Brownback, Theocrat

I'm so in awe of PZ Meyers' marvelous post yesterday in response to the Brownback "Evolution" op-ed that I am posting some of my favorite moments from it here:

I know the scientific method. Faith isn't in it, or anywhere near it, although you could make a good case that doubt and suspicion are everywhere in it. The scientific method is a tool to counter faith and intuition and other such misleading biases that investigators bring to their research.

There is also some confusion about what faith can accomplish. I reject faith, yet somehow I have value and meaning in my life, I feel empathy for those who suffer, and I love. I do not need your dogma to understand those matters. I do so by observing my own life, the lives of others, the consequences of actions on people—by considering just the material world, not assuming an irrelevant supernatural one.

And in response to Brownback's "Biologists will have their debates about man's origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table," he says:

Name one thing of value that "people of faith" bring to the table. One thing. Make sure it's something that people of reason do not bring.

This is the heart of it. Not that "people of faith" are somehow lesser, per se, than people "without" faith, but that both are equally able to make ethical choices and believe in compassion for their fellow human beings.