs were not welcome by Noah, while lions and tigers were.
- In the event that one of these people is elected to high office, how can we expect them to make informed decisions on the funding of science projects? Perhaps we will have offices of Faith-based Physics, Faith-based Chemistry and Faith-based Biology to unravel these seeming contradictions.