Why the Right Wing Rejects Science

I noticed something that had never occurred to me before. Being a former righty myself and still being classically conservative in many of my views, I once understood the right wing. But for me it was more about economic models and Constitutional arguments. What drives the typical conservative is the need for security. That is why righties generally push for a strong military, more military actions, more weapons, gun rights, more police, more border agents, stiffer laws and longer prison sentences, less tolerance, and from the perspective of the left, would sacrifice liberty for security.

On top of this we have socially conservative views, and various strains of religious fundamentalism, and evangelicalism, at the base. They seek to impose their views of morality on the rest of us because they think this is their divine duty.

In a word, it is all about control. But science takes that control away. Science is driven by facts and evidence, logic and analysis, and math. Science cannot be influenced by the bible or personal conviction or a need for a sense of safety. When science tells a righty that they don't have control, that the fossil fuels are changing the climate no matter how much they don't want to believe it, or that our evolution is a function of the odds, and not divine intervention, they simply reject science. It is in their nature. They need to believe that they are in control.

 

what makes you think the right wing rejects science? I keep hearing this "anti-science" talk but you're only talking about a very small minority of people who believe that dinosaurs are god's way of testing us.

As for control, what sort of control do right wingers gain by rejecting AGW? It doesn't give us any money to spend on our pet green energy projects, nor does it give us any control over what kinds of cars can be driven on public roads, or which lanes can be used if you have a hybrid vehicle.

 

Your "former righty" days sound suspicious. How old do you have to be for the right not to be concerned about a strong military. Really? You think that's some brand new development?

And you are totally misunderstanding "morality." The right accepted the societal consensus on morality. Supporting those ideas even when society starts to fracture along those lines doesn't mean they are trying to "impose their views of morality on the rest of us because they think this is their divine duty."

They simply maintained the same views. It was your side that changed, not the right.

 

Forcing Christian Bakers, who owned a private company, to bake a gay wedding cake for a couple who went looking for a business to refuse them sounds like control to me. If the right is the one trying to reject science, why aren't conservatives creating "safe spaces" on college where they can get rid of people who disagree with them? If the left stands for science, why don't they admit abortion is murder? If the left stands for science, why do they insist on catering to trans-genders? claiming there are hundreds of different genders? If the right is the one trying to force their morality down everyone's throat, why is the left the group that supports "anti-Islamophobic" bills, where speaking out against Islam is a crime? Why does the left, if they are not trying to shove their morality down everyone's throats, force PRIVATE companies to hire people they don't want too? Because in the left's eyes, that's immoral, so they must make it moral, in their own morality's image. See people like you are the biggest hypocrites, you claim the right is anti-science, anti-freedom and anti-facts. All while arguing a fetus with separate DNA than its mother and a heartbeat isn't alive. While you force religious groups to accept your rules, and while you try to tell me a guy can become a girl if they really believe they are hard enough. Laughably hypocritical don't you think? Probably not though, once a leftist gets on their high horse, they seldom come back down.

 

You: """All while arguing a fetus with separate DNA than its mother and a heartbeat isn't alive"""


Please do show me who and where anyone said a fetus isn't alive?

I have never seen or heard anyone say a fetus isn't alive.....and if someone did say it they'd be wrong.

...and it wouldn't have anything to do with women's right to their own bodies.


BTW, DNA and a heartbeat do NOT make a fetus a person....

 

'Righties' don't reject science, they reject left wing mass hysteria used for more government control. The true science deniers are those that think the science is settled.

 

You were doing so well through the first 2 paragraphs.

You fall on your face when you say "Science is driven by facts and evidence, logic and analysis, and math. Science cannot be influenced by the bible or personal conviction." Not just limiting to climate science, but "science" and findings have by influenced by all of those things since the beginning of time.

I believe most of the "deniers" are more denying the agenda of those that most adamantly support global warming. There was a thread from the Paris Accords of some UN drone saying the Climate change deal will change the worlds economic model. Most of the people in are own congress see the "fix" for climate change as massive new taxes and very costly regulations. Then you have the people like me, that see the vehemence and vindictiveness of attacks on anyone that doesnt fall into lock step. MOD EDIT>>>FLAME BAIT>>>

 

I think the link is religion, not necessarily control.
Fear is a huge factor - religion is largely to overcome fear of death.
Science has always been the foe of religion - just because people aren't burned at the stake any longer doesn't mean the battle for answers between science and an imaginary friend is over.
Peddlers of religion have to claim they are the only source of answers, and that means answers from science have to be rejected.
If everyone were to approach the concept of god based on evidence, we'd all be atheists, so the "believers" have to turn a deaf ear to many facts, rejecting a few more facts becomes easy.
I believe Trump has a cult following - like Jim Jones did - that flies in the face of common sense, and can only be understood as blind faith. Faith in a charlatan.

 

So the true science deniers are those that accept what scientists themselves say?

 

sceince deniers is a stupid term coined by idiot leftists, and has nothing to do with science.

 

This is not an altogether bad post.

In fact, it contains some observations that are fairly good.

To argue, for instance, that the Bible is entirely correct, as it is God's word; and we know that it is God's word, because the Bible says so; is a type of logical fallacy known as circular reasoning.

It would also be good, I think, to avoid the a priori fallacy.

But those on the left may also be victims of fallacious reasoning.

For instance, you appeal to "science," as if it were one monolithic thing.

But there are many different types of scientists.

When an enormous number--say, 90-plus percent--of "scientists" are said to believe that (a) the results of global warming (a.k.a. "climate change") will be disastrous; and (b) that a majority of this change is man-made; it necessarily begs the question: Just what percentage of these scientists are specialists in the pertinent area (i.e. meteorologists or climatologists?

To ignore this very important question is to fall victim to yet another logical fallacy: an appeal to authority.

(Oh, by the way: It would be far preferable to research the matter independently, rather than appealing to even those who are truly involved in the precise area.)

 

Let me assuage your concern and lack of knowledge

That 90% figure (I believe it's actually 97%) concerns per reviewed papers on the subject

 

So for you, reliable science is a function of what actions some people take in defense of that science.

That's a rather asinine metric for judging the scientific method.

 

So is Economics and Psychology, but that doesn't make them Sciences.

You misunderstand the nature of Science.

Science is Universal, and it is so, because the results of Science can be replicated and duplicated by others. If I add Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) to any Base, such as Sodium Hydroxide, (NaOH), I get water (H2O) and a salt, in this case Sodium Chloride (table salt).

Anyone can replicate or duplicate that repeatedly with the same results, and one can actually predict the amount of water (H2O) and salt that is produced, precisely because it is Science.

When the theories supporting "global warming" can be replicated and duplicated by anyone, let us know, and then we'll accept it as "Science."

 

Actually having spent years arguing science and in particular climate science with a predominantly right wing opposition I wish it was just ideological

Yes there is a resistance to science itself but there is also a distinct resistance even to the thought of science as a discipline
There is a tie in to conspiracy thinking which in and of itself is a rejection of scientific thinking

Just even the BASICS like - an opinion must be supported by fact most particularly research otherwise it is an opinion and no uncle looneys blog is not a valid source for climate data

 

You may be right about a specific group of people, but I would avoid talking in such generalities. People's political beliefs are much more complicated than a simple left or right. We all fall somewhere different on the spectrum depending on the issue.

Even if those opposed to your views tend to generalize people like you or me, it's best to avoid that type of thinking. I feel that it's consistently polluting any chance of rational discussion.

 

Myocardial cells created in a lab dish can have a separate DNA and heartbeat - mostly because it is a function of contractility

Does not a "person" make

 

I'm a Reagan Republican and I don't reject science. I have a scientist in the family.

 

The scientific process IS science. Would you say that the Theory of Gravity is not science just because it's still a theory?

 

They can - please keep up with the actual science

Or are you trying to ell me that we cannot replicate the "greenhouse gas effect"?

 

Okay then here is your test

What do you think of climate science?

 

I think it's a good field to get into. It would be very interesting.

 

You see you lose your argument right at the point where you drag in that rotting corpse of a strawman

 

Of course science is about control, are you nuts? Or better, do you like nuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc?

Science can be just as authoritarian as any other belief system. And it has no moral codes, unlike various religions.

So, you laid out many things about conservatives, some negative. But just as many negative things can be said, and are said about faux liberals. Yet when I think of some religion imposing its views on others, islam comes to mind. They chop off heads, while evangelicals do not. And I have not had a Christian ever impose his beliefs on me. Christians do not believe in the morality as practiced in the US today. Yet they are not imposing their beliefs on out of wedlock sex, on not working on sunday, on going to church, on anyone. I think they just want to be left the hell alone, to practice their religion is all. I don't see them shoving their beliefs down the throats of others, in fact, I see the immoral shoving their beliefs down the throats of everyone else. LOL

 

Oh, I find it incredible you were ever a conservative. LOL You are too fanatical about your faux liberalism.

Generally people becomes more conservative with age, as faux liberals are rainbows and unicorn idealists. Of course some teenagers rebelling against their parents never grow up and turn into old faux liberals.

Now genuine liberalism isn't like this. It is a reasonable, responsible, group of beliefs, but that died out. Genuine conservatism died out as well. What genuine liberalism and genuine conservatism had in common were shared libertarian beliefs. All we have now running their mouths are mostly faux liberals and faux conservatives. Or the extremists. IMO