At some point it became an essential principle of the conservative community to question and deny science. Maybe it sprang from the evangelical movements imperative to refute archaeology, paleontology, carbon dating, cosmology, and physics in order to validate a strict interpretation of the Old Testament. I can’t imagine more than a handful of these true believers understand the arcane calculations behind the interpretation of some biblical scholars that the universe is no more that 6,000 years old. But they have been told that is strict biblical interpretation and they accept it unquestioningly.
However if you believe in the Old Testament shouldn’t you be doing a lot of stoning of wayward sons and non-virginal brides? As well, if one followed a strict interpretation of the Old Testament shouldn’t you be going somewhere outside of your community every day to make a latrine, and defecate. Some might argue that by using the privacy of a bathroom one is keeping the principle of the Lord’s injunction to defecate out of sight of one’s community but in a modern sensible way.
I can’t imagine any more than a handful of people in the world do follow a strictly, literal interpretation of the Bible. Certainly, the vast majority of individuals who cling to the notion that the universe is only 6,000 years old do not in many ways follow in their day-to-day lives a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible. Well, isn’t accepting the testimony of science about the nature of God’s universe as accurate and not accepting someone else’s biblical assertion of a 6,000-year-old universe just wisdom? Frankly, those folks who promote their divination of a 6,000 year old universe stink of idolatry and false-prophecy.
The rejection of science became a well-funded industry because of the tobacco lobby and the oil industry. The oil industry through the AEI is preparing to go to war against the Paris conference adoption of a 90 percent certainty that human activity is contributing to global climate change. That is insanity.
Stephan Colbert did a nice analogy on rejecting climate change science last night. He wasn’t letting his allergic reaction to shrimp get in the way of his affinity for shrimp cocktail. He would simply shop around until he found a specialist who would interpret his allergic reaction as eczema. When talking to folks about the science of climate change I have often used a medical analogy. Imagine you or your child has a tumor. Nine out of ten specialists recommend surgery to remove the tumor follow by aggressive chemotherapy. The tenth specialist urges a regimen of herbs and enemas. Over 99 percent of people would go with the nine of ten. That, of course, is the state climate science. We, humanity, have to act.
I really galls me that so many stuffed shirt, right-wing nutbars nonetheless put themselves forth as experts in this field. You’ve got your Bob Novaks, Charles Krauthammers, Senator Inhofe and a phalanx of others, proclaiming themselves the Albert Einsteins of climate change science. Most of these characters are doing so for naked ideological reasons and clearly state that, often in the form of invective against Al Gore and his film. They rant about tree huggers and how the Kyoto Accord is a scheme to institute global socialism. Clearly, most of these wingnuts absolutely lack the credentials to speak on the issue with a shred of credibility or even the most minimum level of scientific literacy.
This calls to mind the Bolsheviks of the 1930’s rejecting quantum mechanics as a foundational pillar of modern physics. The Bolsheviks did so for ideological reasons. It did not fit in with their interpretation of history and reality. They considered quantum mechanics to be a bourgeois delusion. But today, even among Bolsheviks, quantum mechanics is the established, accepted interpretation of reality.
There are some scientists who do not, to this day, accept the usual interpretation of quantum mechanics. Just like there are some scientists who not, at this time, accept the interpretation that the existing data points to human activity contributing to global climate change. But for right-wing nutbars to interject themselves into the climate change debate as pontificating experts is utterly foolish. They might as well decide on their own that the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is wrong, their own interpretation is correct, and then nominate themselves for a Nobel Prize in Physics.
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