The War against Sexual Pleasure

When Manila Mayor Lito Atienza forced the city-funded health institutions to ban the UN/DOH supported birth control, I assumed that it is not because he is concerned with the health of his uterus. I assumed Atienza did so because he chairs the Catholic Church sponsored Pro-life.

Likewise, when George W. Bush abhorred premarital sex, I assumed that it is not because he was a virgin during the honeymoon. I assumed Bush did so because he is a born-again Christian and (never mind the vote-rigging) was voted in the office by the Evangelicals.

But how do you wage war against something that feels good? Is it at all possible to even reverse the overwhelming scientific evidence that sex is pleasurable? Is it even worth the effort to instill in the minds of the populace that sex is nothing but a cold tool for creating babies?

Bush with his Evangelicals supporters pulled out of their vault a corrosive medieval arsenal: chastity. To implement sexual chastity you have to make the citizen fear: make them afraid that if they have sex before marriage they are damned to sin, implement a propaganda that condoms are not scientifically effective against sexually transmitted disease.To pump up the ante, dangle the federal funding carrot as an incentive to schools for teaching faith-based celibacy.

Did it work? Bush's abstinence-only program failed. Last month, a decade-long study concludes that the abstinence program did not prevent teenagers from having sex. In a brilliant documentary, Shelby Knox, a devout Christian, becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex ed when she found out that her high school who teaches abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STD in the state.

If the more religious Philippines cannot prevent its teens from being curious about sex or to put it more bluntly from remaining virgins, who gives the idea to Bush that he can even used the same tactic in forcing adults (90% of which are sexually active) to follow a strict celibate life? Who gives him the right to meddle with consenting adults on how to conduct their sexual lives?

As a president of the most powerful country in the world, he should have known about the disastrous consequence of the Catholic abstinence propaganda in AIDS-ridden Africa. As a history and business student, Bush should have realized that the answer to the Malthusian effect of unwanted pregnancy is not a life devoid of sexual pleasure. He should have foreseen that to try to wipe out premarital sex is an unrealistic, costly and ultimately futile experiment.

The War against Anti-Aging

What of Bush, citing his often-used religious tenet, vetoing year in and year out every Senate and Congress approved Bill on funding the embryonic stem cell research? While most scientists and doctors sees the advancements in biotech to stop human aging as a good thing, Bush's Council on Bioethics head Dr. Leon Kass on the other hand disapprove of it.

In his bioethics article Why not Immortality? Doctor Kass writes that victory of immortality is the unstated but implicit goal of modern medical science, and that "the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual, whether he knows it or not".

I couldn't disagree more with Dr. Kass. Death maybe a change agent, but it is not what gives meaning to our lives. If it is, then genocide, massacre, war, fatal accidents and suicides would be generally acceptable - it is not. If there is indeed an after life, why do most people mourn when someone so close dies? If death is what is life is all about and the after life is truly heaven, then why bother living at all? Why bother educating the children, why bother building houses, why bother curing the sick? Let's just abandon our earthly future, and wait for the apocalypse to come - after all, you are sure that there is an after life right? As Einstein in a joke once said "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."

The War against the Theory of Evolution

In 1802, the Anglican Archdeacon William Paley imagined finding a stone and a clock watch in a field. The watch, unlike the stone, appears to have been assembled and wouldn't function without its precise combination of parts. "The watch must have a maker," he said. If this is so, he assumed, it must also apply to the living, it must also apply to, say, our eyes. The eyes is complex, therefore Paley generalized, there must be a designer: God.

But as what rarely happens, a mind so great comes along that his arrival dispels old conventional notions. Charles Darwin shattered Paley's "complex by design" claim. Darwin by scientific observation, in his 1859 book Origin of Species, concludes that complex biological entities upon closer inspection were not designed.

Instead, according to Darwin, changes occurs when species inherit traits from their predecessors (parents/grandparents). Biological traits which is necessary to adopt and survive in the environment are inherited by the next generation (children), while those undesirable traits (what we now know as genes) which is not fit for the environment, is discarded by the future generations.

Over long periods of time, because of different environments, gradual changes (from simple to complex) occurs: diversity of species happens. Darwin calls this mutations as Natural Selection (a vital component of the Theory of Evolution).

Because of Darwin's persuasive writing, his book upon release became popular, and highly controversial: 19th century religious scientists and especially theologians attacked his book. If Darwin is right that we indeed was a by-product of inherited variations, and that these variations made us complex, that our ancestors are of simpler origins, then the literal interpretation of the Bible (Book of Genesis) is wrong. If the Bible then is indeed not literally true, then interpreting the Bible becomes subjective. The supposedly infallible Bible all of a sudden is dubbed as historically inaccurate. Religion is not immune to criticism anymore.

Darwin opened the pandora's box of doubt: for the first time, skeptics without invoking a supernatural deity, has now a working theory on how the world came to be, of a world without God. Before Darwin, many scientists are religious. After Darwin, scientists by majority became atheists/agnostics. More than a century of rigorous experiments and scientific progress later (genetics/dna) confirms the truth: evolution is occurring, and Darwin is right all along.

But although evolution today is an accepted biological/medical truth and is taught in all of the developed countries, in regions where religion is pervasive, teaching evolution is taboo.

Take for example the current creationism versus evolution education debacle in United States. By way of political manipulation and educational cover-ups, the Discovery Institute (a think-tank religious lobbyist), orchestrated a campaign to promote a thinly disguised religion masquerading as an alternative pseudoscience: Intelligent Design (ID).

Sugar-coating Paley's old and now disproven claim, the Discovery Institute, used a tactic they dubbed as Teach the Controversy - that is create a propaganda that there is a controversy within scientific community when in reality there is none. In a paper now known as The Wedge Strategy document, the Discovery Institute was revealed to have a twenty-year plan which aims to replace valid scientific knowledge with religious propaganda in schools and in the public.

Did the Institute succeeded? Well, their claim of Intelligent Design was unanimously rejected by the scientific community. In the landmark case reminiscent of the Scopes Trial, a United States federal court judge ruled that Intelligent Design is not science. Their seemingly success two years ago in Kansas, was overturned this year by the incumbent school board.

Furthermore, the Intelligent Design propaganda backfired. Closet atheists proclaimed their atheism, even to the point of some being militant. The controversies went national, as Stephen Colbert, the famous satirist, now regularly interviews skeptics. Books about atheism is on the bestseller list. The issue also became the touchpoint of American pundits, as newspaper columnists and bloggers regularly features it. There is even a mock-religion in direct reaction to the whole mess: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

But perhaps the most telling of the whole event, was Bush proclaiming his support for Intelligent Design. With this decisive move, Bush will be forever remembered as the president who dismissed altogether sound scientific advice for dogmatic fundamentalism.

The War against the Science of Global Warming

It is a common knowledge around the world that Bush wage the war in Iraq for oil. What is less obvious is he did so with the financial support of war profiteers and Christian groups who voted for him. So what if the Senate and Congress want to pull out from Iraq? So what if there is a general consensus among scientists that the global warming is man-made? Bush assert that he is "the decider", that he will never back down from Iraq.

He is the president, therefore according to Bush, he has the right to reject the National Academy of Sciences consensus on global warming and the right to suppress an EPA report supporting that consensus. He is the president, therefore he has the power to censor, alter the reports and mislead the public on the true nature of global warming. With the religious fundamentalists supporting him, a documentary showing that the Global warming is a swindle, Bush can't be wrong right?

As it turns out, truth no matter how you suppress it, has a habit of creeping out of the closet. Take for example the Exxon Mobil Oil and their think tank (American Enterprise Institute) lobby group with close links to Bush. In a span of few years Exxon made the largest annual profit in the history of the United States ($40 billion), their CEO making over a $100,000 per day. Their lobby group schemed to cover-up the truth (18 years after the tanker Exxon Valdez spilled the oil, the Alaskan waters is still polluted ). To counter the notion that pollution is bad they filmed a pro-carbon dioxide advertisement, and in their ethical high tried to bribe scientists.

What of the documentary of Global Warming Swindle? Turns out Fred Singer, the infamous scientists interviewed in the film, received funding from Exxon. Yes, this is the same scientist who by APCO public relations, was funded by Philip Morris to deny that smoking cause cancer. Why am I not surprise that APCO is working with Exxon. Also climate scientists points out that the graphs in the documentary are full of errors. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the documentary was "grossly distorted... as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two" and that his comments in the film were taken out of context.

Adding to the insults is the Christian fundamentalists who voted for Bush. They felt that second coming of Jesus, and the four horsemen of apocalypse is at hand - that the end is near. Not only are they not concerned with environmental disaster, they actually welcome and support it.

Bush Exit

Because the US is loosing its world leadership in technology, Americans should be concerned with the anti-science stance of Bush.

Judging by the opposition win in the 2006 election sweep, the majority of which are now in Senate and Congress, Bush legacy will wane as soon as he steps out in 2008. Unlike the founding fathers, Bush will not leave any enduring influence. Power without progress is always temporary.

Time is running out: Tony Blair, his ally in the Iraq war will step down as Prime Minister this June. His two major religious supporters are now incognito: the anti-gay Evangelical president Ted Haggard resigned when was found out to be gay, while Jerry Falwell just this month, died.

Thanks to private investors, biotech and alternative energy is in the midst of breakthrough despite the lack of federal funding. Amidst Bush backward policy, science and technology moves forward, as countries around the world aims for leadership.

• Video: War on Science


• Book: The Republican War on Science

• Video: Bush, the Neocon


• Challenge of the Superduperfriends