Science and Faith Should Not Collide in Pennsylvania

After a brief pause, it’s debate season again as two of the three remaining major party presidential candidates rev up their views on a wide range of issues in prelude to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. This coming Sunday night, Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) will talk about faith issues as they participate in a Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Harrisburg—Senator McCain (R-AZ) has so far declined the invitation to participate. Poverty, the environment, AIDS and Darfur are some of the issues they’ll tackle under the banner of faith.

But let’s stretch that banner a bit. After all, these issues encompass more than faith. Many are intrinsically linked to science. Ever heard of global warming naysayers? Abstinence-only programs to fight AIDS? Intelligent design? And then there’s embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, both of which are often opposed on “religious” grounds despite their promise to reduce human suffering and fight disease.

More and more, it is impossible to talk in any meaningful way about urgent moral issues without acknowledging their scientific components—just as it is difficult to talk about science issues without including their moral aspects.

Indeed, after eight disastrous years of the Bush administration’s neglecting science and distorting it into sectarian ideology, it is time for our national leaders to acknowledge the crucial importance of science in our lives. In order to compete in global markets and prosper as a nation, we need scientifically literate citizens. Organizers of Science Debate 2008 have argued that the candidates have a moral obligation to talk about their approaches to science policy—and Science Progress supports this initiative. All three candidates from the major parties were invited, yet none accepted. But the scale of the issue is enormous: the debate organizers point out that science and engineering has driven half our economic growth since the Second World War. However, and if trends hold true, by 2010 about 90 percent of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia.

How we tackle the challenges of scientifically driven economic growth and climate change depends on our technological readiness to shift to a low-carbon economy—and our moral awareness of the need to do so.

The list goes on and on. That is because science issues are moral issues.

At Messiah College Sunday night, I hope that Sens. Obama and Clinton will speak comprehensively about “faith” issues that go beyond narrow delineations to show persuasively that science and religion are not in opposition to each other, but instead are essential components to our understanding, and solving, the complex, scientific-moral problems of our day.

Sally Steenland is Senior Policy Advisor for Faith and Progressive Policy at the Center for American Progress.

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