D’Souza aghast as he discovers many scientists don’t believe in God

Dinesh D’Souza is a blogger, author and self publicist who wields his mighty stick against the scourge of atheism. In his latest missive, he has uncovered evidence that science teachers are promoting atheism. How so? Simply this: his favoured god (a Christian of the bible-thumping Protestant variety) is at odds with science and the empirical evidence. His god, for example, doesn’t believe in evolution.

So far so tedious. But what makes this one more interesting is that he has unearthed some nice quotes from scientists on the incompatibility of science and religious beliefs about the origin of species:

Here is Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson in his widely-assigned book On Human Nature: “If humankind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species.”

Biologist Stephen Jay Gould writes in his essay in the book Darwin’s Legacy: “No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature…whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature.”

Douglas Futuyma asserts in his textbook Evolutionary Biology: “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”

Biologist William Provine writes, “Modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws…We must conclude that when we die, we die, and that is the end of us.” Evolution, Provine has also said, is the “greatest engine of atheism.”

In his essay on “Darwin’s Revolution” in the book Creative Evolution, Francisco Ayala credits Darwin with proving that life is “the result of a natural process…without any need to resort to a Creator.”

For many people, the realisation that the god squad got it so wrong about something so fundamental as where we come from does turn them off religion. That’s true. But it’s also true that many religious people manage to accept the reality of evolution by natural selection and still retain their beliefs.

So teaching science to children may well turn them off religion. But that’s hardly the fault of science. And it’s certainly not a reason to stop teaching the evidence. D’Souza goes on to moan:

I suspect these quotations are merely the tip of the iceberg. Biologist Kenneth Miller–a star witness on behalf of evolution in recent court cases–writes in his book Finding Darwin’s God that “a presumption of atheism or agnosticism is universal in academic life…The conventions of academic life, almost universally, revolve around the assumption that religious belief is something that people grow out of as they become educated.”

Well that’s true as well. Intelligent, well educated people are much less likely to believe in god. Another uncomfortable reality for people like D’Souza.