The name of Ignaz Semmelweis may be unfamiliar to many, but he is a perfect example of why not only is dissent within science healthy but it can literally be a matter of life and death. As I read the following statement the name of Ignaz Semmelweis kept coming to mind: “The history of science is replete with examples of novel ideas which were given birth when scientists realized that the empirical data conflicted with reigning paradigms. Scientists who observe data that conflicts with popular scientific paradigms form innovative theories to explain the new data. Scientists propounding these new theories often experience sharp opposition from their peers. It is crucial that advocates of the new scientific theories be granted freedom of inquiry to question reigning scientific ideas if scientific progress is to be possible.”1
Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician (1818 – 1865) who was quite interested in a very puzzling disease called childbed fever. According to research I did for a book I wrote called The Challenge, the story goes as follows:
“In his research, Semmelweis observed that many women bearing children in the hospitals of Vienna, where the best-educated doctors could be found, died of very high fevers shortly after giving birth. He also observed that women bearing children at home, with the help of uneducated midwives, rarely died. He determined that the doctors were the ones responsible for the spreading of the disease. It was common practice back then for a doctor to be working in the dissecting room and immediately afterward, move to the delivery room without carefully cleaning his hands. Semmelweis, in 1847, began forcing the doctors under his charge to wash their hands in strong chemicals before touching any patients. Many of these highly qualified doctors flatly refused to wash their hands and resented being thought the cause of spreading the disease. It became a question of pride. When the doctors washed their hands, the childbed fever rate went down. When they didn’t, needless lives were lost. This was truly a black day for modern medicine.”2
I believe that in the above case, the doctors knew that they were wrong, but their pride caused them to hide and suppress the truth. Fast forward to today. I believe that many scientists know, in their hearts, that our universe is just too darn complex to be here without the work of a master designer. Yet, to admit this, would mean that they might just have to abandon their long-standing paradigm of Darwinian evolution. Like Semmelweis, the creation account, has an uphill battle to gain acceptance among many scientists. Hopefully, as more scientists today open their minds, to allow a supernatural explanation of our universe to have its day in court, it may one day dethrone Darwinian evolution as the reigning paradigm explaining the origin of life.
1 David DeWolf, John G. West, Casey Luskin, and Jonathan Witt, Traipsing into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2006), p. 107.
2 Curt Blattman, The Challenge: (Shippensburg, PA: Companion Press, 1990), pp. 42-43.