Lying ... is lying ... is lying ... is lying. False
research? Hell, it's only lying on a different level. And in a sense, it's
worse, because it is much more premeditated: sometimes we lie on the spur of
the moment to cover something up, but false research, twisted research, takes
thought. Lots of it.
Many
organizations in our country have become extensions of today's pulpit: The
American Family Association, The Family Research Council, Focus on the Family
spearhead a movement to legitimize hate and promote their form of
"morality" through junk science and "research." The Barna
Group, for example, touts itself as an unbiased pollster, but it's findings are
anything but unbiased: George Barna's profile can be found on the website for Newt Gingrich's campaign,
the section titled "Faith Coalition."
He
founded the Barna Research Group in 1984 (now The Barna Group) and helped it
become a leading marketing research firm focused on the intersection of faith
and culture.
The Family "Research" Council has done it time and time
again: presented bad research as the truth. In fact, the use of discredited
research such as Paul Cameron's studies about gays is what has prompted the
Southern Poverty Law Center to list the FRC as a hate group. Ditto the American
Family Association (Bryan Fischer) Ditto Abiding Ministries (Scott Lively).
Ditto AFTAH (Americans for Truth About Homosexuality). Ditto NARTH (National
Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality). Ditto the late Chuck
Colson's Prison Fellowship:
Chuck Colson and Prison Fellowship faked
the data to make it appear as though taking part in their Christian
rehabilitation program had a much higher rate of success in avoiding recidivism
than it actually did.
The prolific use of shoddy research was on display when Rep. King
used the dubious contention that over
eight out of ten mosques in the U.S. advocate radical Islam as
a rationale for holding congressional hearings on the radicalization of
Muslim-Americans. The thoroughly debunked claim that extremists
dominate over 80% of American mosques was first made by a Muslim cleric who
has never been able to document or verify his assertion ,
but that hasn't stopped anti-Muslim activists from repeating it ad
nauseam. Frank Gaffney, Jr., of
the Center for Security Policy, one of the most vociferous anti-Muslim
ideologues, cited the phony statistic to defend his campaign to prevent the construction of mosques in America ,
and Religious Right leader Gary Bauer cited unnamed "experts" to support his
allegation that those who disseminate "radical Wahhabist ideology" fund
80% of American mosques .
One typical evangelical response to global warming is given by the
website Got Questions.org (The Bible Has Answers!)
- The "consensus" claimed by most global warming theorists is not
scientific proof; rather, it is a statement of majority opinion. Scientific
majorities have been wrongly influenced by politics and other factors in the
past. Such agreement is not to be taken lightly, but it is not the same thing
as hard proof.
"Liar Lair" and
Vetting The Research.
The aggressiveness with which today's socially conservative organizations tout these pieces of misinformation is always limited to the people who will never question them, so one solution may be meet aggression with aggression: screaming "lair, liar pants on fire!" But what about the morality of such aggression? This is probably where morality must be weighed and hate-enabling becomes far too heavy in the balance: make no stake about it, knowingly manipulating numbers and outcomes is intentionally harmful.
In our last Monday Sermon, we
wrote about vetting your belief, and just as much as you need to vet your
belief, you need to vet the research spouted by organizations that would make
you distrust or hate a group, a religion or a science.
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