The unholy lust of scientists
It may be time to curtail public financing of scientific research
David S. Oderberg
Sunday, January 15, 2006

In our secular, post-religious society, the figure of the cassock-clad priest has been replaced by that of the white-coated scientist. Dispensing wisdom from the laboratory -- the secular sanctuary -- his every word is awaited breathlessly by a world thirsting for knowledge.

In Britain, the BBC has a weekly ritual of broadcasting the leading Big Discovery, whatever it may be, from the current issue of the Lancet. Dr. Robert Winston, in-vitro fertilization pioneer, has lately been on our screens "in search of God." The last time I looked he did not have any theological qualifications, but what does that matter? After all, he's a scientist, all glasses and gravitas, therefore qualified -- as he has shown during the past few years -- to tell the masses about, well, just about anything. The rest