P.C. Shannon

In this Wired piece, Bruce Sterling agrees with my recurring theme that science in this country is in jeopardy. He makes the connection much more soundly than I have between the President’s fundamentalist beliefs and the erosion of this nation’s position as the worldwide leader in biomedical science. This reminds me of a point made by Chris Rock’s character Rufus, the thirteenth and only black apostle, in Kevin Smith’s film Dogma. Beliefs, Rufus says, are problematic; ideas are better. You can change an idea, you can have a wrong idea, but a belief is central and core, something you hold onto, something that defines who you are.

First, consider an example removed from Western theology and all of our prejudices that go along with it. Suppose you are an anthropologist studying a remote tribe in the Amazon jungle. Among this tribe’s mythology is the idea that women get pregnant by bathing in a particular pond at a certain time of day. There is a woman in the tribe who desperately wants to have children, and every day for a year, she bathes in the pond at the appropriate time, all to no avail. You decide to help this woman. Ignoring issues about cultural interference for the moment, what do you say to her?

Obviously our idea about heterosexual intercourse is a much better one because it works reliably and stands up under scientific testing. The tribe’s idea about the pond works inconsistently at best. We can say our idea is a fact. But you can’t just waltz up to the woman and boldly declare that she’s wrong in thinking what she does about the pool and that you magically have the right answer. She will cling to her belief and denounce you as a practitioner of dark magic. But if you offer her a way to save face, to incorporate your idea into her practices, then she will likely take your advice.

Similarly, we need to find a way to make science work with religion. To take a real and controversial example, considers Dr. W. David Hager, Bush’s recent appointee for reproductive health to the FDA. This doctor says that women should pray for relief from severe menstrual symptoms rather than receiving a prescription for the birth control pill. To me, this looks like the pond versus intercourse debate from the previous example. Certainly there’s no reason why women shouldn’t pray - and there is some evidence that prayer does help in some cases — but they should also be able to rely on known, proven facts, like the pill can relieve physical symptoms of menstruation (although it should be noted that the pill exacerbates emotional and psychological symptoms).

There’s no reason for Dr. Hager to not take this position - that the best remedy is a combination of prayer and medicine — except that he believes that prayer is the only solution. That’s fine for his private practice, but it seems negligent for a federal appointee, who sets policies and guidelines for doctors nationwide, to deviate so wildly from facts and standard medicine. I also think it’s negligent for the president to even appoint someone with such a position.

I have to admit, in all fairness to Dr. Hager, that my compromise position, one of both prayer and medicine, is constitutionally dubious. It seems like the ACLU may have something to say about a federal appointee advocating prayer. Of course, this caveat really applies to his present position as well.

In the end, science and religion must co-exist. Science under the control of religion is not science, and religion suppressed by science is dehumanizing. There is a wide middle ground. We just need some level-headed leadership to find it.