Republicans Against Science: Boast Willful Ignorance as their Trademark

[FayeforCure]

Republicans Against Science

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 28, 2011

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. â€" namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.......

Mr. Perry suggests; those (climate change) scientists are just in it for the money, “manipulating data” to create a fake threat. In his book “Fed Up,” he dismissed climate science as a “contrived phony mess that is falling apart.”

.....Mr. Perry’s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming â€" which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences â€" is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.

My comment: the pre-ponderance of evidence doesn't sway Republicans from what they want to believe!!

And the Republican electorate doesn't understand that they are being played:

So how has Mr. Romney, the other leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination, responded to Mr. Perry’s challenge? In trademark fashion: By running away. In the past, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has strongly endorsed the notion that man-made climate change is a real concern. But, last week, he softened that to a statement that he thinks the world is getting hotter, but “I don’t know that” and “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.” Moral courage!

Of course, we know what’s motivating Mr. Romney’s sudden lack of conviction. According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.


My comment: too bad 79% of Republicans do not accept the indisputable fact of global warming as a man-made event, and 65% of Republicans do not believe in evolution due to their dogmtic religious ideas.

Can we say party of stupid?

The Chinese and other emerging market nations are laughing all the way to the bank!!

[jandar]

So if a researcher keeps trying to disprove global warming as entirely man-made, is he/she an idiot and should not be in science?


I mean, we should never argue another point of view or try to invalidate research. Einstein was right all along in his theory of relativity and Hawking did not find anything wrong with it with regards to black holes.
Einstein was right, Hawking was an idiot for daring to question the research and outcome.

For the record, I am an athiest/agnostic registered republican with an IQ well above the average. All that makes me is a speculator on what a symbiotic relationship such as man and earth is doing. I also believe that evolution is still not a proven theory, but it makes more sense than anything else we can think of.

Yeah, all republicans are dumb mindless religious idiots.
But for the record, Rick Perry scares me more than Obama.

[Garden guy]

I see the antiscience and anti fact republicans as the anithuman group also...everything they do and say is anti-we.....yes they are idiots when it comes to facts and science and reality...but i just with they could get off their stumps on the anti americanism.....america is about WE...US...togetherness....the republicans and the tea party seem to be about nothing but ME ME ME...OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.  when did we become a country that could care less about it's fellow man or woman?....if we follow the tpeople and republican...we may as well take us all the way back to the tudors.....im barrassed by them....the world laughs and it seems noone cares anymore.

[finehoe]

How long before Bridge Troll posts "The Democrats do it too"?

[JeffreyS]

So if a researcher keeps trying to disprove global warming as entirely man-made, is he/she an idiot and should not be in science?


I mean, we should never argue another point of view or try to invalidate research. Einstein was right all along in his theory of relativity and Hawking did not find anything wrong with it with regards to black holes.
Einstein was right, Hawking was an idiot for daring to question the research and outcome.

For the record, I am an athiest/agnostic registered republican with an IQ well above the average. All that makes me is a speculator on what a symbiotic relationship such as man and earth is doing. I also believe that evolution is still not a proven theory, but it makes more sense than anything else we can think of.

Yeah, all republicans are dumb mindless religious idiots.
But for the record, Rick Perry scares me more than Obama.

The point isn't that Republicans are dumb but rather have a large segment that are "willfully ignorant" about man's roll in global climate change and evolution.

I see you trying to spin that the author is stating this as a no Republicans have any brains commentary but that is just not the way the article reads.   

No one is trying to restrict questions about global climate change it may be the most studied global meteorological phenomenon of all time.  I just see lots of "ditto heads" who plug there ears go La lalalalalalalal whenever the results of the studies come in.  I will admit it seems to be less and less all the time.

[BridgeTroll]

How long before Bridge Troll posts "The Democrats do it too"?

Do they?

[BridgeTroll]

How long before Bridge Troll posts "The Democrats do it too"?

From signing on?  I would guestimate that it usually takes about an hour to read threads then about 9 minutes of furiously googling examples of democrats engaging in behavior which carries a similar word in the search term and then 1.3 minutes of hastily posting it without necessarily deciding if it actually has anything to do with the original subject or point, and then 4 days of mulishly pretending that it does.

What a nice thing to say Stephen...

Frankly I do not identify with any of those mentioned in the article.  As for myself... I am quite certain as to the evolution of mankind as a species... and equally sure about the evolution of life on this planet. 

As for manmade global warming...  As far as I am concerned... I am not so certain.  Are we warming?  Possibly.  Do we contribute... possibly.  Has it happened before?  Absolutely.  Do we know enough?  absolutely not.  Certainly not enough to subscribe to the silliness of Kyoto or the latest attempt to say "we are doing something".  I keep my mind very open to new evidence... both pro and con.

[KuroiKetsunoHana]

americans have been conditioned to think in opposites--so the republicans, in presenting themselves as the anti-science party, push perception ov the democrats as the anti-religion party.

it works distressingly well.

[jandar]

And look what was posted this week:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100102296/sun-causes-climate-change-shock/

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

The sun has more effect on Earth's temperature than man does. Imagine that!

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/25/some-reactions-to-the-cloud-experiment/

Now, do yourself a favor and read up on this:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1479
It seems that even sunspots are linked with hurricanes. Imagine that, that big ball of Hyrdogen that provides heat and light also affects earth in other ways.

[FayeforCure]

And look what was posted this week:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100102296/sun-causes-climate-change-shock/

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

The sun has more effect on Earth's temperature than man does. Imagine that!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/25/some-reactions-to-the-cloud-experiment/

Wow, about cloud formation and aerosols.

The take-home message from this research is that.......trace constituencies in the atmosphere seem to have a big effect on cloud formation, and that Cosmic rays also have an effect, a “significant” one according to CERN.

Trace constituencies from aerosols cause cloud formation, trapping heat on earth.....thereby causing global warming/climate change.

Nothing that disputes the effect of man-made global warming, excepts that it is enhanced by cosmic rays (per these study results).

Now what jandar?

[jandar]

and that Cosmic rays also have an effect, a “significant” one according to CERN.

You missed that part of your quote. Lol, Cosmic Ray have a significant effect, big effect. Semantics.

[FayeforCure]

and that Cosmic rays also have an effect, a “significant” one according to CERN.

You missed that part of your quote. Lol, Cosmic Ray have a significant effect, big effect. Semantics.

No I did not miss that at all. Look back and see that I mentioned the effects of cosmic rays..........are you claiming that man-made trace constituencies do not have an effect on global warming?

Because that is not what the research says. All it says is that cosmic rays enhance the effect of man-made trace constituencies.

But don't worry..........I understand that you are grasping at anything to let mankind continue its destructive path, rather than face up to the fact that we have been polluting our earth on a magnitude never before seen with devastating consequences that cause climate change............a fact that was NOT disputed by the CERN research!!!

[BridgeTroll]

I'm sure you would agree that the research at CERN should continue and even accelerate...

[JeffreyS]

I love when people say solar activity and cosmic rays have more effect than man's influence.  The logic I guess is if we aren't going to put out the sun or filter cosmic rays then why do we want to single out mans influence to be mitigated.  The facts that there are other influences and cycles are not disputed.  This is just an attempt to confuse the issue of should we stop polluting the earth in this way because of the effects of the pollution.

[Garden guy]

It can't be because republicans are more dense than others...do they really not believe the proven science or are they just holding onto ideas just because they want to be behold to principle?....is this principle worth our planet? I thought maybe we have a chance with the kyoto protocol but those days are gone and personally i think we've gone past a tipping point...how much damage weve done is to come i guess..i just think it's stupid to not take some serious steps to clean up the planet...even if we're all wrong...what can cleaning up the planet hurt?...