This week, The Stream and the Center for Science & Culture are teaming up the ahead of the March for Science to provide some crucial ballast. From April 17-21, The Stream and the CSC will counter the March for Science’s hypocritical claims of openness and diversity with a series of essays from leading scientists and scholars.

Today, CSC Associate Director John G. West has a post up at The Stream highlighting the double standards upheld by the March for Science organizers, and what they tell us about the purpose of the March. In “March for Science or March for Secularism?” he writes:

March organizers say they believe that “science works best when scientists come from diverse perspectives.” They also claim that the “scientific community is best served by including voices and contributions from people of all identities and backgrounds.”

Tell that to scientists who think there is evidence of intelligent design in nature. Discovery Institute represents many of those scientists, and so asked to become a “partner” for the March. We were turned down flat.

I asked the March co-chair Jonathan Berman to explain why. He emailed me that “it is not our policy to advance specific worldviews or ideas outside of current consensuses of scientific fields.”

That seems odd, considering some of the other groups that the organizers seemed to have no problem partnering with. West notes that these include American Humanist Association, Secular Student Alliance, and the Secular Coalition for America—all of which use science to argue that God doesn’t exist. So much for no “specific worldviews.”

West continues:

Then there is the March’s honorary co-chair Bill Nye, the “Science Guy.” A few years ago, Nye was named “Humanist of the Year.” He claims “evolution is not guided by a mind or a plan.” He also invokes science to argue that humans are “insignificant” and “suck.”

So according to the leaders of the March for Science, if you argue that science provides evidence of purposeful design, you’re anti-science. But if you argue science disproves God and shows humans “suck,” that’s fine.

Read the rest at The Stream, and check back for more articles in the “Science for All” series!