I write in response to Tonio Borg’s article ‘Catholic schools beware!’ (May 18). In his piece, Borg calls the equality bills “dangerous”, positing that there being a “Catholic vision” of a given subject translates into a necessary freedom to entrench that vision in a child’s formal education.

In Borg’s words, Catholic schools are so-called because of this “Catholic vision of the entire gamut of subjects”, and, “certainly, there is a Catholic version of history, and one relating to philosophy, ethics or biology”. But therein lies the actual problem that deserves being ascribed the adjective “dangerous”.

Religious faith is a personal matter. It rests on the cornerstone of belief, even in the lack of evidence – a point that is eagerly stressed throughout the process of Catholic indoctrination; faith is exalted as a virtue.

As problematic as this approach would be if it were consistently applied to spheres beyond one’s religious credo, one certainly has all the freedom to hold such a view in their personal life. It is, however, a different matter altogether when it comes to education and academic discourse.

Within this framework, independence of thought and the seeking of evidence to support one’s arguments are two principal pillars. One’s personal, religious persuasions, be they Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, or otherwise, are to be kept separate.

It is mind-boggling that when speaking of “Catholic thinking” on various subjects, the notion that “the bills only protect such teaching in religion” is presented by Borg as a reason for complaint.

Limiting ourselves to the case of scientific education and enquiry – for hardly can one expect to be able to cover “the entire gamut of subjects” here – one ought to point out that identifying and removing any potential bias in the pursuit of knowledge is no minor detail or afterthought.

It is, in fact, a principal focus of discussion in the philosophy of science. Borg’s proposal directly collides with the very tenets of what critical, evidence-based education and enquiry should entail. For all the equivocation that is employed, distilled to its essence, his rallying cry is to filter science (and other subjects) through the sieve of religious conviction.

A glance at just one example from history – also a subject Borg would have suffer the same straining as science – will quickly show us the very real peril of such a proposition.

No matter what one’s personal belief dictates, nature proceeds in the manner it does- Joseph Caruana

It is somewhat astonishing that even in the 21st century, one still has to remind of the case of Galileo Galilei’s trial and house arrest. The theory of heliocentrism – supported by the evidence that Galilei himself gathered – was rejected because of the imposition of a “Catholic vision” of cosmology. Galilei was allowed to talk of the earth circling the sun only as long as this was presented as a matter of mathematical convenience, but without purporting that it described physical reality.

Now Galilei himself was a Catholic, but nonetheless, a distinction is seen to be made between scientific epistemology and religious faith.

In his letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, he made the case for a clear direction, writing that “in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense-experiences and necessary demonstrations”.

In matters pertaining to “how heaven goes”, Galileo fully relied on scientific observation.

Views about “how one goes to heaven”, should they believe in any such, are to be kept separate. It is a lesson from the 17th century, but unfortunately, Borg seems to have missed it, unless, perhaps, it ended up being inadvertently thwarted by a personal “version of history”.

Now there is another matter I should preemptively address. It is sometimes argued that religious dictums have not always been misaligned with scientific advancement. I should like to think one need not labour too much on this point, for it is a red herring.

What is presently at stake is the very principle of keeping dogma separate from matters of hard science. That the former might, at times, align (coincidentally or otherwise) with the latter does not constitute valid justification for intertwining the two. For what does one do on those occasions when they do end up in direct dispute?

Ultimately, no matter what one’s personal belief dictates, nature proceeds in the manner it does.

Disagreeing with the facts as established by scientific enquiry does not change this in the least – “Eppur si muove” (“And yet it moves”), Galilei is anecdotally said to have uttered.

One could, of course, refer to other examples from history, such as events where a twisted “version” of science was conjured up to support nefarious ends. And in the present day, in some regions of the world, we are witnessing the stifling of the teaching of Darwinian evolution in science classes as a direct result of creed trespassing upon matters of science.

These examples should continue to serve as a prompt that personal belief and ideology have no place infringing upon science’s domain, be it in the classroom or elsewhere.

For it is also a treacherous, slippery slope: if one were to accept the utterly misguided notion that a “Catholic version” of biology is admissible, what would preclude any other “version” of the subject from becoming equally acceptable? Even if one were to express no wish for extreme intrusion,  the fact remains that, besides it being wrong in principle, teaching science through the tinted glasses of personal belief opens the gates to any degree of distortion of the subject.

Borrowing Galilei’s own words, “God forbid that this sort of abuse should gain countenance and authority, for then in a short time it would be necessary to proscribe all the contemplative sciences”.

Joseph Caruana is a lecturer, Department of Physics, and Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy.