Yesterday was Charles Darwin's 203rd birthday, and I'd say he's holding up well for a man who's been dead 130 years.

I am a proud member of a group called the Clergy Letter Project, started by Michael Zimmerman ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-zimmerman.) That means I take part in Evolution Weekend. Each year, on the Sunday closest to Darwin's birthday, I preach/teach about the compatibility of science and religion. It's an important message to deliver.

Yesterday, in a children's message, I urged the kids to recognize how much of their existence owed itself to scientific inquiry. I noted that the very building inwhich we worshipped was designed, built and maintained utilizing the sciences of geometry and physics. I removed a cover from an altar candle holder and talked about the ingenuity of the candle, and even showed them the ingenius spring-loaded mechanism that keeps each candle uniform in appearance and burn. We talked about the clothes on their backs and the thoughts in their heads. We praised the scientific method as a marvelous lens and tool for better understanding the universe and every little thing in it. Happy birthday, Charlie!


But lately I find that I am no longer addressing the chief front of anti-science rhetoric. Sure, there are still plenty of narrow-minded, misguided folks of faith who wear their intentional ignorance as some sort of proof of their piety. This is sad, and must be engaged. But I am finding more and more that faith and science actually share a more formidable opponent: profit.

This is a strange and imperfect point, since much of our current scientific inquiry serves commercial purposes, but here are a few examples of what I'm thinking:


Climate Science: The reality of global warming is undeniable.  For a long time, it was popular with a certain crowd to deny this fact in the face of a tsunami of data. As that stance has crumbled, the more recent retreat position is to deny human causation. This has little to do with science and much to do with commerce. The fossile fuel and related industries are powerful and ubiquitous. They are central to our way of life. Reality is no longer a friend of ours.

Epidemiology: In conversation with one of the more informed folks I know, yesterday she mentioned a farm in Pennsylvania with three separate populations of cattle, each of which drank from a different water source. One population of cows experienced a 3000% increase in mortality rate (from two to 60 annual cow deaths) after hydrofracking operations had commenced near the stream from which they drank. The public never hears of these cases because financial settlements for damages include a blanket gag order. How can we possibly make informed decisions if evidence is thus suppressed? How many other paths of epidemiological inquiry are shut down or shut up to protect financial interests?

Education: It is now quite popular with a certain crowd to attack teachers and educational institutions. Ask yourself what motivates such attacks.

I have not yet fully formed this opinion. It is more of an inkling that I'd like to flesh out or throw out through dialogue with my peers. What do you think? Are there monied interests suppressing certain areas of scientific inquiry?