I have always maintained (and I still do) that science and politics have nothing in common and that they are antithetical to each other. Politics – political considerations and sensibilities – is the surest way to corrupt science. However, I think we can follow Goldwater’s sentiment and conviction, with some modifications, to express what it means to be a scientist and the Scientific Fundamentalist.
Moderation in the face of political correctness is no virtue.
I think these could be important credos for Scientific Fundamentalism.
And when Goldwater won the Presidential election on the strength of his acceptance speech and his message, President Goldwater.... Wait... what? He got what? What do you mean...? Daisy girl? A landslide? Who the hell is “El B. J.”? I thought that was Bill Clinton’s nickname in Mexico!
This may be a good place to remind you that, as I have argued elsewhere before, science, unlike American politics, is not a democracy. It doesn’t matter how popular your theory is or how many people agree with you. If science were a democracy, then Galileo, Darwin, and Jim Watson would all have been voted off the island a long time ago. Science is truly an elitist enterprise. In science, the majority doesn’t get to decide; the best few do. It doesn’t matter how popular you are; it only matters if you are right.
