richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

66 T H E G O D D E L U S I O N
shake the faithful. Bob Barth, the spiritual director of the Missouri
prayer ministry which supplied some of the experimental prayers,
said: 'A person of faith would say that this study is interesting, but
we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we
know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just
getting started.' Yeah, right: we know from our faith that prayer
works, so if evidence fails to show it we'll just soldier on until
finally we get the result we want.
THE NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN SCHOOL OF
EVOLUTIONISTS
A possible ulterior motive for those scientists who insist on NOMA
- the invulnerability to science of the God Hypothesis - is a
peculiarly American political agenda, provoked by the threat of
populist creationism. In parts of the United States, science is under
attack from a well-organized, politically well-connected and, above
all, well-financed opposition, and the teaching of evolution is in the
front-line trench. Scientists could be forgiven for feeling threatened,
because most research money comes ultimately from government,
and elected representatives have to answer to the ignorant and
prejudiced, as well as to the well-informed, among their constituents.
In response to such threats, an evolution defence lobby has
sprung up, most notably represented by the National Center for
Science Education (NCSE), led by Eugenie Scott, indefatigable
activist on behalf of science who has recently produced her own
book, Evolution vs. Creationism. One of NCSE's main political
objectives is to court and mobilize 'sensible' religious opinion:
mainstream churchmen and women who have no problem with
evolution and may regard it as irrelevant to (or even in some
strange way supportive of) their faith. It is to this mainstream of
clergy, theologians and non-fundamentalist believers, embarrassed
as they are by creationism because it brings religion into disrepute,
that the evolution defence lobby tries to appeal. And one way to do
this is to bend over backwards in their direction by espousing