The Progressive Contempt for Science

When in the West science began to replace religion as the focus of Man's faith, atheistic naturalists saw it as a wonderful, "enlightened" development. But now postmodern progressives, probably most of whom are themselves atheists, are laying siege to the basic assumptions upon which modern science was built - its belief in objective truth and the preeminence of rational inquiry - and the success that science has enjoyed over the last four centuries is threatened to be undone, not by the church, but by progressives.

For postmodern progressives the goal is to obliterate all distinctions of race, class and gender since all such distinctions are forms of "oppression." Logic and rationality are the tools of white, male patriarchy and therefore must go. The concept of objective truth interferes with the free play of individual subjectivity and personal autonomy and must therefore also go.

There are other, better ways to learn about the physical world, we're told, than through the racist, sexist assumptions that the world only reveals its secrets through the application of reason and the methods of white male-dominated science.

Denyse O'Leary has an article about this state of affairs at Mercatornet where she states that, "Considering how many atheists see science as a worthy successor to religion, they should think carefully about the current progressive assault on the core values of science."

Here are a few examples from O'Leary's essay:

In 2012, science journalists Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell, authors of Science Left Behind, noted that “if it is true that conservatives have declared a war on science, then progressives have declared Armageddon.”

Five years ago at Scientific American, Michael Shermer pegged the progressive approach to some environmental issues as a liberal war on science. Campbell and Berezow wrote in New Scientist (2013), “Conservatives rightly get a bad rap for anti-science policies. But progressives can be just as bad” because progressive ideology “is riddled with anti-scientific feel-good fallacies designed to win hearts, not minds.”

Though they claim common cause with liberals ... today’s progressive movement is actually socially authoritarian.”

Science, we are told by one source, is “inherently discriminatory to women and minorities by promoting a view of knowledge as static and unchanging, a view of teaching that promotes the idea of a passive student, and by promoting a chilly climate that marginalizes women.” (Laura Parson, dissertation, University of North Dakota).

Parson is not a lone voice. We hear that objectivity, along with “scientific,” “valid,” “reliable,” and “rationality,” is racist and sexist, a mere veneer for white male power (P.L. Thomas. “White Men Of Academia Have An ‘Objectivity’ Problem,” HuffPost June 14, 2017).

Darwinian atheist Jerry Coyne complains, “These misguided people argue not only that there is no objective reality, but that attempts to find and teach it are sexist: that such endeavors are masculine ones, and that the methods of science themselves make the discipline sexist and patriarchal.”

Some progressives also tag science as a form of colonialism. Here again, as atheist neurologist Steven Novella makes clear, science’s core values, not individual scientists’ cultural failings, are under assault. Unfortunately, Dr. Novella responds by arguing that science is inherently anti-colonial because “the very essence of science is to seek objective truth that is separate from the assumptions of any particular culture.”

Does he not grasp that “objective truth” is precisely what is under assault?

The drive to encourage members of underrepresented minorities to consider a career in science is being subtly transformed into the claim that the thinking patterns of science are by nature oppressive. Let’s take math, for example. In a recent teacher training text, we learn of “critical mathematics” (“mathematics for social justice”), which sounds very much like a way of distracting attention from the hard work of abstract thinking in favour of other—doubtless laudable—achievements that are not relevant to learning math.

Similarly, there is a move afoot to abolish the algebra requirement for community college, fetchingly termed “Say Goodbye To X+Y” by NPR: “Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads.”

That’s no surprise, considering that these students are far more likely to have attended failing public schools. The trouble is, reforming public schools that have failed for decades means head-on conflict with powerful interest groups. Instead, we are told that white privilege is bolstered by teaching math (Fox News). At The Atlantic, we hear that “school systems ought to support math educators in deconstructing and discarding the white frame of mathematics education.”

Moving beyond racial politics, some progressives disparage mathematics because its fundamental aims do not include inculcating progressive thought.

Overall, the progressive invasion of science and math education can only leave many students who are already shortchanged in math and science further behind.

O'Leary offers links to the examples she cites in her article, only about half of which is summarized above. I encourage you to read the whole thing. The trends she highlights, should they ever catch on, will surely destroy science, and anyone who is grateful for the standard of living that modern scientific discovery has given us and who is hopeful that the future will hold even more blessings should be very troubled by the desire of so many to tear it all down in the name of building an oppression-free society.

Reading her article I was reminded of G.K.Chesterton's famous observation that when men cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.