Ok, maybe not all conservatives, and not all science, but there are a fair amount that froth at the mouth when confronting evolution, anthropogenic climate change and any studies that suggest the homosexuality may have a biological cause. Hell, I even came across one guy who had it out for Einstein! So I thought to myself, what are they so angry about. What is it about science that makes them so upset. Then it came to me... science strikes right at the very core of what conservatism is all about. Science is constantly changing! Here are some quotes from a conservative on this forum: "And who is old enough to remember the science textbooks that told us there almost certainly was life on Mars?" "Who is old enough to remember when dinosaurs were reptiles?" "Who is old enough to remember when Pluto was a planet?" This is probably why conservatives also tend to be religious. Religion rarely changes.
Pointing out scientific theories being incorrect doesn't mean hating science. Clearly their point is just because something is a popular theory today doesnt make it right, theres no need to rush out and change everything without 'full' understanding. Oh and want to see froth at the mouth, discuss race and intelligence and IQ- then you'll see real froth. Many a scientist has been crucified for their research findings when it hurts the feeling of the emotional types. Have a look at leftists turn on Dawkins recently.
46% of all Americans believe in creationism, including 38% of Democrats so this isn't just a Republican issue. In fact if you add the totals for "God guided evolution with the 10,000 stuff you end up with 77% of Democrats believing in God forming and directing life. Republicans adhering to the silly notion of the 10,000 earth is a religious belief but it is harmless. It isn't going to effect one iota of anyone's life. Where Republicans get obnoxious on is in the area of gay rights........and thats about it. Even that is mostly an age issue as a majority of older Democrats oppose gay marriage and a majority of younger Republicans support gay marriage. By 2020 gay marriage will be a non issue for both parties. Liberals have a far more destructive view of science........they never bother to fact check anything. Democrats pushed ethanol which now environmentalists admit was a bad idea. Democrats pushed CFL light bulbs before even half the municipalities in the nation had recycling programs of any kind much less toxic materials, they just couldn't wait a few years for LEDs to reach economy of scale, no they had to have their lightbulbs now and they threw a temper tantrum. Guess what, less than 4% of CFL bulbs are recycled now. Hundreds of millions of bulbs with mercury are now sitting in our landfills because the left just couldn't wait a couple years. I will take someone who believes in the creation myth any day over some self righteous, illiterate prick who tries to force their lifestyle on me and doesn't even bother to see if there will be any downsides. They were warned about CFLs and they didn't listen. They were warned about light rail, still didn't listen. They were warned about ethanol and didn't listen. It also amazes me how illiterate the left is on energy. There are only two forms of power that can produce enough for civilization, nuclear and fossil fuels. Yet the left are the ones that are the most adamantly opposed to nuclear power. They keep insisting that renewables like solar, wind and geothermal can power the world when every serious engineer and scientist says it is literally impossible.
Except Life on Mars and Pluto's status as a planet were not scientific theories. They were ideas. Dinosaurs are linked to modern birds and modern birds are technically reptiles in the structure of taxonomy. Oh and the problem is not linking IQ to race, it is those scientists who draw erroneous conclusions about the reason for it.
Oh of course because you say so, those scientists must be wrong. Thats why the religious left (marxism) demonize those scientists. If it doesnt fit your egalitarian ideology theres no other option, attack the people or the tools they use. You are no better (or worse) than those religious folk. Of course theres faults with the IQ test like any test or measurement tool, but it measures pretty well how you'll perform in the Western world. Do we ignore the hubble telescope because its old and imperfect? - - - Updated - - - Great post.... id give multiple likes if i could.
In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: 'Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins the movie by telling you how it ends. Well, I say there are some things we don't want to know. Important things!'
Conservatism is a false term if you want to get serious about it. Nobody wants to keep government like it is, we all want to change it. The question is: to what? The left generally wants to move towards a consequentialist view of the world: have government do whatever action brings about the greatest net good. The right wants much the same, although they disagree about what constitutes best consequences. On the left these people are those who advocate for public health (from their perspective) measures and the such, on the right they're the "common sense Conservatives" - those who basically want to extend their worldview to all. Both of these groups miss the point. The question we should be asking is not "what should be done", but "who should get the choice". I opt for the individual. Others might disagree, but you've at least got to keep the question in mind. [hr][/hr] Anyway, Conservatives don't hate science - they disagree that climate change, etc is science. That's the distinction most who post threads like these miss. I'm reminded of that interview Bill O'Reilly gave John Stewart about Common being invited to the White House. Same miscommunication.
Well, this has always been a problem with American politics, this false duality of lumping everyone into conservative or liberal when political beliefs can be split so many other ways. I guess I should have been more specific in my OP. As for the climate change issue which of these statements do you believe are false? CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This has been known since the 19th century and we don't have to look farther than Venus to see what the extreme effects are. The burning of fossil fuels release CO2. Here is the chemical equation for the combustion of gasoline: C8H18 + 25O2 ~> 16CO2. Humans burn fossil fuels. I think we can safely agree on that. Humans burn enough fossil fuels to create enough CO2 to change the climate. This is the sticking point. One thing I can tell you is that humans have produced from 5000-6000 metric tons of CO2 a year since 1990 and that the amount of CO2 had reached 390 ppmv in 2010. And as you can see on the chart below, there is a correlation between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the temperature. So how is this not science?
Science is a science. Conservatism is not. Science requires proof. Conservatism is proof by telling every liberal on earth that he is an idiot. Simple equation really. WATCH THIS SPACE!
First of all not all Democrats are liberal and not all Republicans are conservative. And someone believing that the evolution doesn't exist or the Earth is only 6000 years old is not the problem, it is when those people demand that it be taught in a science class. As for gay rights, I sure hope you are right about gay marriage being a non issue by 2020 (and hopefully sooner). Pushing CFLs is about politics and has very little to do with science. In fact some recent studies (done by scientists) show that the energy saved by efficiency is lost when people use more energy since it is cheaper due to the efficiency. For example, I normally use a 50 watt incandescent bulb instead of a 75 watt in order to save electricity. However, when I change over to CFL, I don't put in a CFL bulb equal in brightness to a 50 watt incandescent, I put in a brighter bulb because it will cost me the same to use, but then I'm back to using 50 watts. Scientist are not telling us what energy source to use (though they do give suggestions), again that is a political issue whether we us fossil fuels, nuclear power or something else.
You're purposely confusing conservatives with ultra religious christians. The religious vote in the US for a long time has been pretty evenly divided between pubs and dems.
I think the trend isn't so much that conservatives hate science as it is those religious folks who feel science contradicts there chosen religion's story of creation. I think it just works out that conservatives also tend to fall among those religious folks who feel that way. I don't think there is anything about conservatism specifically that is anti-science.
Here's the problem. Why do people act like liberals are any different? They always jettison science the minute it ceases to produce politically correct results. When man and woman are proven to be biologically different, this is unacceptable. When scientists posit intelligent design theory purely through the scientific method, liberals stick their fingers in their ears and say, "LALALALALALALA!!!! THAT'S CREATIONISM!!!! LALALALALALALA!!!" and even go so far as to ban these theories from being taught. If you acknowledge that science is constantly changing, then it makes zero since to silence what challenges conventional wisdom.
Liberals acknowledge the laws of nature and genetics. Except when it conflicts with their view that all races have the same intelligence levels, can run at the same speeds, etc!
Well you are right, I just checked in my pants and in my wife's and we are biologically different. On a more serious note though, I have never seen anything even remotely resembling the scientific method come from Intelligent Design. If you know of some, please let me know. I would be very interested in seeing it. As far as banning it from being taught, it is because the ID proponents does not hold up as a scientific theory. The most they have done is question the validity of the TOE, but disproving evolution does not make ID any more valid.
Really? Ok, if genetics is all that is to it, who do you think would win if you were to workout 4 hours a day, 7 days a week for 4 years and Usain Bolt sat watching TV and hitting Cheetos for those 4 years? Or on the flip side, if you were born to a very poor family who lived in a drug riddled neighborhood, you dad left, your mom is a crack addict, your school is like a demilitarized zone where you are constantly being told that you are inferior to the other students because the color of your skin, when you are lucky enough to get food, it is chips, candy or fast food, and by high school several friends of your have been killed in drive-by shootings, would you do better on the SAT than some black kid who was raised by a wealthy family where both parents contributed to his upbringing, made sure he ate healthy foods, taught him to work hard, and made sure he went to all right schools and took all the right classes? The reason us humans dominate the world is that we are able to rise above our genes.
I couldn't even begin to understand your claim. Since high school, I've been as far right-wing on the conservative religious scale as one could get, and I've always been interested in science. I've read books and articles about Nuclear Physics and Quantum Physics, just for fun. Just for the entertainment value of learning what's going on in the world of science. And in fact, as much as I'm sure this will blow some people's minds, it was specifically because of my interest in science and technology, that led me to become the religious conservative that I am today. Before that I was a leftist liberal eco-nut. I suspect the difference between me and other people, is that most people are only interested in science, when it happens to support what they already believe. When it doesn't, suddenly it magically becomes 'just religious dogma and bigotry' which I've been accused of hundreds of times. The problem is, the raw science is exactly the same between me and others. It's simply their interpretation that changes, and it always changes to fit what they already believe. The issue that conservatives have with science zealots, is that they make bold definitive claims, that years later turn out to be not true. Yes, as we learn more we change our position, but then why do you have this '100% we know this for certain' attitude, when clearly history has proven all the '100% we know this for certain' claims of the past were wrong? If science zealots were a bit more open, honest, and humble about what they think they know, I wager there would be far more peace in the debates.
Then I suggest you haven't actually read the scholarly work done for ID. I would even wager that you don't even know of a single work done on ID. It's pretty easy to suggest that ID doesn't follow the laws of science when you haven't actually read what is being said. Tell me.... is it possible for a code... a biological code that is more complex than any code ever created by human kind, to spontaneously create itself, and not only create itself, but teach a living cell how to decode the code, and follow the instructions the code contains? DNA is a code. Your cells have the ability to decode that DNA code, which is used to create everything that is your body. How did the first living cell know how to decode the DNA? How did the first DNA create itself? Did the cell create the DNA code by itself? A single cell intelligent enough to create a code more complex than any human has ever created? And how did the super genius single cell, live and function, before the DNA code was created? This is one of hundreds of impossible puzzles that no scientist thus far in human kind has been able to answer.
Intelligent Design doesn't necessarily have to negate evolution. It's not necessarily an either/or scenario It's entirely possible that it could potentially be both/and. Have you seen Ben Stein's documentary called Expelled? It doesn't go into a ton of in-depth explanation about the actual ID theories, themselves, but it does expose a rather unknown and evidently pervasive phenomenon within academia where scientists promoting ID theory are routinely silenced or even fired for their work. As if there is a collective censorship within the community. It's pretty interesting. There's even a rather amusing interview with Richard Dawkins at the end where even he concedes the possibility of an intelligent designer although he limits it to aliens from elsewhere in the galaxy.
See, here's the problem, there are so few scholarly works done for ID that it is almost impossible to find them. However, that doesn't mean I know nothing about ID. I have been to various ID websites, watched their videos and talked with ID proponents on and off the Internet and I think I have a handle on what it is all about. Intelligent Design basically says that life is too complex due to irreducible complexity for life to happen spontaneously and so it had to be the work of an Intelligent Designer. Did I have that right? I see that science, especially biology is not your forte, so I'm going to give you some quick lessons in basic biology. First, cells are not intelligent and they don't need to be taught how to decode DNA. When a gene is activated, the DNA strand unzips itself and mRNA connects to the coding side of the DNA and makes a copy of the gene. The mRNA then is transported to the cytoplasm where it synthesises the proteins that the gene was coded to create. Now this is a VERY simplified version but hey, this is just a forum, but if you are really interested I suggest going to some science websites or even take some biology classes. Finally we are at the crux of the whole matter, the limits of human knowledge. First thing you have to realize that scientists actually know quite a bit about how biology and physiology works and what they don't know, they are constantly studying to figure it out. Here's the thing though, just because we don't know something doesn't automatically mean that God did it. That is actually considered a logical fallacy called the "God of the gaps".
Funny. This is one of the few things I think is admirable of conservatism. Not outright denial of science, that is crazy. But rather the ability to feel skepticism towards new scientific theory and not allow it to effect current standards. Evolution is a great scientific finding but how did it make people act? Survival of the fittest? Eugenics? The conclusions that society comes to based on scientific research often are destructive and far beyond the pure researchers intentions. Science is great. Common sense is great. Without the conflict between the two I doubt we could see reality.
I will concede that it is possible that a creator created life on Earth and then it evolved, but to say that life was created exactly in the forms that we know today, is ludicrous as is the belief that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I tried to watch Expelled but was getting so infuriated by their "science" that I had to turn it off and now I can never watch Ferris Bueller the same way again. I plan to watch again some day and actually sit through the whole thing. Don't feel bad though, I couldn't sit through Religulous either.
Ancient Astronaut Theory makes more and more sense to me all of the times I've tuned in to watch than most of what I've been taught my entire life. OK, everyone beat me up now because of what I just said.
