"The Republicans’ war on science and reason"

[TimCallahan]

A liberal Dem slammed NASA, the one true agency that can give us a return on our investment and true economic stimulis. So to hell with this leftist garbage that the Republicans are anti-science. That is left-wing scare tactics and propaganda.

concerning the hilited area, the Huffington Post listed the Republican candidates' views on evolution. Only Romney and Huntsman said they accept evolution as a fact. Santorum, Bachman and Paul all said they don't accept evolution. Gingrich and Cain both dodged the issue.

So, tell me, Bill, do you also oppose evolution. If you don't, if you accept evolution as a scientific fact, how can you say that Republicans aren't anti-science? This is so basic, it shouldn't even be an issue. Any candidate for president should accept evolution just as surely as he accepts the heliocentric model of the solar system.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

A liberal Dem slammed NASA, the one true agency that can give us a return on our investment and true economic stimulis. So to hell with this leftist garbage that the Republicans are anti-science. That is left-wing scare tactics and propaganda.

1) citation please

2) "slamming" NASA does not equal an "anti science" mindset.

 

[TimCallahan]

1) citation please

2) "slamming" NASA does not equal an "anti science" mindset.

Bill Thompson said it was Obama, and his "slamming" NASA was that he defunded it. So far, the only thing I can find is that he (or the government in general) cut back manned missions. The shuttle program also ended. However, as far as I can tell, this was already in the works at NASA before Obama was even president.

 

[TimCallahan]

I just found this clip showing Newt Gingrich's profound misunderstanding of evolution, seeming to think it implies such randomness as the same mass of protoplasm one week giving rise to a rhinoceros, the next week giving rise to a human. Of, course, evolutionary theory say nothing of the kind.

 

[TimCallahan]

Here's Gingrich flip-floping on global warming. Apparently, his "science" is dictated by politics.

 

[TimCallahan]

concerning the hilited area, the Huffington Post listed the Republican candidates' views on evolution. Only Romney and Huntsman said they accept evolution as a fact. Santorum, Bachman and Paul all said they don't accept evolution. Gingrich and Cain both dodged the issue.

So, tell me, Bill, do you also oppose evolution. If you don't, if you accept evolution as a scientific fact, how can you say that Republicans aren't anti-science? This is so basic, it shouldn't even be an issue. Any candidate for president should accept evolution just as surely as he accepts the heliocentric model of the solar system.

Bill:

Concerning the hilited area: Care to answer?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I just found this clip showing Newt Gingrich's profound misunderstanding of evolution, seeming to think it implies such randomness as the same mass of protoplasm one week giving rise to a rhinoceros, the next week giving rise to a human. Of, course, evolutionary theory say nothing of the kind.

Newt also argues a straw man by completely distorting "teaching history" as if one cannot include religion in a history lesson. It's not teaching history that is the problem. It is teaching a particular religious view as fact that is the problem.

 

[keale]

Sorry but the fact that a significant number of people in the US take these anti science nut jobs seriously enough to consider them presidential candidates is not just embarrassing but scary.

 

[Robert Prey]

So far, the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination have, almost to a man (or in one case woman) claimed that Darwin was wrong and that global climate change is fiction. In a word, they have shown contempt for science if acknowledging it would offend their know-nothing constituents. Does anybody not get this?

False. Nobody says that climate change is a fiction. What is fiction is that there ever was a time when climate was not changing. In a word, Van Heuval or whatever her name is, has constructed a very un-scientific straw man which you also seem to worship.

 

[Robert Prey]

Republicans also have a tendency to reject modern economics, in much the same way. While they like to reference Friedman they typically reject much of what Friedman actually said and favour Austrian school “economics” which Friedman was highly critical of. (For example it’s well documented that Friedman advocated printing as much base money as required to keep the M2 money supply expanding to recover from liquidity traps caused by financial system meltdowns. Austrian economists and almost all Republicans have spoken out quite loudly against the Fed doing this.)

Interestingly the Austrian school of economics holds that you shouldn’t do hypothesis testing and instead work out all economics from “first principles”, in other words they reject the scientific method.

Garbage.

 

[Robert Prey]

Why do you hate democracy so much?

Democracy is mob rule. That is why our Founders gave us a Republic. Another illustrative definition of "Democracy" is three wolves and a sheep deciding by majority vote as to what they shall eat for dinner.

 

[Robert Prey]

Here's Michele Bachmann's view of NASA's "war on heaven."

At this site you can see the views of Gingrich, Pawlenty and Romney to the effect that space exploration should be left to the private sector.

A very sensible idea. If you want to fund it, go for it. But don't steal from me to fulfill your Buck Rogers fantasies.

 

[Robert Prey]

Heheh!

Wait...you're not joking, are you?-Bri

Not that evidence would convince you, but PolitiFact disagrees with you (and so do the overwhelming majority of climate scientists).

Science deals with a search for truth. It does not equate a majority view of a political selection of any group to define truth.

 

[Robert Prey]

Riiight.

And so, your point is?

 

[Tony]

A very sensible idea. If you want to fund it, go for it. But don't steal from me to fulfill your Buck Rogers fantasies.

Who is stealing from you?

 

[Robert Prey]

If yo had really bothered to look at the National Geographic link I posted, you would have seen that there has been a sharp increase in the rate of global warming in the last century, much more than would be expected from natural post-glacial warming.

I am also aware of the climate "experts" of the early 1970s warning that current trends forecast another Ice Age. What does that tell you about "experts"? What does that tell you about fallacious reasoning when it comes to projecting "trends" based on a cherry-picked number of prior years climate stats????????

 

[TimCallahan]

Democracy is mob rule. That is why our Founders gave us a Republic. Another illustrative definition of "Democracy" is three wolves and a sheep deciding by majority vote as to what they shall eat for dinner.

Actually, what we have is a representative democracy, with a bill of rights that protects minority views. You kind of forgot the Bill of Rights, didn't you?

 

[TimCallahan]

I am also aware of the climate "experts" of the early 1970s warning that current trends forecast another Ice Age. What does that tell you about "experts"? What does that tell you about fallacious reasoning when it comes to projecting "trends" based on a cherry-picked number of prior years climate stats????????

In point of fact, the climate experts were basing their view of a coming ice age on the model that accurately explained the repeated cycle of glacial and interglacial periods, based on fluctuations in the earth's orbit, the wobble of the axis, etc. The reason they turned out to be wrong is the degree of heating of the earth's surface by the accumulation of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

 

[jj]

I am also aware of the climate "experts" of the early 1970s warning that current trends forecast another Ice Age. What does that tell you about "experts"? What does that tell you about fallacious reasoning when it comes to projecting "trends" based on a cherry-picked number of prior years climate stats????????

It tells us, directly, how much effect that humans have had on a climate that would otherwise be shifting back to an ice-age kind of setting.

Perhaps you could study the subject more, next time?

 

[TimCallahan]

A very sensible idea. If you want to fund it, go for it. But don't steal from me to fulfill your Buck Rogers fantasies.

Had space exploration been left to the private sector, it simply wouldn't have happened. Consider this: There was nothing stopping private space exploration. So, why didn't it happen?