The Questioning Christian

Science, Wishful Thinking, and Idolatry

Written by

D. C. Toedt III

in

“The opposite of science is not religion; the opposite of science is wishful thinking.”  John Derbyshire, Metaphysics, Science, Homosexuality, in National Review Online (hat tip to Topmost Apple).

"I have great sympathy with David Pailin when he says that ‘Attempts to defend theism by ignoring the question of truth … are fundamentally atheistic. They worship human wishes rather than ultimate reality.’"  (Rev. Dr. John C. Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS, The Faith of a Physicist, Fortress Press paperback ed., ch. 2, p. 30.)

Comments

One response to “Science, Wishful Thinking, and Idolatry”

  1. Patrick Casanova Avatar
    Patrick Casanova

    I enjoyed reading Derbyshire’s paper. But I think he will run into trouble by suggesting that the absence of equal rights for homosexuals is a “minor inconvenience”. He seems like a fair-minded writer so perhaps he is not as familiar with the legal issues as he should be.
    But overall, not bad. My favorite part of his paper is the following quote:
    “The confusion between ‘genetic’ and ‘inborn’ is epidemic among the general public, however, to the despair of science writers. To readers suffering from that confusion — an actual majority of those who wrote to me suffer from it — I recommend the purchase of a good dictionary.”
    — Pat

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts