I often hear scientists and others complain that some religious people are satisfied with "God did it" as an explanation for everything and are uninterested in what science has to say.
I never felt this way as a Witness; I always felt that Witnesses were very interested in scientific discoveries.
Apparently, I was wrong.
R.Stuart Marshall is a Witness with a doctorate from Stanford whose life story appeared in the wt 08 12/01. Consider this telling anecdote from that article:
The University of California wanted funds to compete with other states to win a six-billion-dollar federal project. The project was to build a superconducting supercollider for research on subatomic particles. I had recommended against the funding, stating that in the long run, it would provide little for the state economy. The university countered by bringing in two Nobel laureates in physics to testify before the legislature. Each of them described the knowledge that the project could provide. One said that it could answer questions on the origin of the universe. The other said that it could shed light on the beginning of life on our planet.
The chairman of the committee turned to me.
“Do you think six billion dollars is too much to pay for answers to these questions?” he asked.
“I agree that these are important questions,” I answered. “However, Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door on Saturday mornings and offer a magazine on a 25-cent donation that will answer the same questions. And I’m not sure that their 25-cent answer isn’t better than the six-billion-dollar answers we might get from this project.”
Everyone in the room roared with laughter, including the Nobel laureates. Even though the legislature granted funding to pursue the project, no one refuted my point.