CFI Washington office opens, issues declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism

The effort to call science and reason back to the table in matters of public policy and legislation has received a much-needed boost with the Center for Inquiry-Transnational's "Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism," released at the opening of the new Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C.

The office is a response to the increasing influence of religious doctrine on law and policy makers, as well as to the growing public acceptance of supernatural claims and unfounded religious explanations for the natural world. With the office in place in the nation's capital, the Center for Inquiry will reach out to legislators, provide expert testimony before Congress, speak on issues when they are in the public eye, and submit amicus curiae briefs in science and religion cases before the Supreme Court.

The Center for Inquiry, which defends reason, science, and freedom of inquiry, is an umbrella organization that includes the Council for Secular Humanism, publisher of Free Inquiry;, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

More than 200 people attended the opening of the D.C. office on November 14, including prominent scientists, noted public intellectuals, and Nobel Laureates. The declaration, signed by three Nobel Prize winners and more than fifty scientific supporters, calls on policymakers to put empirical scientific evidence first when determining how to craft legislation.

"We are concerned with the resurgence of fundamentalist religions across the nation and their alliance with political-ideological movements to block science," it reads in part. "We are troubled by the persistence of paranormal and occult beliefs, and by the denial of the findings of scientific research."

The declaration cites roadblocks to stem cell research and contraception education--as well as efforts to teach intelligent design in public-school science classes--as stark examples of how religious influence is promoting the outright dismissal of scientific evidence and medical advances. One of the document's main tenets is to allow and promote free inquiry in all areas of learning, contrary to the current system of censoring potentially life-improving scientific inquiry based on religious concerns.

Speakers at the opening included Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Center for Inquiry/Transnational; David Koepsell, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism; Edward Tabash, chairman of the First Amendment Task Force; Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University; David Helfand, professor of astronomy at Columbia University; and other prominent scientists and intellectuals.

Kurtz emphasized the importance of enacting public policy based on reason and science, and recalled that the historical betterment of society owes a debt to scientific advances. "The social and scientific progress we take for granted has been advanced by a basic scientific philosophical point of view: scientific naturalism," Kurtz said. "The methods of the sciences, and the assumptions upon which they are based, are being challenged culturally in the United States today as never before. Despite its success in providing us with unparalleled benefits, religious fundamentalists seek to inhibit free inquiry and to misrepresent the tested conclusions of scientific naturalism. This is a highly charged political issue--both science and secularism are under political attack."

Office Policy Director Toni Van Pelt added, "The Center for Inquiry is stepping up and stepping on stage, front and center to bring a rational, secular, pro-democratic influence to the table of national discussion and public policy setting."

Paul Boyer, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said the establishment of the Center for Inquiry and its Office of Public Policy was one step toward a better, and better-informed, future for all Americans. "That goal is an enlightenment that would lead our citizens to base their actions and beliefs on the results of rational inquiry," Boyer said. "Such enlightenment would mean the acceptance of the truth of evolution and would promote changes for better separation of church and state."

Boyer noted that a survey of scientists revealed that those of high achievement are likely to be atheists or agnostics, and the ones who do the most research in biology and other areas that had traditionally been explained by religious mythology were least likely of all to subscribe to religious beliefs.

Ronald A. Lindsay, the legal director of the Washington, D.C., Office of Public Policy, echoed the declaration's call for freedom of inquiry. "One must be committed to the view that public policy should be grounded on nonreligious considerations, and this includes our policies regarding the limits on scientific inquiry," Lindsay said. "It is no accident that, in the Western world, science has flourished after the Enlightenment."