{"id":1096,"date":"2012-03-14T10:22:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T14:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2012-03-14T18:17:25","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T22:17:25","slug":"why-the-republicans-are-bad-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/why-the-republicans-are-bad-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Republicans are bad for science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Tumblr<\/a>Rick Santorum’s recent win<\/a> in the Mississippi and Alabama primaries are frightening for anyone who values science and critical thinking. Santorum is not the only Republican who frightens me. They all do. But Santorum most of all. The idea of a right-wing, homophobic, fundamentalist, creationist running the biggest and most powerful nation in the world is scary enough to keep me awake at night.<\/p>\n

Santorum was the author of a 2001 amendment to the US education funding bill. His pro-creationist proposal was known as The Santorum Amendment<\/a>. It “promoted the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic standing of evolution in U.S. public schools.” “Intelligent” design is anything but: it’s merely creationism dressed up in a cheap tuxedo. Santorum has a long history of “mischaracterizing” and misunderstanding evolution, as chronicled here<\/a>: “…Santorum doesn’t need facts to back up his side, as long as he makes it sound like the other side has its own problems.” <\/p>\n

Since Santorum’s failed attempt to get creationism inserted into the classroom, teaching so-called “intelligent” design has been declared unconstitutional by a US federal judge<\/a>: “U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.” The judge declared there was \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d presented during the trial to prove “intelligent” design \u201cis a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

That hasn’t stopped Santorum from being an outspoken advocate for creationism in whatever party dress it wears. Mitt Romney<\/a>, his chief rival for the top spot, has been described as a “theistic evolutionist” based on older quotes, but he has said little or nothing about creationism during the campaign for the Republican candidacy.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Santorum commented <\/a>that, “…the theory of evolution… is used to promote to a worldview that is anti-theist, that is atheist.”<\/p>\n

\"Creationist<\/a>In November, 2011, as the HuffPost<\/a> reported, Santorum said, “the “left” and “scientific community” have monopolized the public school system’s curriculum, only permitting the teaching of evolution and leaving no room for the introduction of creation-based theories in the classroom.” Santorum bemoaned his frustration at the “whole ‘science only allows science to be taught in science class scenario.” Uh, Rick, that’s what you’re supposed<\/em> to teach in a science class.<\/p>\n

Creationism is not by itself a significant issue. It’s rather that it links to other, bigger issues. As Martin Wisckol<\/a> writes,<\/p>\n

While creationism itself rarely is the subject of political policy beyond school curriculum, it’s closely tied to high-profile issues that are \u2013 including abortion rights, stem cell use, gay marriage and birth control. And the most sizeable portion of the electorate subscribing to creationism are evangelical Christians… according to Pew researcher David Masci.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Santorum has other issues with science and scientific research aside from creationism. As Discover Magazine<\/a> noted, Santorum doesn’t believe in climate change science. He doesn’t support stem cell research. Santorum called Barack Obama’s environmental policy, “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible” (see here<\/a> – although that may have merely been a CYA retraction when his words were taken as a faith-based attack on Obama). <\/p>\n

Early in the campaign, Romney distanced himself from Santorum’s ‘climate-science-is-political-science’ denial, by admitting he believed, “…the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” (see here<\/a>). But later he flip-flopped<\/a> and said, “My view is that we don\u2019t know what\u2019s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.” He also supports the rights of gas and oil companies to despoil the environment, including, “…drilling in the \u201cthe Gulf of Mexico, both the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves, Western lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and off the Alaska coast.\u201d Romney will be as bad for the environment as he will be for science, it appears.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to target Santorum’s fundamentalist-Tea-Party-anti-science myopia and Romney’s pro-corporate-waste-the environment-deny-science position. But as Chris Mooney<\/a> points out in this piece, even educated Republicans are prone to accept the same fallacies and narrow-minded views that characterize all of the presidential candidates:<\/p>\n

Again and again, Republicans or conservatives who say they know more about the topic, or are more educated, are shown to be more in denial, and often more sure of themselves as well\u2014and are confident they don\u2019t need any more information on the issue.
\nTea Party members appear to be the worst of all. In a recent survey by Yale Project on Climate Change Communication<\/a>, they rejected the science of global warming even more strongly than average Republicans did. For instance, considerably more Tea Party members than Republicans incorrectly thought there was a lot of scientific disagreement about global warming (69 percent to 56 percent). Most strikingly, the Tea Party members were very sure of themselves\u2014they considered themselves \u201cvery well-informed\u201d about global warming and were more likely than other groups to say they \u201cdo not need any more information\u201d to make up their minds on the issue. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mooney calls it the “smart idiot” effect, and continues:<\/p>\n

…well-informed or well-educated conservatives probably consume more conservative news and opinion, such as by watching Fox News. Thus, they are more likely to know what they\u2019re supposed to think about the issues\u2014what people like them think\u2014and to be familiar with the arguments or reasons for holding these views. If challenged, they can then recall and reiterate these arguments. They\u2019ve made them a part of their identities, a part of their brains, and in doing so, they\u2019ve drawn a strong emotional connection between certain \u201cfacts\u201d or claims, and their deeply held political values. And they\u2019re ready to argue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rationality does not win the day, it seems, even with educated Republicans. Ideology does. And increasingly that ideology seems to be the products of a smaller and select group of uber-right media outlets (like Fox), self-appointed spokespeople (like the harridan Ann Coulter), and vocal Tea Party members. Ideology, as Martin Wisckol<\/a> writes, is driving the debate about many issues, not facts – information, or empirical data:<\/p>\n

…the “facts” used by voters are often subjective, depending on one’s political, philosophical and religious beliefs. The trend is growing, fueled in part by spurious information on the internet, and is a major reason for partisan gridlock in Sacramento and Washington.
\nThirty percent of Republicans say manmade global warming is occurring, while 64 percent of Democrats say that’s the case, according to Pew Research Center. Pure creationism \u2013 which says man was created by God in his current form \u2013 is subscribed to by 52 percent of Republicans and 34 percent of Democrats, according to Gallup. Pew found the difference on creationism to be a closer \u2013 but still substantial \u2013 39 percent to 30 percent.
\nAnd it’s not just evolution and global warming that are too complex for most voters to thoroughly assess based on data. The comparative efficiency of health-care policies, the effect of a large deficit, the best way to reduce the debt and how to stimulate the economy are other key areas where factual understanding doesn’t determine a voter’s position so much as their preexisting ideology and whose word they’re inclined to trust.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sad to think that during the Enlightenment, governments supported the quest for learning. In the 21st Century, Republicans want the government to support ignorance and superstition.
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Rick Santorum’s recent win in the Mississippi and Alabama primaries are frightening for anyone who values science and critical thinking. Santorum is not the only Republican who frightens me. They all do. But Santorum most of all. The idea of a right-wing, homophobic, fundamentalist, creationist running the biggest and most powerful nation in the world is scary enough to keep me awake at night. Santorum was the author of a 2001 amendment to the US education funding bill. His pro-creationist proposal was known as The Santorum Amendment. It “promoted the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic standing of \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,13,62,5],"tags":[92,93,95,29],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-spirituality","category-faith","category-world-politics","category-science-technology","tag-creationism","tag-evolution","tag-republicans","tag-science"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":10877,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1130,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}