Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

The differences between the political parties in their views of science has become of increasing significance in recent years. One reason for the failure of Republican government in recent years has been their separation from reality. We saw this in their claims about WMD and ties between Saddam and al Qaeda to justify the Iraq War. We see conservatives opposing the consensus of scientific belief on evolution, cosmology, geology (if it disagrees with their ideas on the age of the earth), and climate change. You cannot devise workable public policy when ideology prevents a rational review of the facts.

John McCain’s talk before the Discovery Institute, the organization responsible for many of those nonsense conservative talking points against evolution, has emphasized the anti-science bias prevalent in the Republican Party. Shelley Batts discusses the relationship between presidential candidates and the company they seek among those hostile to science:

It is of the utmost importance that a president, or future preseident, have rational thinking and reasoning skills as well as a firm grasp over what constitutes scientific evidence in the formulation of theories. A president makes crucial decisions every day which impact the lives of millions of people. The election of a person who demonstrates an inability to assimilate facts and observations in a way that makes sense, but rather defaults to an emotional mythology, would be a grave mistake. Therefore, not only is it beyond reproach for the “intelligent liberal community” to impose a requirement of rationality on a future president, it would be ludicrous to do otherwise. Yes, I believe that influential people who cannot use their power in a coherant, scientifically-supportable way merits contempt.

Whether or not John McCain really believes in intelligent design, who’s to say? I tend to think he doesn’t, and this talk is just another panderfest to the conservative right. The problem is, in a presidential election, guilt-by-association is a very real thing. The reason for this is that there are no accidental appearances; every minute of McCain’s time from now until election day will be carefully planned, weighed, pondered over, and scrutinized by his team for maximum effect. This talk hosted by the DI, while not specifically admitting to agree with intelligent design, was also no accident. And the fact that a DI luncheon was an attractive place to spend his time in his quest to develop his image and become president, reveals that the image that HE wants to mold is very, very far from the image of the president I would elect.

Presidental hopefuls keep a keen eye out for oppertunities to ingratiate themselves with certain factions (McCain, as with any other). McCain had a oppertunity to associate himself with a pro-ID organization or, not to. He chose to do it. I hope it was worth it.

Regardless of whether they know better themselves, the Republican candidates find it necessary to align themselves with those who oppose science. Regardless of where one stands on specific issues, we are increasingly seeing the choice as being one political party which accepts facts over ideology, and therefore is more likely to promote pragmatic solutions to problems, and another which is tied to extremists who are willing to ignore all scientific and other evidence which contradicts their beliefs. As long as the Republican Party remains captive to those who share the views of organizations such as The Discovery Institute they will not be capable of governing.

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