The Republican War on Science!

[Fat Man]

I got a link to this rather interesting article in one of my E-mails to this website at AlterNet.

http://www.alternet.org/story/155646/co ... age=entire

Apparently, there is a physiological or neurological difference in the brains of conservatives and liberals, not that one is necessarily better or worse than the other, but certainly different.

I like to think of the social and political aspects as a car, whereas liberalism is the engine, and conservatism is the break.

Of course, you're not going to get anywhere if you keep your foot on the break all the time. Sometimes you have to ease off on the break, and rev up the engine if you want to get somewhere.

Anyway, that's how I see it.

OK, I don't have a problem with those who are moderately conservative, but I do have a real problem with right-wing extremists, and also, those on the extreme left.

When one goes either to the extreme right, or extreme left, then it ceases to be merely conservative or merely liberal anymore.

Anyway . . . . .

AlterNet / By Chris Mooney

Conservatives Attack Scientific Findings About Why
They Hate Science (Helping to Confirm the Science)
Some would like to dismiss the inconvenient findings about
the political right, but the science wonâ??t let them.

May 29, 2012 | Two months have passed since my new book, The Republican Brain, was published, and so far it has gotten a lot of media attention. However, the coverage has followed a noteworthy pattern: while progressives and liberals seem intrigued about what Iâ??m saying, the so-called â??mainstreamâ? mediaâ??the CNNs of the worldâ??have shied away from the subject


Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com

Whatâ??s up with this? Well, a book with conclusions closely related to mineâ??Norman Ornsteinâ??s and Thomas Mannâ??s Itâ??s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremismâ??seems as though it is being handled similarly by some in the press. And perhaps thereâ??s a reason: Centrist (aka â??mainstreamâ?) journalists might well prefer that the findings of these books not be true.

You see, if Iâ??m wrong, then the press can happily go on doing what it has always done: Splitting the difference between the political left and the political right, and employing â??on the one hand, on the other handâ? treatments that presume weâ??re all equally biased, all equally self-interested...just in different directions.

The trouble is, Iâ??ve presented a substantial body of scientific evidence suggesting that this simply isnâ??t the case. More specifically, the science Iâ??ve presented suggests that the political right and left are quite different animals; that they perceive the world differently and handle evidence differently; and most importantly, that the polarization and the denial of science in modern American politics are fundamentally the fault of the authoritarian right. (Mann and Ornstein argue something very similar about todayâ??s Republican Party.)

In other words, if my book is right, we have to discard much that we thought we knew about politics. If the science of political ideology is right, then the ground shifts beneath us.

It is very natural, then, that a lot of peopleâ??centrist journalists perhaps most of all--donâ??t want to accept what Iâ??m saying. The problem is, where is the scientific counterargument to what Iâ??m saying?

Current State of the Science Supports The Republican Brain Thesis

The evidence for my thesisâ??that liberals and conservatives differ by personality, psychological needs, moral intuitions, and numerous other traits; and that this is what is lurking behind our political battles over what is true, on issues ranging from global warming to whether President Obama was born in the U.S.--was lying in plain sight in the scientific literature. I simply compiled it and reported on it. Notably, this evidence is not dependent on the work of any one scientist or group of scientists, on any one methodology, or on any one discipline. It is cross-disciplinary, and it is growing.

No wonder that since the book came out, Iâ??ve heard from a number of researchers whose work Iâ??ve reported on, saying that Iâ??ve done an accurate job. Indeed, there have been a number of public remarks from people of expertise, saying essentially the same thing.

Most prominent among these is Jonathan Haidt, the University of Virginia moral psychologist and the author of the much discussed book The Righteous Mind. Notably, Haidt defines himself as a â??centrist,â? not a liberal. On MSNBCâ??s Up With Chris Hayes, Haidt had this to say about my thesis:

Chris has done a great job of surveying the literature. I want to give him a stamp of approval. He is not cherry picking, he is representing the current state of thinking about politics and personality.

Haidt went further, adding that his own science casts additional light here:

I want to fully agree with Chris that the psychology does predispose liberals more to be receptive to science; my own research has found that conservatives are better at group-binding, at loyalty, and so if you put them in a group-versus-group conflict, yes the right is more prone, psychologically, to band around and sort of, circle the wagons.

Haidt isnâ??t the only one. Chris Crandall, a social psychologist and a researcher on ideology at the University of Kansas, reviewed the book on Amazon.com. Hereâ??s what he had to say:

â?¦Mooney is a partisan, and he's looking at the data with the thesis that members of the Republican Party are more close-minded, less scientific, and more willing to disregard experts. And, well, the science backs him up on this. The fact that the research supports his position doesn't sully him OR the science. He's not the one doing the research; Mooney's biases cannot affect studies that he's completely uninvolved in. Of course, he does like what he reads, but is [there] a shame in being right? There isn't.

Everett Young, my collaborator in Chapter 13 of the book, is a Ph.D. political psychologist. He writes:

Chris simply collects in one place the wide research about the differences in cognitive style that give rise to different kinds of ideological thinking, and argues that these differences might help explain why conservatives in this day and age seem to reject empirical evidence on the major issues more readily than liberals do, and hold political beliefs in strong contravention of such evidence.

Much evidence is in, as this book details. Seeing the world in more black-and-white terms IS associated with conservatism. Less curiosity is also. This needn't make conservatives inferior. In fact, such a cognitive style can have advantages, especially where decisiveness is required. But it's certainly plausible that a quickly decisive cognitive style is also less interested in updating its internal map of the outside world to comport with EVIDENCE.

I am not a scientist, and have never claimed to be. I am a science journalist. But it is precisely because I report on science and interview the scientists involved that I am able to stick closely to what they have to say, and what they have learned.

Which is, in and of itself, inconvenient for the reality-denying right.

The Rightâ??s Arguments Against the Science Are Ill-Informed At Best

So what do conservatives have to say in response to this science? Honestly, the objections are quite weak, and frankly provide a wealth of new evidence in support of the bookâ??s argumentâ??that conservatives tend to simply reject science and evidence when it threatens their beliefs. The main conservative counterargument relies on little more than misrepresenting the book and its arguments. Jonah Goldberg claimed, in USA Today, that I was saying there is something wrong with conservatives; that they have â??bad brains.â? Nonsense, and I refuted Goldberg here.

Hank Campbell and Alex Berezow went even further, claiming the book espouses a new form of eugenics and calls Republicans â??genetically inferior.â? The book says nothing of the sort. (Andrea Kuszewski skewered their various errors.)

Ernest Istook, the former member of Congress and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, hit the same note:

Conservatives are simpletons with a mental defect.

That claim is offensive, odious, obnoxious and downright deranged. But itâ??s the thesis of a book that liberals are buying up, written by Chris Mooney, called â??The Republican Brain.â?

Well, no, it isnâ??t the thesis. With all of these critics, one wonders whether they actually read the book.

A slightly more serious conservative critique came from Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard who, in a cover story, dismissed both me and Jonathan Haidt, based upon various methodological critiques of psychology studies, especially those relying on subject pools of undergraduates. Ferguson is calling into question the sampling and methodological practices that are used regularly in papers published in the leading journals of the field. In other words, heâ??s attacking science.

But not only are these methods eminently defensible; and not only have psychologists been weighing such concerns for decades. The case Iâ??m making doesnâ??t rest solely on these kinds of studies, or on the work of any one scholar or methodology. Indeed, most recently, the research on psychological differences between left and right has been backed up by physiological research, and even, tentatively, by some brain studies. Thus, Fergusonâ??s argument also collapses.

So whatâ??s left? Not much, other than the standard conservative distrust of what academic scientists are up toâ??coupled with a pretty impressive amount of overconfidence. After all, conservatives seem to think that they are competent to critique--not in the scientific literature, but in the media and on blogs--an entire field. And then, to dismiss it based on those critiques.

Everett Young, commenting on Facebook, had perhaps the best gloss on conservativesâ?? willingness to dismiss academia without even trying to play the game:

If conservatives want more conservatives in the academic research enterprise, then let them join us. Do not criticize those who are in the trenches working hard at it for YOUR absence from the trenches.

The "too much liberalism in academia" criticism is exactly this ridiculous. It's like out-of-shape people criticizing a gym for the fact that everybody who works out there is in great shape.

What It All Means

All of which creates a rather extraordinary situation.

A lot of people are clearly threatened by what my book is saying. And no wonder, for the claims it makes are deeply inconvenient, both to conservatives but also to quite a lot of media centrists. (Liberals get a drubbing too in much of this researchâ??for being indecisive and wishy-washy--but somehow they donâ??t seem particularly worried about that. Which itself is interesting, no?)

However, the scientific argument against my basic claimâ??liberals and conservatives are just different people, psychologically--is not really making itself apparent. So could it be that Iâ??m actuallyâ?¦.er, right?

Time will tell. At least at the present time, it certainly does look like the available evidence leads to a conclusion that many people donâ??t want to accept.

But perhaps they shouldnâ??t be so threatened. One implication of my book, after all, is that liberalism and conservatism simply reflect different but enduring parts of human nature. And that means that liberals (and scientists) are simply the kind of people who like to stir the pot and shake things upâ??and always will be. Itâ??s like the line about Jean Jacques Rousseau (an 18th century â??liberalâ?) that I quote at the end of the book: â??He could not be hindered from setting the world on fire.â?

Is it possible that, paradoxically, this is something conservatives could learn to accept or even respect? After all, itâ??s kind of a basic human tradition. Liberals push the envelope, and err on the side of too much open-mindedness; conservatives pull us back again, and err on the side of too much closure. It could be a productive relationship. It could be considered normal, and even necessary.

But that wonâ??t happen until conservatives, and journalists, are willing to accept what the science of politics is now telling us.

Chris Mooney is the author of four books, including "The Republican War on Science" (2005). His newest book is "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Scienceâ??and Reality".

Well, today I ordered the book titled "The Republican Brain: The science of Why The Deny Science - and Reality".



I should be getting this book (hard cover) sometime next week. It cost me about $20 dollars including shipping and handling. I ordered it from Barnes & Nobel.

I'm really looking forward to reading this one. I can hardly wait.

OK, I pretty much see human history as a battle between conservative thinkers and progressive thinkers, a prime example, being the conflict between the Roman Catholic church (ultra-conservative thinkers) and the Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo, a progressive thinker.

Copernicus and Galileo were not the first to propose that the earth and all the planets revolved around the sun. Over 2000 years ago, a Greek philosopher, Democritus, had also proposed that the earth and the planets revolved around the sun, and that the stars were distant suns each having their own planetary systems, and that there were even other earth-like worlds revolving around other suns.

The ancient Greeks worshiped many gods, and they worshiped the moon as a god, while Democritus said that the moon was just another would, made of rock. Many of the religious Greeks thought that it was impious of him to say that one of their gods was a stone, while Democritus said that it was foolish of them to make a stone their god!

Then, during the medieval period, another philosopher also proposed that the earth and the planets revolved around the sun. I don't remember his name, but I do remember the title of the book "This Wild Abyss" which I had read back in 1980. It was a detailed history of astronomy.

Perhaps next month I will order the book from Barnes & Nobel. I can probably get it used for a reduced price, being that it is an older book.

Anyway . . . . .

A lot of people are not aware that Copernicus and Galileo were not the first to propose the Heliocentric model of the solar system instead of the Geocentric model. Copernicus waited until he was an old man before publishing his theories, and he died peacefully in his sleep, laying on his back, with the first published copy of his book clasped in his hand on his chest. Galileo was not as fortunate. After his book was published, he was put on trial by the Inquisition, interrogated for many long hours, threatened with torture, and forced to sign a false confession, and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

Giordano Bruno had also stated his assertions that the earth and planets revolved around the sun. He supported the Copernican theory of the sun-centered solar system, and also asserted that the stars were distant suns with their own planetary systems, and other earth-like planets out there. But, he was even less fortunate than either Copernicus and Galileo, being that he was burned at the stake in the year 1600.

History shows how conservative thinkers are always proven wrong in the light of scientific evidence. And even today, conservative still cling to their outmoded ideas, even in the face of scientific evidence against them.

So, history continues to repeat itself.

Definition of insanity . . . . .

Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get a different result every time.

Perhaps, conservatives aren't just dumb, they're insane!

At least, that's my assertion.

[ChrisOH]

Hello Fat Man!

I just picked up a copy of "Idiot America" last week at the local library.

Honestly, I thought you were just being sarcastic at first about the creationists believing Noah's sons put saddles on the dinosaurs and rode them to the ark. Certainly, people couldn't be that stupid, could they?

Alas, in the first chapter of the book, the author talks about Ken Ham and his "Answers in Genesis" creation museum, and how they actually had displays of model dinosaurs with saddles on them! Ironically, just after I checked out the book at the library, I stopped at the grocery store, and parked behind a car that had a bumper sticker which read, "Visit creationmuseum.org"! *Facepalm*

It's amazing to me how much respect for the scientific method has deteriorated -- it seems people like Ham, et al, think science is political and democratic, and if they can just get enough people to "vote" for it, it becomes a viable idea worthy of being taught alongside established theories.

Is it any wonder, with this kind of attitude, that American education is falling behind other nations?

Hope you'll update us on the "Republican Brain" book once you're finished with it -- that sounds like one I'd like to put on my reading list!

[Fat Man]

Good afternoon CrisHO!

Well, I should get my book sometime after Monday or Tuesday, so I'm really looking forward to reading it.

I'm glad you found "Idiot America" in your local library. Yeah! An excellent read!



And yes, the Creation Museum does put saddles on life-sized models of dinosaurs!

OK, when I was a kid living up in Minnesota, I was raised a Christian, a Presbyterian. When I was about 8 years old, in Sunday school, I was taught that the earth, and everything was all created in just six days, and I was taught all about Noah's ark. We even had a cut-out book of art projects, and yes, it was fun putting together the paper model of Noah's Ark. Sometimes Sunday school was fun.

And, I did believe in God, and that he did make everything.

But one day, when I was 9 years old, I checked out my first astronomy book from my school library, and I also checked out books on dinosaurs.

Well, when I read that the universe was many billions of years old, and the earth was a few billion years old, and that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, and became extinct about 60 million years ago, well, I didn't stop believing in God. I just simply believed that maybe evolution and natural selection was the method that God used to make life on our planet.

I mean, like, seriously! I just could not believe that when God made all the life on the earth, that he just simply poofed things into existence out of nothing!

The neighbors who lived across the street from me, they had a HAM RADIO setup in the attic of their house and a bunch of weird looking antennas up on the roof. They had a couple of kids in high school, and one day, I was invited over to look and all the neat electronic stuff they had up in their attic. They were obviously very interested in science.

They gave me a bunch of paperback books on Astronomy, and one of them explained Einsteins Theory of Relativity to me. Although I was only 9 years old, and couldn't understand all the math behind it yet at that age, I was able to grasp some of the basic concepts.

So, I understood, for example: that if you were to get into a spaceship and travel away from the earth approaching the speed of light, and go to a distant star about 100 light years away, and turn around and come back again after another 100 years, that everyone you left back home on earth would have to wait 200 years for you to come back. But, as one approaches closer and closer to the speed of light, time aboard the spaceship slows down, so that the journey will be much less time for you, and when you came home, you would only be a few years older than you were when you started out, but when you came home again, everyone you have known would have been dead for over a hundred years or so. Therefore, time is not the same for all observers.

Another words, time is not absolute, but relative to the observer.

Well, that also, kind of settled things in my mind concerning God, and creation.

So, one day, I asked my Sunday school teacher, if it were possible that God used evolution and natural selection to "create" life on the earth, and perhaps, what might and been six days for God, that during his six days, billions of years of time could have passed for everything within the universe.

And of course, my Sunday school teacher told me that if I didn't change my thinking on that, I would probably go to Hell when I die!

Yeah! Uh huh! A really nice thing to say to a young kid!

You see, I could not take everything in the Bible literally.

I had read that the universe operated according to natural laws, according to Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. The universe is governed by natural mathematical laws.

So, therefore, I had to believe, that maybe God was the law maker, and that God worked within those laws to "make" the universe and everything in it, that God did not just simply poof things into existence like some kind of magical parlor trick.

Anyway, that was my basic concept of God when I was just a kid in grade school, and that the Genesis account was simply some ancient myth. Back then, I didn't stop believing in God, just because I believed in evolution, or that the universe was billions of years old.

So, it wasn't science that would turn me against religion, but, it was religion itself, or rather, some religious fanatics that turned me against their religion.

And so, I have been becoming more agnostic.

Now, if I were asked, if I think there's a God, the only honest answer I can give is, I DON'T KNOW!

I can't say for sure, or be absolutely certain if there is a God, or if there is no God, I just simply do not know.

If there is a God, then he must be a non-interventionist sort of God, who does not step in to make this or make that, nor does he, she, or it even answer prayers.

So, if assuming that God was the first cause, setting down the laws by which the universe operates, then, that was all God ever did, and after that, just sitting back watching as the whole process naturally unfolds.

Either way, I simply do not know.

At any rate, dinosaurs never wore saddles and nobody ever rode on a dinosaur.



All I have to say is . . . . .

Sorry Republicans! But the Flintstones is only a cartoon, and NOT a documentary!