New Scientist: Their Will Be Done

“A failure on the part of US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to win evangelical votes could have a significant impact on the way that some science is done and taught in the US,” writes Jim Giles, a correspondent in New Scientist's San Francisco office, in an Election 2008 Special report in hard copy titled “Their Will Be Done” (subtitled: “US presidential candidates are vying for the evangelical vote. Where does that leave science and science education?”). Giles warns that the possibility of a conservative Supreme Court could have profound consequences for science: it would create a favourable climate for overturning abortion laws and making human embryonic stem cell research illegal (see below). Therefore, in addition to a section called “Science and Religion” (see blog of 16 September “Royal Society's stance on religion under fire”), our campaign in support of hESC research and therapeutic cloning will also have a section called “Science and the Law”.



Giles reports that when asked at what point human rights should be assigned, Republican presidential candidate John McCain replied with confidence: “At the moment of conception”. When pastor Rick Warren put the same question to Barack Obama last month, in a live broadcast from Warren's Californian megachurch, the Democrat presidential hopeful was less concise. “Well, you know, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade,” Obama said.

Many scientists and religious leaders say that it is impossible to pinpoint the moment at which a growing embryo should receive human rights. But Obama's meandering reply did not impress white evangelical Christians, many of whom believe that life begins at conception, says Giles, adding that if Obama cannot connect with at least the more moderate members of this group, the implications will not be limited to philosophical debates about the beginning of life.

The last two elections show why. In 2004 white evangelicals made up almost a quarter of the electorate and voted over 3 to 1 in favour of George W Bush. “The polls were very clear that the evangelical vote put Bush over the top,” Giles quotes David Neff of Christianity Today International as saying. “[Bush] has been very careful to keep that constituency happy,” Neff adds. On issues such as funding restrictions for hESC research, Bush has demonstrated his willingness to clash with scientists and toe the evangelical line.

Until recently, it seemed that this election might be different, in part because evangelical politics has changed since 2004. The rise of a new generation of moderate evangelicals has broadened the movement's political agenda. Some prominent pastors now preach the need to address global warming and help developing countries on moral grounds, issues on which the Democratic Party has a strong track record. The Democrats, in turn, have started trying to pick off previously Republican Christian voters.

It is not clear whether the Democrats have been making much headway. For some religious voters, Obama's support for gay marriage and abortion rights represents an insurmountable barrier. According to recent polls, two-thirds of white evangelicals favour McCain (black evangelicals have always tended to vote Democrat). Many of the surveys were conducted before Sarah Palin joined the Republican ticket as McCain's running mate. Her strongly conservative views appear to have energised the religious right, who may now turn out to vote in greater numbers on election day. If exit polls show that evangelicals helped elect McCain and Palin, Christian groups may retain much of their current influence in Washington.

What would that mean for science? Giles: “Researchers might find that current restrictions limiting the number of embryonic stem cells that can be used in federally funded research would stay in place. The Republican party and Palin both oppose changes to the rules. McCain's stance, the one that matters most, is less clear. In 2006, he voted for a bill, later vetoed by Bush, that would have ended the restrictions. ‘He will now be under pressure to change his position,’ says Amy Comstock Rick of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research in Washington DC.” In his recent reply to a set of 14 science policy questions put to both candidates, McCain does not commit to lifting federal restrictions on stem cell funding, or even mention them. His campaign declined a request from New Scientist to clarify.

“Those concerned about a McCain presidency under the influence of the religious right have even more to worry about when it comes to the US Supreme Court,” says Giles. “The court shifted to the right after two recent Bush appointments, and McCain has pledged to continue this trend, which would create a favourable climate for overturning abortion laws and other religiously motivated issues. Lawyers on the religious right are already preparing for such a situation.”

This November, voters in Colorado will decide on whether to amend the state's constitution so that a “person” would “include any human being from the moment of fertilization”. The amendment was drafted by Rob Muise and colleagues at the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative religious legal organisation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Giles points out that by assigning rights to the embryo, it would probably make both abortion and stem cell research illegal. “Pro-choice advocates would challenge the law in court, creating what Muise calls a legislative ‘train wreck’: a series of appeals by one or both sides that would eventually take the case to the Supreme Court, which by then might have a conservative and anti-abortion majority,” writes Giles.

Giles continues: “The train-wreck strategy could also reshape the teaching of evolution. McCain has said that intelligent design (ID), the idea that a divine force guided evolution, should ‘probably not’ be taught in science classes. When running for governor of Alaska in 2006, Palin talked about the need to teach both creationism and evolution, but she later said that she would not push school boards to add the former to their curricula. School curricula are set by the committees in charge of the country's 17,000 local school districts, so the next president will not have a direct say on the issue, but Muise and colleagues have worked on ID cases before and say they would also be keen to take this issue to the Supreme Court.”

According to Giles, a decision on ID would probably revolve around whether teaching the subject violated the separation between church and state. He quotes Mark Frankel, an expert on science and the law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, as saying that the court might decide that it did not. Frankel adds, though, that the justices would be well aware that ID was not science and so could qualify their ruling by declaring that the subject should not be taught in science lessons. Giles: “Just the possibility of a conservative Supreme Court is enough to make the legal approach attractive to the religious right. Any state ruling could trigger the train wreck Muise is hoping for. And if McCain is president when that happens, the consequences for science could be profound.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s recent four-day trip to France has been painted as a deliberate effort to weaken France's secular foundations (see blog of 23 September “Church-State struggle in Europe”). Should conservative US Christian legal groups succeed in the Supreme Court, the profound consequences for science may very well be felt in Europe too, despite “the weakening of religious belief” (see blog of two days ago “Steven Weinberg: Without God”).