‘Ockham’s Razor’, a program about science or a soapbox for prejudice?

Ponder takes the usual potshot at the church by mentioning the sorry treatment of Galileo at the hands of the Vatican, but this was not as simple as it is made to look. Galileo had support from key figures in the Vatican and his trial was more an example of conflicting egos than an illustration that Christianity was anti science. As David Hart points out in his Atheist Delusions “in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Christian scientists educated in Christian universities and following a Christian tradition of scientific and mathematical speculation overturned a pagan cosmology and physics, and arrived at conclusions that would have been unimaginable within the confines of the Hellenistic traditions”.

It is just not good enough to raise the spectre of the trial of Galileo to prove that Christianity is essentially antagonistic to natural science. Ponder is exposed as intellectually lazy in adopting second hand opinions that suit his purposes without any attempt to investigate them further.

One could very easy write a similar polemic against natural science and it would be just as irrational. All we need to do is to point to the results of atheism in the French revolution, communist Russia, China and the other various crackpot regimes around the world and conclude that atheism brings mass murder, starvation and persecution. Similarly, we could point to Darwinian evolution as the basis for the Nazi eugenics program that ended the life of thousands of individuals who were “not worthy of life”. It seems from a reading of the bloody history of the 20th century we have far more to fear from atheism and natural science that has been used to achieve terrible ends. However, we do not reach the conclusion that natural science is evil.

Religion is seen as such an easy target that no effort at all is required to pull it down. All the old hackneyed arguments are enough to demolish the whole structure. No original research or thinking is required. Ponder worries that the religious may become powerful enough to restrict the great project of science. How limp an excuse for deriding the religious. Creationism and intelligent design have been easily seen off and Islamic fundamentalism has yet to find a toe-hold in the education systems of the West.

I expect more from the ABC than this drivel. This is not about balance, it is about quality, quality of research and ideas. Robyn Williams has let the side down by inviting someone who will grind his axe for him.