Interesting comments from a research scientist

Professor Richard Lewontin, a research professor at Harvard University, had this to say regarding the humanist/materialist approach to science:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so-stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Very frankly spoken, kudos to him for his forthrightness. It will certainly be interesting to keep an eye out for spin control from his colleagues.

Hat tip: Vox Popoli