Amen, Pope

Yesterday the Pope gave his latest statements, or rather expressed his insecurities, relating to science.

Normally I am annoyed whenever the Pope makes headlines for stating his points of view, but this time the article hooked me (for one thing, it was in the science section).

“In an age when scientific developments attract and seduce with the possibilities they offer, it’s more important than ever to educate our contemporaries’ consciences so that science does not become the criterion for goodness,” he told scientists.

This caught my attention since it related to my cloned meat arguments of past blog posts. It seems the Pope shares my concern that science will be abused by authority.

Science is highly revered in our society; it is believed to speak the truth, it necessitates extreme academia and is poorly understood by most people, including those in power. Ergo, science has power.

Few people are probably more aware of this than the Pope.

As I discussed earlier, scientific evidence – especially evidence limited to human health – should not be the sole factor in determining policy. I believe it undermines scientific principles and abuses the authority of science. It says, ‘here is irrefutable scientific evidence, you can’t argue with science, so accept what we are saying. I don’t care if you run a democracy.’

The Pope and I are for once on the same page, but I still can’t resist pointing out his irony; the Vatican is the world’s best example of using dogma to govern people.