THE reasons religious fundamentalism has a bad name are not hard to find. Some Christian fundamentalists in the US have preached that hurricane Katrina鈥檚 battering of New Orleans was God鈥檚 revenge on a modern-day Gomorrah. And last weekend鈥檚 bomb attacks in Bali, which killed at least 22 people, were almost certainly the work of Islamic extremists.
But distressing and horrific as such acts are, fundamentalism鈥檚 most profound effects may be arriving more stealthily 鈥� through the slow march of religious intolerance which threatens to undermine, and even reverse, two centuries of progress towards pluralist, enlightened democracies.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in fundamentalist approaches to science, arguably the direct descendant of the Enlightenment. Strict adherence to a religious text can limit what scientists can do. Academics in Islamic countries complain of not being able to publish findings deemed incompatible with scripture. Creationists seek to make research results consistent with the Old Testament, and intelligent design advocates see the hand of a higher being throughout nature, making scientific investigation pointless.
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Science progresses by challenging existing views and creating a new consensus, and many religious believers have no trouble accepting this. By contrast, fundamentalist religious authority brooks no dissent; everything is subordinate to dogma. Add in the fundamentalists鈥� desire to impose their values on everyone else and a collision with rationalism becomes inevitable.
The rise of fundamentalism is one of the most thought-provoking trends of our times, as you will see from our special report (see 鈥淩eality Wars鈥�). The irony of a science magazine reporting on a movement that would ultimately destroy science has not been lost on us. In true Enlightenment spirit, however, we accept fundamentalists鈥� right to hold their beliefs. And we assert our own right to dissent, criticise and think for ourselves.
