The last time Republicans were roundly condemned as anti-science, it was for their resistance to destroying human embryos for stem cells. Their crude religiosity supposedly blocked imminent leaps ahead in medical progress.
Then-vice-presidential candidate John Edwards went so far as to predict in 2004 that because of “the work we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair, and walk again.”
In other words, as a major figure in the self-styled party of science, Edwards made an outlandish assurance worthy of a faith healer. For the Left, science is as much a branding device and political bludgeon as a serious commitment. Edwards didn’t know the first thing about spinal-injury research and didn’t care — so long as he could sell demagogic flimflammery under the banner of glorious science.
Advertisement
The extravagant promises about the miraculous cures on offer from stem-cell research have proven, at best, premature. Regardless, destroying embryos isn’t necessary to the enterprise. The allegedly anti-science policy of the Bush administration to prohibit federal funding for research involving the new destruction of embryos pushed scientists down the increasingly promising avenue of finding alternative sources of stem cells.
This episode is worth recalling as Texas governor Rick Perry is portrayed as the worst threat to science since the Inquisition had a few words with Galileo, or as they say in Texas, “treated him pretty ugly.”
In no sense that the ordinary person would understand the term is Rick Perry “anti-science.” He hasn’t criticized the scientific method, or sent the Texas Rangers to chase out from the state anyone in a white lab coat. In fact, the opposite. His website touts his Emerging Technology Fund as an effort to bring “the best scientists and researchers to Texas.” The state has a booming health-care sector composed of people who presumably have a healthy appreciation for the dictates of science.
Perry’s offenses against science consist of his statements on evolution and global warming, areas where “the science” is routinely used to try to force assent to far-reaching philosophical or policy judgments unsupported by the evidence.
Unless he has an interest in paleontology that has escaped everyone’s notice to this point, Perry’s somewhat doubtful take on evolution has more to do with a general impulse to preserve a role for God in creation than a careful evaluation of the work of, say, Stephen Jay Gould. Perry’s attitude is in the American mainstream. According to Gallup, 40 percent of Americans think God created man in his present form, and 38 percent think man developed over millions of years with God guiding the process. Is three-quarters of the country potentially anti-science?
Similarly, Perry’s skepticism on man-made global warming surely has much to do with the uses to which the scientific consensus on warming is put. It is enlisted as support for sweeping carbon controls that fail any cost-benefit analysis and gets spun into catastrophic scenarios that are as rigorous as Hollywood movie treatments. For all their talk of fidelity to science, global-warming alarmists bring to the issue an evangelical zeal to match that of the participants in Rick Perry’s Houston prayer meeting a few weeks ago.
Science is often just an adjunct to the Left’s faith commitments. A Richard Dawkins takes evolutionary science beyond its competence and argues that it dictates atheism. An Al Gore makes it sound as if there is no scientific alternative to his policy preferences. They are believers wrapping themselves in the rhetoric of science while lacking all the care and dispassionate reasoning we associate with the practice of it.
It is in this vein that Rick Perry is branded anti-science. Ultimately, a president’s views on evolution count for little. Ronald Reagan shared Perry’s skepticism, and the nation survived. In Texas, Perry adopted policies designed to draw doctors and technology firms to Texas and create jobs. He succeeded. In this, he’s proven admirably empirical — more so, indeed, than the president of the United States.
Evolution is a bit of a problem with respect to laws of entrophy, celestial mechanics, harmful mutatutions, antibodies and the first sperm, "irriductible complexities" and the logic of the "red queen hypothesis" which postulates that to stay ahead of the red queen and avoid extinction you have to at least keep up with her but you cannot out race her. This requires genetic variability. Simple cell division is 100% genetic content replication without variance. The natural forces of extinction would not allow the race to continue. Mutations are 99% harmful 1% useful. Takes 99 "good" more to overcome the prior 99 bad. Playin an impossible game of catchup. Now the time line extends to billions of years. Variation requires sex which is an uphill battle in terms of entrophic laws. What mechanism caused the first sex act which is highly vulnerable? Meanwhile gravitational forces slow the rotation rates of galaxies and comets are caught up in gravitational fields of other bodies. Not observed in the real world. The improbabilites stack up quite inconviently. Meanwhile the natural extinction mechanisms are still in place. It would take a miracle . . .
Yes. If the 40 percent of the population that believe that "God" created man in its current form are anti-science. Their is abundant evidence for evolution, common DNA of life forms, the fossil record, evidence of adaptations, etc. There is no evidence of Intelligent Design, Creationism or the existence of God, none.
The "fossil record" does not show a distinct evolution from ape to man. It only goes back so far. Whole skulls, bodies brain capacity and level of "humaness" have been ridiculously derived from a single tooth. Talk about fanciful.
We have scriptures, documents written by living people that specify how the world was created. Thousands of documents that inter-relate and cannot simply be tossed aside.
Believe in what you wish. But please don't feed me the BS that the "fossil record" is definitive proof of evolution. Next you will be trying to tell me that we all started off as fish. Oh, never mind.
"We have scriptures, documents written by living people that specify how the world was created."
But the people who wrote those things were not around when the "world was created".
Now, if you believe that the Bible is completely literal and comes directly from God, then we can't debate as you have no proof of it and I have no proof that you are wrong. It's a matter of faith.
Evolution is a theory of sorts, but does have evidence and more than just a tooth. Mistakes have been made in the past, but that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bath water. We just start again and try to gather more evidence.
But religion is about FAITH about th SOUL. I can't see how it makes a difference whether one believes the Earth is 6,000 years old and the Bible is literally true, or God created the universe and evolution and guided things to a certain extent.
Atheism is another question, but I know many atheists that are not that hung up on creationism v. evolution. They are also conservative and don't have problem being so even with the lack of belief in God.
I don't have a general problem with "Intelligent Design" but in order for it to be real science, there must be hypotheses that can be tested, that can be falsified. Without that it isn't even a theory, but more of a philosphy. I haven't been up to date on Intelligent Design, so perhaps they've reached that stage. If they haven't, then as I said, it makes a good philosphy but not much more than that.
Evolution would be more properly understood as a framework to which paleantologists attempt to fit the evidence they find. Like puzzlers without benefit of the picture on the box, they try piecing things together in a manner that makes sense to an agreed upon ideal of the final picture. In fact, the framework itself has been modified several times since Darwin's first postulation as many pieces refused to fit. Continuing the analogy, the fossil record is akin to a great many pieces, laid near to each other in what apprears to be a developing pattern, even though none of them actually 'lock' together in an undisputable fit.
Creationists cannot say definitively that God created the world "so" because the Bible is not explicit in the method and manner of creation. Neither can Evolutionists say definitively the method and manner of evolution. More importantly, evolutionists cannot account for the how or the what of the initial life form. Creationists say that God spoke life into existence. Evolutionists say that life accidentally bumped into existence through a mechanism as yet unknown. Both are articles of faith.
For things that cannot be proven, scientists say, "I don't know."
The Left are the ideological zealots whose death grip on education is so vast and so suffocating that an entire generation, if not the last two or three may be incapable of competing in the real world due to lack of basic skills, ethics, and even manners, and they dane to question others' scientific acumen? These are the same rigid ideologues who declare a 7 week gestated fetus to be merely a 'cluster of cells'. The very primitives who demand we return to the stone age via wind & solar energy, and declare all who protest witches. The same dogmatists who promote: an end times fairy tale [Catastrophic climate change], a creation theory without origin, source or meaning, [Darwinism], and a cosmic philosophy of moral relativism, paganism, nihilism, political correctness and State worship to our children everyday in public schools around the nation. Under the Left's control, culture, education, art, music, morality, critical thinking, ambition, ethics and personal responsibility have all been devalued and replaced with unquestioned Neo Marxist obeisances. They don't even teach Evolutionary Biology, but rather preach Darwinism, as if no advances or discoveries have been made since the Victorian era. And they say we're the puritanical throwbacks?
I took classes in physical anthropology in college back in the early 1990s. We didn't learn Darwinism. We learned OF IT, but we were learning the up to date information as well.
I'm sorry but comparing Perry to Reagan on science is unfair to The Gipper. Reagan was skeptical of science because he was basically uncurious, in a Plainesque kind of way (and perhaps why he invited the same criticism as Palin). Perry is anti-science because he is a religious fundamentalist. Perry has had 30 years of scientific advancements, including the Internet, that Reagan didn't have. He has absolutely every right to believe in Creationism as a tenet of his personal faith. The fear would be with him as POTUS and being dismissive of science, thus hindering technological advances. I've said on here before that while his economic record in Texas is impressive (THE issue in the next election), his religious fundamentalism will hurt him outside of the Bible Belt.
It does not just sound like unreasoned hate ; it is unreasoned hate. It spews from the mouths of democrats every day as they proclaim to be innocent of hate by being hatefull.
It does not just sound like unreasoned hate ; it is unreasoned hate. It spews from the mouths of democrats every day as they proclaim to be innocent of hate by being hatefull.
Good article, but in addition to the Leftist's lack of dispassionate analysis, I would emphasize their now well-documented capacity for fraud.
And, as another commenter pointed out elsewhere, we should go on offense.
Science is clear about the benefits associated with nuclear power, and a disinterested, scientific mind would be willing to weigh the costs against these benefits. The Left's opposition to nuclear power in all its forms is theological, not pragmatic.
Science is quite clear that life begins at conception, and medical science has provided us the ability to see life in utero in jaw-dropping detail. The abortion lobby on the Left is reflexive in its desire to deny the obvious and to keep the women in their clinics ignorant of the facts.
Science is even clear that the differences between the sexes are more significant than among ethnic groups: the differences are obvious, and genetically they derive from an entire chromosome and not just a handful of genes. This hardly stops the Left from insisting that men and women ought to act identically -- or from drawing specious comparisons between anti-miscegination laws and the traditional definition of marriage.
Include economics and social sciences, and there's no reason in the world that we shouldn't go on offense: from their "fatal conceit" about the competence of central planners to their short-sighted analysis of almost every economic policy, from their near worship of nature and primitivism to their eschatlogical vision of perfected man, there's very little that is scientific about the Left, much less anything that is exceptionally so.
There's a lot that's godless, but God and science aren't incompatible -- the intelligibility of creation was originally inferred from the intelligence of its Creator -- and an antagonism toward traditional religion doesn't suddenly make you more of a scientist.
There's nothing in conservatism in conflict with the scientific method. I practice both conservatism and science, but i practice in private funded science, where i'm incentivized to accelerate failure, ie find out what does not work to find platform technologies. It is the hostility of the left's policies, regulations, taxes and predetermined agendas that is truly hostile to science and the scientific method
However, Mr. Perry has much to answer regarding his recent procedure for stem cell injections into his spine. I do find it worrisome that a man who wishes to represent the most powerful country on Earth has sunk to the level of allowing quack medicine on himself.
Is he really so poor a judge of truth? If he cannot tell a legitimate idea from that of a charlatan, how can we trust him before the Assad's and Gaddafi's of the world, let alone the fakes in our own country? Will he believe North Korean diplomats who falsely claim to have no WMDs? Will he believe the newest clean energy silliness (e.g. wind)?
And yes, Obama is worse, but we should not judge a man's competence by his opponent's.
"Stem cell injections" are quack medicine that disqualify Perry? No, attempting a procedure that is unproven in a controlled way is called "research". His willingness to be part of medical research just affirms to me that Perry believes more in the scientific method than others who claim to be the superior science-based intellectuals. Science is about testing hypotheses, critical thinking, and refining models. It is not about taking one theory as the absolute truth despite new evidence, abhorring new research, and using that theory to declare yourself superior and to attack political opponents. When a party claims to be the party of science, but takes the latter approach, it is really the party of cult-like political opportunism couched in the words of science, but making a mockery of true scientific ideals.
I agree, Science is Lefty's god and they are much more zealous than the followers of most any other religion - perhaps even those of Islam we have become all too familiar with.
Thank Heaven that so far their primary tools for advancing their "faith" have been propaganda and suppression, and they have yet to, routinely, turn to physical violence.
Follow
