Republicans against science
JonnyPistachio
Florida Posts: 10,219
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opini ... ef=opinion
Republicans Against Science by Paul Krugman
"Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.
To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”
That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”
The second part of Mr. Perry’s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming — which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences — is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.
In fact, if you follow climate science at all you know that the main development over the past few years has been growing concern that projections of future climate are underestimating the likely amount of warming. Warnings that we may face civilization-threatening temperature change by the end of the century, once considered outlandish, are now coming out of mainstream research groups.
But never mind that, Mr. Perry suggests; those scientists are just in it for the money, “manipulating data” to create a fake threat. In his book “Fed Up,” he dismissed climate science as a “contrived phony mess that is falling apart.”
I could point out that Mr. Perry is buying into a truly crazy conspiracy theory, which asserts that thousands of scientists all around the world are on the take, with not one willing to break the code of silence. I could also point out that multiple investigations into charges of intellectual malpractice on the part of climate scientists have ended up exonerating the accused researchers of all accusations. But never mind: Mr. Perry and those who think like him know what they want to believe, and their response to anyone who contradicts them is to start a witch hunt.
So how has Mr. Romney, the other leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination, responded to Mr. Perry’s challenge? In trademark fashion: By running away. In the past, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has strongly endorsed the notion that man-made climate change is a real concern. But, last week, he softened that to a statement that he thinks the world is getting hotter, but “I don’t know that” and “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.” Moral courage!
Of course, we know what’s motivating Mr. Romney’s sudden lack of conviction. According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.
So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.
And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change.
Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has gone beyond its long-term preference for the economic ideas of “charlatans and cranks” — as one of former President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisers famously put it — to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no attention to “fancy theories” that conflict with “common sense,” the Journal tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings to analyze things like financial crises and recessions?
Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."
Republicans Against Science by Paul Krugman
"Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.
To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”
That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”
The second part of Mr. Perry’s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming — which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences — is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.
In fact, if you follow climate science at all you know that the main development over the past few years has been growing concern that projections of future climate are underestimating the likely amount of warming. Warnings that we may face civilization-threatening temperature change by the end of the century, once considered outlandish, are now coming out of mainstream research groups.
But never mind that, Mr. Perry suggests; those scientists are just in it for the money, “manipulating data” to create a fake threat. In his book “Fed Up,” he dismissed climate science as a “contrived phony mess that is falling apart.”
I could point out that Mr. Perry is buying into a truly crazy conspiracy theory, which asserts that thousands of scientists all around the world are on the take, with not one willing to break the code of silence. I could also point out that multiple investigations into charges of intellectual malpractice on the part of climate scientists have ended up exonerating the accused researchers of all accusations. But never mind: Mr. Perry and those who think like him know what they want to believe, and their response to anyone who contradicts them is to start a witch hunt.
So how has Mr. Romney, the other leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination, responded to Mr. Perry’s challenge? In trademark fashion: By running away. In the past, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has strongly endorsed the notion that man-made climate change is a real concern. But, last week, he softened that to a statement that he thinks the world is getting hotter, but “I don’t know that” and “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.” Moral courage!
Of course, we know what’s motivating Mr. Romney’s sudden lack of conviction. According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.
So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.
And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change.
Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has gone beyond its long-term preference for the economic ideas of “charlatans and cranks” — as one of former President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisers famously put it — to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no attention to “fancy theories” that conflict with “common sense,” the Journal tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings to analyze things like financial crises and recessions?
Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."
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Comments
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*Tina Fey
Hail, Hail!!!
I think Mr. Perry just got my vote.
I ain't paranoid... :shock:
"Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself "ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science", indeed anti-knowledge.....
Godfather.
I liked it !!!
Godfather.
Propaganda or not, Godfather, you have to admit it was Perry himself who admits to not believing in climate change science or evolution science. And that's getting pretty far out there. Next thing you know, he'll be telling us the world is flat and God created the earthquake in VA as a warning to Washington DC.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
these republicans are the same ones who want to cut funding for public schools, destroy teacher's unions, cut teacher pay, cut school programs, give vouchers for private schools where they teach creationism, and promote homeschooling where a parent can pass along their own anti-science opinions on to the next generation...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
welllll...I don't believe in evolution and climate change is still up the air(no pun intended) for me but all that aside I was just joking about a Perry vote for now I'm not sure which way I'll vote yet.
Godfather.
You know why it sounds like propaganda? Because the crazy shit that Bachmann and Perry have been saying make it extremely hard to believe that someone with so much success can be so delusional.
*****
"Krugman is a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics.
At the same time, Mr. Krugman has written extensively for a broader public audience. Some of his recent articles on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American and other journals, are reprinted in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.
On October 13, 2008, it was announced that Mr. Krugman would receive the Nobel Prize in Economics."
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/e ... ne=nyt-per
haha, caught that funny from Bachmann.. I see what you did there!
:shock:
Really? I'd never thought you think that.
Hail, Hail!!!
I'd be more embarrassed for people who judge our entire country based on one group and their views. And the real issue isn't what others will think (those that think ill of us are just find something else to focus on anyway) but rather to keep this kind of closed-minded thinking from becoming the majority. For our own sake.
To be honest, I don't actually know any Christians who think this way, though I know there are some out there. Most that I know don't take the Bible literally (or more specifically the Old Testament) and have been able to reconcile the differences between science and the Bible, without following the "Jesus Horse" type of thinking. I know Perry is a big Christian, but I don't know if he's as big as he's been acting recently. His time in Texas has been more about power and making money than pushing his religion on anybody. A Republican candidate pretty much has to pander to the extreme right, tell them what they want to hear, and worry about the rest of the voters later. I think they assume that the more moderate sections of the Right will probably just follow along anyway, either out of party loyalty or because the other candidate turns them off with their views.
I think Perry is just playing the game. If he gets elected (God forbid) we will have plenty to worry about, but I don't think becoming a theocracy is one of them. Perry is guided more by his own agenda than that of any God.
I don't really care much about the evolution debate... if a local school district doesn't want to teach evolution, that is their prerogative, though I definitely disagree with them.
But the global warming debate is interesting. Republicans I know don't believe in global warming because they don't like the restrictions the government is imposing because of it. I've always found that quite curious. It's almost like not believing in cancer because you don't want to die. It is OK to say, I believe global warming is a real possibility but I don't like these regulations the government is imposing, ala Chris Christie.
This is exactly what I believe. Campaigning to the base that will latch on and never let go... even if he reveals his past employment history with Al Qaeda.
Hail, Hail!!!
I would consider you to be a reasonable human being. Not bound to what the perception of what a Republican (or Democrat) should be.
Hail, Hail!!!
Sharp eye, JonnyPistachio!
Godfather, you seem like a very nice person and I mean no disrespect by saying this, but climate change and evolution... well, it could be argued that nothing is absolute, but the doubts about both of these are very, very thinly supported. The vast majority of climate change deniers are pundits for corporations that (that not who - despite the many changes evolution has produced over the eons, it has yet to do anything that amazing
Might I suggest a few Edward O Wilson titles to browse?
* Sorry, I know this topic has been covered elsewhere.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Godfather.
Godfather.
No... seriously. The part about not believing in Evolution. It's like not believing in Gravity.
If there are viable alternative Theories to Evolution... based upon testable scientific discovery, not faith (belief)... then, I'm all ears.
Hail, Hail!!!
I also fail to see why people being creationist or people believing in evolution: a) often believe that these two views are mutually exclusive of each other (when they certainly do not have to be) and b) view people with the opposing idea as some sort of threat. To me, the least of my worries is someone else's ideas on where we all came from. As long as those ideas are not forced on me, I do not care what they are, and no one else should either. If people want bad or unpopular ideas to go the way of the Dodo, they stop paying attention to them. If people want to guarantee bad ideas eternal life, the best options are to criminalize them or institutionalize them.
I understand the importance of the role of science in the climate debate, and recognize that it's a discussion worth our time. If our friend Kruggy applied his thoughts on the economy to climate change, few people in here would be singing his praises because to paraphrase his hero Keynes, "in the end, we're all dead."
In my opinion, it's just as bad to claim to know things that are best left unknown or naturally determined-- such as market interest rates, supply and demand, pricing, etc... Someone like Paul Krugman will use his impressive credentials and education to claim to know exactly what these things are, and because he has a few years of experience in a very exclusive community, working with some other great minds, people believe every word he says. Are his ideas based on tons of education and research? Supposedly. Are they correct? Not necessarily. I'm not going to say he's not a smart guy-- he definitely is, he's just not as smart as he thinks he is, and therein lies the problem with most people who attempt to understand and control things that are much greater than them. It's similar to the concept of "blowback," the CIA's term for unforseeable and often negative consequences associated with an interventionist foreign policy-- a similar phenomenon to "blowback" can also be a result of too much meddling in the economy, the environment, etc... People like Krugman either pretend to know more than they do, or really believe they are God's gift in whatever area of study they claim their expertise, or have some sort of other selfish motives for making the claims that they do.
As far as the Nobel Prize, Hayek also won a Nobel Prize for economics, and I think Friedman might have also, both of whom would have very different ideas than Krugman. But then again, I'm starting to doubt the credibility of The Nobel prize after Obama also won a Nobel prize for PEACE
That being said, I am no fan of Perry or Romney at all. I would not vote for either of them, nor would I vote for Obama. But the reasons why I would oppose all 3 of the above has everything to do with their policies, which are virtually the same, no matter their views on the importance of science and intellectualism.
the missing link between man and monkey ?
Godfather.
My 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Green
wow ! what a awesome reply Vinnie.
Godfather.
I always start with their policies, and thats why I agree with you there (I would not vote for either of these 3 today)
I don't know a damn thing about Krugman, other than what was on the NY Times site, but thats not what is important here. I just posted that because it was said that it sounded like propaganda.. I thought differently -- that a writer was concerned about a rash of recent strange quotes linking religion to politics. I'd like those to be separate myself. I'd really almost prefer not know about all their religious beliefs, and I don't like to think about someone like Bachman bombing a country cause God told her so.
But, to some degree, I do care about how these people think if they are running for president. It says a lot of their character to me. I know the arguments behind climate change and I also know that Perry's policies have landed Texas near the bottom in several environmental categories.
• Amount of Carbon Dioxide Emissions – 1st
• Amount of Volatile Organic Compounds Released into Air – 1st
• Amount of Toxic Chemicals Released into Water – 1st
• Amount of Recognized Cancer-Causing Carcinogens Released into Air – 1st
• Amount of Hazardous Waste Generated – 1st
• Amount of Toxic Chemicals Released into Air – 5th
• Amount of Recognized Cancer-Causing Carcinogens Released into Water – 7th
• Number of Hazardous Waste Sites on National Priority List – 7th
• Consumption of Energy per Capita – 5th
Ummmm... I **hope** you do understand that the Theroy of Evolution goes way beyongd the evolution of Man... don't you? That by the process of natural selection, living creatures evolve to be best suited for their environment... right? And that not all living creatures (including those that have become extinct) weren't all created in their current (or last) living state... right?
Please... tell me you understand this. Please.
Hail, Hail!!!
Godfather.
Godfather.
Ironic? How? Being that Evolution and Gravity are BOTH scientific theories. Rejecting one theory without rejecting the other... how is that 'ironic'?
I could have used plate tectonics or Einstein's Theory of Relativity (related to gravity)... but I decided to go with simple.
Hail, Hail!!!
Every time it is brought up... by people who believe Creationism is a science, using Genesis as its only proof. They do this in order to disprove the Theory of Evolution. Which is a scientific theory, by definition, tentative and open to testable methodology to prove or disprove.
Evolutionary theory suggest that if you look at the fossil record, between two similar creatures, you will find a transitional fossil that links the two... such as the one between fish and amphibian... amphibian or fish to reptile. These transitional fossils have been found.
Now... about the 'missing link'... think about the dinosaurs. They were huge creatures that roamed the Earth for over 150,000,000 years. How many fossils have we found so far? Definately not 150 million years worth of thousands of species.
Man has been around since when... 1,800,000 years ago? And those were the cavemen Neandethal types with the modern man coming about around 50,000 years ago. That transitional fossil is not easy to find... considering we have only been looking for how long... 200... years... if that?
...
The difference between science and religion... regarding evolution/creation... is that science KNOWS evolution is not 100% correct and is continually looking for the truth... and religion BELIEVES creation is 100% truth. The difference between Knowledge and Belief.
Hail, Hail!!!
I can study science and it quest to answer questions... and have faith that there is something beyond the here and now.
It's not so much religion itself... it is all about the man-made and man controled part of religion I have absolutely no faith or trust in. I see the church as just another form of government and I do not trust that the church tells me the truth about its holy text and only allows me to see what the church wants me to see.
Hail, Hail!!!