Church's bad record on science

The Bishop of Leicester is concerned about my remarks regarding the Church's obsession with climate change (Mailbox, November 19).

In particular he complains that I did not raise these concerns when I was on a panel at a recent public meeting in the cathedral.

But as the good Bishop will recall, the format of that event was a question-and-answer session, with questions from the audience. Panellists were given no opportunity for general observations. The particular point about the Church's engagement with climate change did not arise. Had it done so, I should have been happy to address it.

Also, Bishop Tim will remember that, after the event, I did state my doubts over the anthropogenic global warming argument in a private discussion.

I would not wish to encourage the Church to spend even more time on the issue, but if Bishop Tim would like to organise a public debate on the theme "Global Warming: Myth or Reality?" I should be happy to speak at it.

The Church has a poor record of engagement with science. In 1600, the Italian philosopher and astronomer Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, after the Inquisition had determined that he was a heretic. His heresy was to believe that the earth was round, and that it rotated about the sun, defying the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat. The Church also persecuted Galileo for the same reason. But Galileo and Bruno were right, and the Church was wrong.

In the 19th century, the Church attacked Darwin's theory of evolution (we celebrate Darwin's 200th anniversary this year – I plan to go to the Galapagos to see Darwin's finches and turtles). Yet today the scientific consensus is that Darwin was right and the Church was wrong.

Today the Church is uncritically wedded to the Great Carbon Myth, despite the fact that more and more scientists are starting to challenge the conventional wisdom, as the real world stubbornly refuses to conform to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) computer predictions – and despite the fact that opinion polls show that a majority of voters don't believe that humans cause climate change.

As I have said before – perhaps the Church should have more faith in God, and less in the IPCC.

Roger Helmer, Conservative MEP, East Midlands.