{"id":8416,"date":"2011-08-29T14:47:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T18:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=8416"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:08:11","slug":"thumbing-there-nose-at-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/08\/29\/thumbing-there-nose-at-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thumbing Their Nose At The ‘Facts’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Republicans Against Science<\/a><\/em> by Paul Krugman at the New York Times.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn\u2019t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that\u2019s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. \u2014 namely, that it is becoming the \u201canti-science party.\u201d This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as \u201cjust a theory,\u201d one that has \u201cgot some gaps in it\u201d \u2014 an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples\u2019 attention was what he said about climate change: \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a remarkable statement \u2014 or maybe the right adjective is \u201cvile.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The second part of Mr. Perry\u2019s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming \u2014 which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences \u2014 is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But never mind that, Mr. Perry suggests; those scientists are just in it for the money, \u201cmanipulating data\u201d to create a fake threat. In his book \u201cFed Up,\u201d he dismissed climate science as a \u201ccontrived phony mess that is falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So how has Mr. Romney, the other leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination, responded to Mr. Perry\u2019s 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 \u201cI don\u2019t know that\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s mostly caused by humans.\u201d Moral courage!<\/p>\n

Of course, we know what\u2019s motivating Mr. Romney\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s 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\u2019s base wants him to believe.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal\u2019s editorial page has gone beyond its long-term preference for the economic ideas of \u201ccharlatans and cranks\u201d \u2014 as one of former President George W. Bush\u2019s chief economic advisers famously put it \u2014 to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no attention to \u201cfancy theories\u201d that conflict with \u201ccommon sense,\u201d the Journal tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings to analyze things like financial crises and recessions?<\/p>\n

Now, we don\u2019t know who will win next year\u2019s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world\u2019s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges \u2014 environmental, economic, and more \u2014 that\u2019s a terrifying prospect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Republicans Against Science by Paul Krugman at the New York Times. The Text: Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn\u2019t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that\u2019s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. \u2014 namely, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThumbing Their Nose At The 'Facts' - Prose Before Hos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Article: Republicans Against Science by Paul Krugman at the New York Times. 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