A Crisis of Faith in Science? by Rebecca Oas.
If Laura Stepp at CNN is to be believed, conservatives who oppose the use of contraceptives for religious reasons have lost their faith in science and are abdicating the use of their intellect in order to maintain an untenable position.
She cites a study which analyzes survey data revealing that, since the mid-1970s, a falling percentage of college-educated conservatives claim to “trust science,” compared to relatively stable numbers among liberals, and argues that those who oppose contraception, question the Neo-Darwinist narrative of evolution, or disagree with certain political measures to address global climate change, are opposed to science in general.
This argument presumes that opposition to a particular political action is the same as distrust of the data upon which it is ostensibly based. But this is not the case. Science is the empirical study of the world around us, and it provides us with information we can use to make decisions; but it cannot tell us what should be, only what is. The choice to use contraceptives or to support legislation limiting industrial emissions may be based in part on scientific data, but the choice itself is subjective. Acceptance or rejection of a scientific finding does not necessarily dictate the decisions one makes, whether moral or pragmatic.
More at FT.