Our Threatened Freedom

What Has Happened to Integrity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 63-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 063

Dictation Name: Vol. E - Part 11 - What Has Happened to Integrity

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] What has happened to integrity? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

In recent years we have had a series of reports on very extensive frauds in the scientific world. Several years ago Science Digest gave a detailed report on the high degree of dishonesty in reporting research. Fraudulent claims are made by scientists and when these claims are shown to be false, usually nothing is done to punish the offender.

More recently, US News and World Report reported on scandals in the scientific laboratories of major universities and medical institutions across the country. Specific cases were cited, fabricated data on anorexia, nervosa, on cancer therapy, on Hodgkin’s disease, on skin grafts, and more. One case was described as the Watergate of science, an all too mild a description. Watergate represented one act; these scientific frauds represent a whole chain of operation. The implications of such frauds are deadly, a variety of medical, psychological and educational practices ensue from such research. These practices assume a foundation of scientific data to be true, when it is in reality false. These false data affect your life and mine as well as the practices of those who assume their truth and work with patients on that basis.

Such fraud is criminal in its meaning, and yet only rarely is there even a dismissal of such scientists. Only after some flagrant cases did the National Institute of Health establish a debarment procedure to end all further federal grants of funds to researchers found guilty of fraud.

Revolting as all this is, we should not be surprised. We are getting what we asked for. We have separated the need and requirement of a godly character from the acquisition of knowledge. Should we be surprised if men of learning and science [blank?] to be no more than a scientific mafia with the test of time? A doctor or a scientist, as well as an educator, with a great deal of learning but no character is only a more dangerous man, not a better man. Education makes a man learned, not moral. Just because a man has several degrees, a prestigious position, and an important status, no more makes him a good man than a million dollar house in the best neighborhood makes a member of the criminal syndicate a good citizen.

As a people we have poured billions into teaching youth facts, but almost nothing into making them aware of the meaning of godly faith and character. As a result, in every area of life we see a lack of integrity, honesty, and morality.

For freedom to survive requires more than a literate people. It necessitates a public character, marked by a godly faith, integrity, and morality. These things are inseparable from freedom.

This has been R.J Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.