In an effort to scratch up Rick Perry’s bourgeoning presidential campaign,
some on the left (with the usual sort of help from
some on the right) have trotted out the familiar tale of a conservative war against science. The themes are just as they were in the middle of the last decade (although the embryonic stem cell debate has yet to rear its head this year), and the arguments of the left are pretty much as you would find them in Al Gore’s 2007 book
The Assault on Reason (which, despite what the title might lead you to expect, was not an autobiography).
It’s all terribly interesting, but not so much for what it tells you about the right. There are some fascinating and important tensions between science and the right, but they have basically nothing to do with the left’s “war on science” fantasies—these critics have such a poor grasp of the reality of contemporary conservatism they seem genuinely to believe that Michelle Bachmann was serious when she joked to a crowd that last week’s earthquake and hurricane were messages from God about the deficit. It is interesting, rather, for what it tells you about the left and its self-understanding. The “war on science” stuff never moved many voters, but it was a powerful rallying cry for committed liberals, affirming their understanding of themselves as the party of science and of their opponents as an army of ignorance.
Absent from that self-identification is any sense of the enormous tensions between the ethic of modern science and that of the modern left—particularly the tensions between science and the left’s brand of egalitarianism (the first of which demolishes the premises upon which the second stands), and between science and environmentalism (which draw upon roughly opposite worldviews).
I wrote about those tensions (as well as the considerable tensions between science and the right) in
this 2008 book, and the chapter on science and the left was
excerpted that year in
The New Atlantis, in case you’re interested.
Yeah, yeah. And thank goodness none of these politicos understand modern physics or we would have to listen to them natter on about how God is or is not represented in the quantum vacuum fluctuation from the Big Bang to the present.
No matter.
In a Perry presidency (2.5 GPA at Texas A&M no less) the Federal Gov't views on abortion, global warming, evolution, etc. etc. are completely irrelevant. 10th Amendment supremacy makes these matters for the several states. Amen and Hallelujah.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCan we all agree that, until BHO's college transcripts are released, it is absolutely idiotic and disingenuous of people to harp on Perry's GPA?
How you people keep "winning" these public discussions - Kerry as far worse student than GWB, for example - is nothing but further evidence of a partisan media being derelict in their assigned duties and the drone-like qualities of the people who subscribe to them. Idiocracy, indeed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh, no! What does Obama have to do with Perry's grades? I want a President that knows what's going on. That has a clue about basic economics. The fact that Obama has never released his grades is completely irrelevant to what I am looking for in a President. Why do we always compare people to Obama? Obama is the worst President in modern times. We need to do a lot better than Obama if we are going to save this country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat does any candidate's college grades have to do with running for President? I could care less how any -- and I mean ANY -- candidate performed in college when he or she was barely post-adolescent, as opposed to how he or she has performed in the subsequent 20 to 40 years in the real world.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor all you college students writing in, be aware that your GPA may -- may -- help you get your first job, but it won't help you keep it. It might even play a tiny role in you getting your second job, depending on how you performed your first. After that, absolutely nobody cares what you did or where you did it. It is all about your work product and reputation, period.
This is one silly argument we could do without, and that goes for any of the candidate running.
RE: "This is one silly argument we could do without, and that goes for any of the candidate running."
I dig the concept. However, when you have leftists leaking Perry's records, but sealing Obama's (hmmm...sort of like Sen. Ryan's divorce records conveniently being released when he was running against BHO...), there is a disparity. Either put it all on the table or none of it.
That is, apparently, too much to ask of our "neutral" media.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe point would be hypocrisy of the left, who puff up a blithering idiot like obama as a "genius", despite his complete lack of any substantial paper trail and his stonewalling of releasing any information. They also called GWB a moron, despite the fact that his GPA was better than "Lurch" Kerry's.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRE: "That has a clue about basic economics."
I learned everything I needed to know about our current economic state when I was a kid mowing lawns. You can't spend what you don't have.
I took plenty of Econ courses in college and that didn't do anything to either change or enhance that.
Guns and butter and demand curves...wait...shut up!...this number cannot be bigger than this number.
That is all one needs to know.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd the father of global warming and now race card playing Al Gore also wasn't the best of students. I think he got a D in Earth Science. Never mind that though, he's turned flawed earth science into a billion dollar business... In doing so he also created a religion (GASP!) for the left. Talk about being against science, the left won't tolerate any debate on global warming. So much for the scientific method.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Goracle is also a two time grad school dropout.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wasn't trying to pile on!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMore Perry apologism. I really don't get what you people see in him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRE: "the stem-cell debate"
Ahem. The government funded embryonic stem-cell debate. Please don't assist in the Left's intentional conflation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Stem Cell Debate, by any name, has been ongoing for a decade. In that time, embryonic stem cell research has been lavishly funded and carried out abroad.
Name one meaningful advance that this work has produced.
I'm waiting.......
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe name is important. It dictates the parameters of the discussion. I don't want goofball references about allowing Christopher Reeve to walk again (little harder to do, now) to gain any traction.
I don't want the government funding stem cell research, period...embryonic or otherwise.
I don't care if private enterprise wants to engage in stem cell research. If there's something to be found, the market will shove the money that way. If it's a wild goose chase, well, that wouldn't be the first time money was invested poorly. Failure breeds success.
I don't want embryonic stem cell research to be legal, period, because I don't care to bolster the abortion industry. I want that industry weakened until it is as dead as its millions of victims.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe can't walk, true, but he can still vote in Chicago!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoctor Robert, I am guessing you are a "doctor" in the same manner as Julius Erving.
The first approval for an embryonic stem cell-derived therapy for a Phase I clinical trial was only granted in 2009, and that particular study has not even completed recruitment yet; these investigations take many years.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFunny, adult stem cell studies have been completed, going back over a decade.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy is it that embryonic stem cells have taken so much longer and shown so much less promise. Yet that is all some people want to talk about.
This is just a foolish statement. Adult stem cells were first identified and begun to be investigated over 40 years ago; embryonic stem cells have come to clinical attention much more recently. Adult stem cells are an important source of therapeutics for leukemia/lymphoma, and perhaps for some infectious diseases as well down the line. None of that is being disputed.
It is simply an unfortunate fact that such adult-derived cells appear to be somewhat limited in their applications. That is why embryonic stem cells were sought ought in the first place.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLook, wampeter, just about everything you have said about the history of stem cell research is not only dead wrong, but so absurdly wrong you have convinced me you are just making it up as you go along. I am sure there are some forums where your false erudition would be impressive. Peddle your nonsense there. Even most of the trolls on this site know when they've been served and back off - and the conservatives know that we better have our facts right or other conservatives will call us on it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you so much for keeping the facts straight on this.
I also want to add from an updated clinical research position that the biggest contribution most ESCs make to treatment is to head to the bone marrow and go completely silent.
They're pretty useless, when they're not actively harmful. (See Jeremiah's previous comment about teratomas in mice.)
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