Explaining Ben Stein

I'm sure most of my dozen or so readers have heard of Ben Stein's bizarre idea of science:

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

………

…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

I suspect it comes from the propaganda campaign of the past few years, in which people speaking as the Voice of Science claimed that we must fund embryonic stem-cell research (until they declared victory and retreated). It may have been reinforced by similar-sounding people claiming that defending Terri Schindler Schiavo's right to life was a mark of superstition.

If you claim that Science backs your political opinion loudly enough, you should not be surprised when people actually believe it.