The high priests have failed us!

Well, this is certainly new! The Italian seismologists who failed to predict the 2009 quake are being charged with manslaughter by the Italian government.

In Western society there has been an unwelcome development in the past few decades. It seems that when anything bad happens, such as a natural disaster, then someone is obviously guilty and must be held legally responsible. Often this takes on a politically partisan tone: President X or Governor Y should have done something (no one can say precisely what) to have prevented a particular catastrophe. This is a favorite game of the secular media.

The charges against the Italian scientists are ridiculous. Given the present state of the science, it is impossible to predict earthquakes with any reasonable degree of accuracy.

At the same time, I feel that scientific organizations protesting the prosecution such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) are partially to blame for these developments.

The AAAS has been one of the loudest voices pushing the idea of scientism. Science, we are told, can explain everything we see in the natural world, and that those who argue that reality is more than what we see in the natural world are dangerous religious fanatics. The AAAS has also pressed hard the reactionary notion of "settled science" in an effort to avoid debating critics of flawed theories such as natural evolution and climate change.

Here is the problem when you push the notion of science as Supreme Lord: you risk turning scientists into high priests of a religious faith. And when the high priests fail, the unwashed heathen tend to get a bit angry.

It is true that Christianity has been used to advance such evils as the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. But science's hands are not free of blood, either. A rejection of Christianity can lead to horrors such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The fact that scientists in those countries either ended up in concentration camps or the terrified bootlickers of the authorities does not alter the fact that scientists were among the chief early sponsors of these monstrosities.

For that reason, don't be surprised if cases like the one involving the Italian seismologists become more common. Having used the secular media and government power to try to squelch ideas and opinions that differ from their own, the AAAS should not be shocked when the same sword is used on them.