Why the Right Wing Rejects Science

It is only in this field that "inherent biases" seem to exist. It is far to convenient.

 

It is very difficult to convince someone who's livelyhood depends on something that it is wrong. I am convinced of global warming and I am working on my contribution to the public good....even though it may amount to nothing. I am really into soil science and my lab is my backyard. No rain again this week.

 

No, it's in any field. All you have to do is understand that whoever funds your research has a bias, and then it's thrown on the garbage heap along with all the other nonsense that doesn't meet the requirements of science. You're biased, so whatever you say is tainted.

Imagine tobacco companies funding research that says that smoking cigarettes is good for your health.

Are you going to believe the findings? If you do, you're an idiot! It's the same with governments funding research that gives the government more power.

 

I know of no other branch of science that the gop attacks on a regular basis. THEIR bias is loud and clear

 

Obviously - the entire right does not reject science but, a significant enough number of them do to give the right that reputation.

Religious right in particular are raised to reject science. It is the only way fundamentalist/literalist belief can be maintained. Then you have the laissez faire capitalists who only care about themselves to the extreme .. the world and the rest of the people around them be damned.

 

But some of the science can be replicated even at home. Like the Myth busters CO2 experiment.

 

Your simplistic example shows a simplistic understanding of science.

Complicated systems - such as global climate - are complicated. Just because the science can not perfectly explain everything does not relegate it to the garbage can unless one is a simpleton.

 

I don't know anything about that, but I'm guessing it has to do with proving that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

This doesn't say anything because I'm willing to concede that we do have an effect on the environment. How much of an effect? How much can the government do to stop that? Is our effect even bad?

I don't know.

 

Think of it as scepticism in the face of a bunch of lefties trying to give the government even more power than it already has. lefties don't give a rat's ass about things that don't expand the power of the state, so maybe they don't care about ethics or biology.

Want to talk about the left attacking biology? Oh, that's a treasure trove, that is!

 

So it's just politics. Well now your bias is quite clear

 

I don't believe you were ever a "righty" because you seem to think all conservatism is rooted in religion and "security". And you obviously have not spent any time with "righties" because you seem to think no "righty" is a scientist, engineer, mathematician, or probably ever went to college.

So your entire argument is base don ignorance and bias.

 

It's motivation.

You know how the left goes after people's employers? Like Rush Limbaugh. His advertisers are more than well aware that the left hates him, and they'll do whatever they can to get him off the air, including attacking his source of income.

It's the opposite of that. Obama made no bones about funding Al Sharpton's radio show, and now he's pulling in far less than before, assuming he's even still on the air.

It's about the motivation which results in bias.

 

I always thought "I don't know" was a good answer. It shows honesty. I have read that 30% of carbon emissions come from tilling the ground. And when it comes to how much the government can or should do...I don't know. Governments always try to solve problems by throwing money at them.

 

I'm more than willing to admit that I'm not an expert on everything. Hell, even what I think I'm competent at has huge question mark.

That ability to say "I don't know" shows you're capable of understanding what you do know about. The dunning-kruger effect requires an inability on the part of low intelligence people to understand their deficiencies. It's a yin yang thang, and without a yin, you don't have the ability to comprehend the yang.

 

There are 7+ billion people burning fossil fuels 24*7 and terraforming the planet by destroying forests.

Other creatures have terraformed the planet in the past and they profoundly changed the earth.

To deny that what we are doing is going to alter the environment that we need to survive is science denial.

 

Both parties are science-deniers when it suits them. For every conservative who rejects evolution, you have a leftist who rejects sexual dimorphism or western medicine.

The problem is with all of us. We refuse to face truths that don't fit our worldview, and we generally don't engage with those on the opposing side of the argument unless it's to attack or ridicule them. It's easier to demonize the opposition and isolate yourself in an ideological echo chamber than to engage in constructive dialog and to consider actually rectifying significant aspects of your belief system.

 

ONLY the motivation in THIS science is ever questioned

 

But...the truth is the truth...whether you believe it or not. People trust science in most everything....except GW.

 

That first paragraph is nonsense in that it is the science deniers who reject climatology as well as the scientific perspective of sexual dimorphism.

In BOTH cases it is most commonly the right wing that is on the anti-science side.

And, in congress it tends to be the right wing that resists vaccination and favors homeopathic BS as if either of these had ANY scientific basis.

Based on that, just have to reject your idea that science is accepted or rejected in equal measure by people of different political leanings.

 

The rejection of sexual dimorphism and biological reality in favor of gender politics is an invention of the left. What does the right-wing have to do with it?

Alternative medicine and opposition to genetically modified food is a characteristic of the left.

As for anti-vaxxers, they come from both parties, unfortunately. There is no statistical indication that political affiliation is a notable factor. http://prospect.org/article/vaccine-fear-mongers-are-wrong-theyre-not-ideological[/URL]

 

I don't see any of the Democratic leadership rejecting science. I don't see a party platform that rejects science.

Were the rejection of science on the left significant, we would see it in the party platform. But we don't because it is only the fringe that is nutty, not the entire party.

On the right wing however, we see the rejection of science as the standard now. The entire party went over a cliff with the bible thumpers.

 

The point is that the view of the left concerning sexual dimorphism comes from and is consistent with science, while those disagreeing with that view most frequently come from the political right wing.

I said nothing about GMOs. We could go into that, as I would argue that the real issue there is one of engineering, not science.

I agree there are left wing crazies on vax and some aspects of health, but you will note that I pointed out that these are aspects that have a right wing voice in congress. Even the chairmen of the House science committee (Lamar Smith) is strongly anti-science - something Republicans could fix if they thought science was important. That kind of anti-science focus doesn't come from the left.

 

This is where rw rejection of climate science utterly fails: There is a statistical level of confidence in the climate models. The last I checked, our confidence that fossil fuels usages is a primary driver of climate change, is over 85%. This is based on physics and how the measurement errors propagate through the models. It isn't a guess. It is a calculated number.

It is reasonable to claim that we don't KNOW how much effect we are having but we have high confidence. This is a simple fact. But the rw rejects our high confidence because we can't be 100% certain. We can never have 100% confidence. We can only have high confidence.

 

What the right wing doesn't understand is that climate science only requires physics and chemistry that is 100 years old. This is not theoretical or the cutting edge. The science is old stuff. It is the stuff done by undergrads in chemistry and physics classes.

What is difficult is getting the data needed to make accurate models. Over time as we get more and more data, we have more and more confidence in the models.

 

Amen.

Plus, we NEVER wait for 100% on ANY public policy. This anti-science demand for 100% is never applied to confidence concerning the adequacy of DoD, FEMA, economic stimulus, infrastructure building, affects of the "Wall", changes in taxation, federal reserve rate, or ANY other public policy. In fact, for a number of these it's left to voodoo.

Yet, they want 100% before considering climate change policy.