“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate.”
So said Canada’s federal science minister, Gary Goodyear, a chiropractor from Ontario, when asked if he accepts that evolution has happened. Who but a creationist would construe a question about a scientific fact as a question about their religious views?
I am truly fearful for the future of science in Canada.“I do believe that just because you can’t see it under a microscope doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It could mean we don’t have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I’m not fussy on this business that we already know everything. … I think we need to recognize that we don’t know.”
Asked to clarify if he was talking about the role of a creator, Mr. Goodyear said that the interview was getting off topic.
Read the story by Anne McIlroy in the Globe and Mail.
Right, so you’ll bring the battering ram, I’ll call some journalists, we’ll both bring all our friends, and I’ll meet you on Parliament Hill?
How are these guys still in power?! I hope I get my citizenship in time to kick them out.
This guy is unbelievable. How about his performance shouting at the Canadian Association of University Teachers, then having his lackeys turf them out of the room?
It’s like the Bush administration moved north.
“I do believe that just because you can’t see it under a microscope doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Well, that’s at least looking good for anything at the atomic level…
Next leader on front page of the “Canadian Christian Chronicle”
So I’m not fussy on this business that we already know everything. … I think we need to recognize that we don’t know.”
well, he has got a point here. We need to understand what we don’t know… as well as understand what we do know. Like similarities between species and bacteria evolving right before our eyes (both in front of a microscope and not)….
I could say a pun about chiropractors but I refrain myself. I just think it is alarming that this religion part is ramping up in the politics sector. (Even as a religous person myself. However, in my view evolution and God are not contradictions.) Somewhere there has to be a possibility of talking about morals and ethics without religion, not to mention biology and science without mentioning God and religion?
[got reminded about what the former Malaysian Prime Minister said about the misunderstanding in interpreting the Koran. “It said that we should all focus on reading and learning. Not just reading and learning the Koran but everything! Greek philosophy and mathematics…” And Malaysia now has 25% of the state budget on education. Somewhere this might be copied??? ]
“well, he has got a point here. We need to understand what we don’t know… as well as understand what we do know.”
I think he’s fighting a straw man there. Do you know any scientists (even any evilutionists) who claim that we already know everything? ;)
“I could say a pun about chiropractors but I refrain myself”
Something about them all being on crack?
(Disclaimer: I see a chiropractor, it really helps with a back and sacro-iliac joint problem I have. I call him my crack dealer, he doesn’t mind. He used to be a mechanical engineer and has no problem with the fact that I don’t believe any of his claims that the treatment is doing anything for my internal organs or other non-bony parts of my body).
Cath> well, straw man or not… some part of me was reflecting back on my philosophy 101 with “what you don’t know as p when you look over the questions…”
Not the crack thing, although that was hilarious :) I had more things on the fact sheet – like you state further down “doing things for internal organs etc”. It might be fact based, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
Omg. how on earth did the conservatives get a majority in the last election? and why is a chiropractor the science minister?? ..pardon my french, but, what an ass.
i just article, this doesn’t sound quite right either:
_“When I was in high school, we were already tweaking with a coil that would wrap around the upper [radiator] hose and it got an extra five miles to the gallon. … So I’ve been there on this discovery stuff.”
Commercializing research – the focus of the government’s science and technology policy – is an area where Canada needs to make improvements, he says.
“If we are going to be serious about saving lives and improving life around this planet, if we are serious about helping the environment, then we are going to have to get some of these technologies out of the labs onto the factory floors. Made. Produced. Sold. And that is going to fulfill that talk. So yes, we have to do all of it, we have to do discovery … but it can’t end there.”_
“how on earth did the conservatives get a majority in the last election?”
They didn’t… minority government, elected with something like 38% of the popular vote.
sry, yea it was minority, meant to say how did they get enuf of a vote for Harper to get appointed PM again and put together a cabinet.
Oh, also typo, meant to say “I just read the article” in my last comment. Probably time to get coffeee.
So, to be fair, he’s got a point that Canada is monumentally bad (in general) in commercializing its research discoveries (although there have been some flagship successes – the Blackberry jumps to mind).
Minister Goodyear took a pummeling in the editorial pages of the Globe and Mail today, although Liberal science and technology critic and ex-astronaut Marc Garneau chose the moral high ground and backed Goodyear’s assertion that his faith has nothing to do with his ability as a minister. Which is the right thing to say, IMHO – although I don’t discount the possibility that M. Garneau was beeing ironic.
‘Beeeeeeing’. I meant ‘beeeeeeeeeing’, obviously. :P
“his faith has nothing to do with his ability as a minister.”
as long as any issues he has with evolution or any other subjects don’t affect how he directs funding to the CIHR et al. I know some Canadian evolutionary biologists who will be very concerned about the minister’s statement.
And I think Ryan’s right when he says “Who but a creationist would construe a question about a scientific fact as a question about their religious views?”