In the comments below I made an assertion to the effect that conservatives are more likely to notionally reject the authority of science, which is one reason that I sometimes focus on right-wing Denialism. On the Left the main analog I experience are feminists and racial minorities who reject science’s authority due to its white male character. On some issues, such as the contention that population level differences between races and sexes are not trivial, the Left is more rejectionist than the Right. But, aside from feminists and racial minorities who reject science as a valid paradigm, my personal experience with Leftists is that they can often be moved into positions which are less rejectionist leveraging the fact that in theory they accept the power and witness of the scientific methodology. The main problem with Creationists, and the reason I simply refuse to engage with them, is that they reject the primacy of the scientific methodology on principle,* so that there is simply no leverage for me to work with (though to be fair, pointing out that St. Augustine noted that much of scripture was allegorical in nature is the sort of leverage which can be used with Creationists on a one-to-one basis).
But I decided to double check my intuition here by looking at the GSS in terms of attitudes toward science. First, if you are curious about “moderates,” they’re less intelligent than those at the political extremes. That should make their results more intelligible. In any case, I am tempted to walk back down from the assertion I made in the comments below, as a wider sampling of variables shows that the reality is more complex, and I am now skeptical that my model captures enough nuance to salvage it.
* I am aware that many avowed Creationists claim to be “scientific.” Scientific arguments are not the real core of their Creationist commitments. They know that, you know that, but for cultural & legalistic reasons they need to retain the transparent farce that their Creationism is rooted in a scientific basis.
The graphs are what I’d expect, and yet…what method is used to validate the self-descriptors? “Moderate” seems the most problematic here. Like “undecideds” a week before an election, I’ve come to think of them as unicorns. The explanation for their existence seems to be that they are in fact not intelligent enough to pick a team.
This just tells me that conservatives are doing it wrong.
Either that or the liberals are just more in favor of the stats quo.
I’m sad to see just how far in the minority I am. I do think science can solve most of our problems. I’m sure it will create plenty along the way, but I think it is worth it. I don’t in any way identify myself as conservative.
A far more interesting and useful question is the perceived value of government-funded science vs. privately-funded science. Does government-funding of science lead to useful technological innovation? Or is it mostly a waste of money (e.g. tokamak fusion, NASA, 99% of medical research)?
The charts (particularly the last one, re: Trust) back up my general perception that conservatives in general are not so much more concerned about what science says as they are about what people, mostly liberals, think science will let them DO. I speak from a familiarity with Southerners, the people among whom I haved lived my life. A Southern social conservative reads the works of Theodore Dalrymple with horror and sees it as the result of a willy-nilly application of “science” to social problems.
If you talk to many conservatives of moderate education you will find behaviorism and Marxist thought conflated with “science”. The leftism of so many scientists reinforces this. The creation vs. evolution argument just happens to be the most obvious point of contradiction to the doctrine that the Bible is the literal Word of God and it is that doctrine, along with a way of life they see founded on it, that is being defended in the argument. A lot of the heat results from the sense that science is attacking religion for the purpose of promoting liberal social agendae.
The most fundamental issue of all with regards to science and technology is who does it empower more? Individuals or large organizations?
Isn’t the definition of “science” too subjective in the mind of the general public? I trust science, because I know what it is; but I distrust a great many scientists because I know what it is not. To the extent that they hold an open mind and diligently try to falsify a hypothesis, I admire them. The moment they begin to dogmatically defend a theory and declare the debate over, or deride and/or demonize its skeptics, they lose all credibility with me.
I suspect that a significant percentage of the public at large cannot distinguish real science from junk science and would regard the entire AGW debate, as an example, as being “science” in action. I think it is fair to say that there are members of the public who could have their confidence in the efficacy of science to improve their lives, unduly misguided one way or another from either side of the political spectrum by it. ◄Dave►
These statistics are too coarse to be meaningful. The left is not unified, nor is the right. There are certain strains of anti-science and anti-technology on the left, broadly construed, but these charts won’t tell you anything interesting about it.
There is a strong undercurrent of anti-technological thinking in parts of the environmental movement, but it is not really left-wing in the strict sense. It owes more to romanticism than the Enlightenment values that drive the left, and while we tend to think of environmentalism as left-wing here and now, it could just as easily be linked to the extreme right (as it was in Nazi Germany). A preference for organic food and natural fibers does not necessarily correlate with a desire for the state to control the means of production, and in fact is more likely to be opposed to it.
As biotechnology applications becomes more widespread, I expect to see alliances between anti-science forces from the left and right sides of the spectrum. Call it the peasants-with-torches party.
The last graph shoes twice as many liberals “strongly disagreeing”, and half as many “strongly agreeing”. This seems to be the most telling figure, as the rest don’t vary much.
I differ, keep your model. Everyone wants to say they’re mostly pro-science. But many misguided people on the right have a firm belief that “real science” is in prefect agreement with their favored beliefs, such as creationism, biblical literalism, or climate change being a hoax. Given their peculiar understanding of “science” I don’t think you can trust responses to these survey questions.
I expect to see alliances between anti-science forces from the left and right sides of the spectrum. Call it the peasants-with-torches party.
Well-stated. Right or left becomes pretty meaningless when theocratic mobs (whether baptist or bedouin) are in the streets. That said, we should not accept the Dawkins school of neo-Darwinists as the final word on the evolution vs. religionist debate: I found Dawkin’s response in TGD to SJ Gould’s NOMA concept to be a bit hasty and arrogant (not that I worship Gould, but RD dismissed the arguments in a few paragraphs). The gauchistes of course have many other objections to Dawkins (and Darwin), though I suspect most of those are the typical PC-leftist fear of anything British. It’s sort of the “beware of articulate Oxfordians quoting Darwin” meme.
@mtraven
There is a strong undercurrent of anti-technological thinking in parts of the environmental movement, but it is not really left-wing in the strict sense.
Well, strictly speaking, that’s to be expected, because “environmentalism” isn’t a science, but a political and social position. Environmentalists use science, of course, to support their political and social positions, and there certainly are environmental sciences. But the belief system itself isn’t a science.
(For the record: This should not be read as an attack on environmentalists’ positions or the science they use, but merely a clarification of the stated point.)
and while we tend to think of environmentalism as left-wing here and now
Some Deep Ecology types are basically “reactionary.” You can even see this is something like the 1970s novel Ecotopia, blacks live in “Soul City” because of a general skepticism of the viability of a multiracial society.
Ecotopia is a great read, sure to cure anyone who believes that environmentalism necessarily goes hand in hand with the values that support an open society.
My sense is, it can be pretty difficult for people without a lot of scientific training to be pro-science in a meaningful way. After three years of graduate education in environmental science, I am much less certain of my own opinion on AGW, habitat loss, recycling, and various ecotoxicology issues than the average person I talk to. Yet most people I talk to are nominally pro-science. I wonder why they don’t emulate people with more training than them by desisting from the claim that they know so dang much?
My sense is, it can be pretty difficult for people without a lot of scientific training to be pro-science in a meaningful way.
If science is understood as the consensus of the “scientific community,” then that’s the most reasonable way to be “pro-science.” After all, within science, an biochemist will assume that a particle physicist knows something particle physics, and vice versa. But someone with a PhD in biochemistry has little deep knowledge of particle physics. Of course, the “scientific community” is often wrong, and there is a consensus, and then there is a majority position which hasn’t established total primacy.
“We Trust Too Much in Science” What does this question even mean?
I have to confess mild surprise that nobody has yet linked to this…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89jt7zJzkNQ
Just wondering, has anyone done a survey or publicly versus privately funded scientific research? (By this I mean, has privately funded research lead to more advances than publicly funded research? Over, say, a 50-100 year period?)
One thing overlooked here is that the “general public” gets it science from press releases that tend to glamorize (and politicize) insignificant results from research from questionable sources (ie, any source they can quote).
For examples, take climate change and the so-called obesity epidemic (especially among babies and children) and try to decipher what is meaningful.
Much of the scientific illiteracy in the population as a whole is due to the scientific illiteracy of science journalism. Add to that political ideology of some scientists and you have an idea of why the average person does not understand science or its so-called findings.
I think that’d be a difficult thing to really gauge. What does it mean for research to lead to an advance? If you’re only counting research that leads directly to a marketable product or patent, then I imagine that privately funded research comes out on top (which shouldn’t be surprising). At the same time, that private research almost certainly cited a whole bunch of public stuff. If you’re just talking about whether research advances our knowledge in some meaningful way, it’s going to be hard to get a sensible comparison – this is hard to measure in itself and private research rarely aspires to this (consider that we’d be looking at things like clinical trials).
I love the “Teach the Controversy” t-shirts (a geocentric solar system, a periodic table with only five elements):
http://controversy.wearscience.com/
Go up to the most fervent supporter of “intelligent design” and try to convince them that their car radio works because there are little people inside it singing and playing instruments. They’ll think that you’re nuts. We’re supposed to let young-earthers set our public school curriculum but call flat-earthers crazy?
One side note to the public/private research issue: if the government is actively hostile to a certain kind of research (say embryonic stem cells), then it becomes dangerous for companies to invest in research that might get banned, and those companies will go to other countries instead. There’s also the issue of restrictions put on money used for government research.
Say a lab gets a contract for doing nerve research to help wounded veterans. Everyone cheers. They have to buy new equipment (computers and test tubes and whatnot) to do this research. Maybe they’re successful, maybe they’re not. A year later, they get a private grant to study using embryonic stem cells for the same kind of problem. Legally, they can’t use any of the computers, test tubes, or other equipment that were bought with government money, so instead of hiring more people or using the private money more effectively, they have to re-purchase all of that stuff.
The government, especially one that is distrustful of science or believes that certain things should not ever be investigated, can have a huge negative impact on privately funded research.
I love the “Teach the Controversy” t-shirts (a geocentric solar system, a periodic table with only five elements):
http://controversy.wearscience.com/
If you could be assured of teachers’ good faith (a humongous “if”), “teaching the controversy” would be an excellent way to teach evolution, and heliocentrism and chemical atomism, too. When the two competing hypotheses are set side by side, the stronger one becomes quite apparent.
I stand by my cynicism on this subject; specifically that both sides of the political aisle have no scientific principles and simply use it to their political advantage.
mtraven:
Most of what you express is seriously vitiated by the view in which the
political “left” is seen, somehow, at the opposite end of an ideological spectrum from the political “right” of the Nazis. This view is almost as false as is possible to be and is, moreover, not much more than the propaganda “line” of leftists favoring USSR socialism (direct state ownership of means of production); the split between socialist camps (Nazis promoting quasi-pivate ownership managed in every particular via state directives) owed little to theory but to violation by Hitler of pact with Stalin. Until that, politics of the two (here in the U.S., for instance) were virtually identical. If you find that difficult to believe, there’s plenty of still-extant evdence to which I could refer you.
In the view submitted for consideration, the essental dichotomy is as it has been (though less recognized formerly) through history: a struggle for individual freedom from restraint other than required to preserve society and its progressive intensification (which we name civilization).
There’s at least a glimmer of that understanding in your recognition of the similarity of “romantic” strains in both socialist branches. But it is both practically and literally impossible to understand such matters fully without the understanding provided by a close attention to certain elements of economic theory (particularly as expounded by the Austrian School). A very decent primer to this line of thought is Henry Hazlitt’s ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON; more comprehensive but popularly-oriented is Friedrich Hayek’s ROAD TO SERFDOM; but the most all-encompassing and rigorous can only be found in works of Von Mises (esp. HUMAN ACTION).
Gherald L.:
I’ve got no particularly informed view on the underlying matter and would certainly agree that most peoples’ views have little to do with scientific understanding but still cannot reconcile the view of “global warming as hoax” with some particularly antiscientific or even unscientific view. It appears that there are reasonably knowledgeable scientific types on both sides of the question. What is most observable to any unprejudiced view is the monolithic nature of the lineup, with virtually all those favoring collectivist and totalitarian solutions to all mens’ problems supporting the presumbly “scientific” interpretation of data of the alarmists. Can anyone believe that such unanimity is even (honestly) possible?
Gene:
What irritates me as a secular, right-leaning person, is the attempt by many on the religious right to simply shut down the debate on the topic by invoking God, cf Rush Limbaugh:
“In the context of my belief that God is a loving god and created all that is for beautiful and wonderful reasons, and that we are turning this creation into what it’s never been before in terms of the quality of human life, I don’t see how that can lead to destruction of what God created.”
http://secularconservative.blogtownhall.com/default.aspx?mode=post&g=d2ef548a-4462-45a9-8953-8e8bdb307689
It’s one thing when this is the world of religion or private belief, but when it extends into public policy and restrictions on private research there’s a problem.
You see it in other areas as well. Try to explain the relationships between plant and animal species on either side of the Atlantic and you get a simple, “That just means they floated there during the Great Flood!”
I grew up with some really weird concepts about science based on primary education in the Christian private, and later Christian home school realms. I learned that God gave George Washington smallpox as a child so he would survive at Valley Forge. I was exposed to some really batty geology and biology left over from the 1800s. (In college a professor praised me for my detailed knowledge of disproved theories.) If it weren’t for secular science education in the public high school system I would have spent the rest of my life in what Carl Sagan called “The Demon Haunted World”.
Sviluppo:
I have no suggestion to make regarding the passage of laws criminalizing certain behavior; that will always be a function of government except to the extent restrained by constitutions.
But I can suggest a solution to most of the problems you see: the total elimination of government funding for almost everything. The question is not so much what gov’t. spending is unnecessary as it is what gov’t. spending isn’t unnecessary. We might certainly find certain levels to be desirable from a defense consideration and even some various oversight functions.
Presumably, there’s “constitutional” authority for every single one of these various intrusions of political “muscle” into ever-expanding spheres of ordinary activity. Whether you know it or like it or not (and regardless of whether you think it likely to happen or not) an agent sent under the authority of either the Dept. of Agriculture or the Dept. of Commerce could show up and deny you permission to grow tomatoes in your back yard. Whether they’re intended for sale in interstate commerce is not at issue: the Supreme Court has already decided that, if the price of the produce can possibly affect the price of goods moving in interstate commerce, authority exists and, independently, it’s axiomatic that all prices have effects on all other prices).
Does anyone actually believe that kids–any kind of kids–are better educated in public schools today than they were 50 years ago (at a small fraction of the current costs)? (You didn’t see that 8th-grade exit exam of the Salinas, KS school from over 125 years ago?).
“Good enough for government work” is a joking expression. But only partly.
Tom Meyer:
Then you ought to support the reduction of political (which always translates to threat of violent physical coercion and expropriation) intrusion into all such activities.
There are various ways to reduce partisan contention. But one of the very surest is to reduce the size of the prizes (which are, for most, entirely illusory, anyway).
Science is useful to the public if it results in new economic growth and opportunities (semiconductors, computers, nanotech) or if it leads to longer, healthier lifespans (biotechnology). Outside of these two benefits, most people don’t care one way or another about science.
Gene,
I’m a small government guy in almost every respect except for education, where I’ve gotten to know the system from a lot of different angles. I was educated in Christian private, Christian home school, secular high school, and secular college environments, as well as close experience with public and Catholic educational systems as an adult.
I actually spent about four years of my youth using textbooks from the 1800s such as the McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers. Great in some respects, horrid in most others. My personal, anecdotal experience in these realms is that often the people most opposed to public education were most concerned about restricting their kids’ knowledge of various subjects, not increasing that knowledge. It’s more “keep evolution out of the schools” than “let’s find a way to start teaching calculus in 8th grade”.
I do think that kids are better educated today than 50 years ago. Not to sound overly liberal here, but 50 years ago was better than today only if you were male, white, and relatively well-off. I’ve worked with people of all races here in the South who sometimes represent the first generation of literacy in their families, and they only learned how to read because the government forced their parents to keep the kids in school. Generational ignorance can be a terrifying thing.
If you want a mostly private education system in which the public school system is weak and parents have to choose whether or not their kids go to school at all, try Mexico.
Back to the subject at the top of the thread, I’d rather have the left saying, “we need more art and theatre” than the right saying “we need less science”.
Gene and Sviluppo,
I don’t think you guys are necessarily as far apart as you think. Of course, this is all pie in the sky, but I could foresee a private educational system if the government (federal or state) set standards.
Let’s look at the big issue: evolution. If the Billy Bob Bible-Thumper Academy wanted to teach its kids the earth was only 6,000 years old, well, that’s their business, and they can. However, to receive any credit, their students must also be conversant with the theory of evolution. They don’t have to accept natural selection and all its works, but they need to know what they, and I don’t see why we can’t test for this sort of thing.
I am surprised that nobody has referenced the very different science policies of Republican and Democratic adminstrations. Republicans have been radically anti-science: they’ve cut budgets, shut down important agencies (OTA), forced government scientists to adhere to politically-driven agendas, banned certain areas of research, promoted creationism and evidence-free faith-based programs. By contrast, the incoming administration has been naming prominent scientists to key posts, such as Steven Chu. I was at a New Year’s party with a bunch of experimental physicists and they were in ecstasy at the possibility of getting a science-friendly administration.
The two parties do not perfectly capture the essence of “left” and “right”, but it’s close enough. And it’s obvious which party is more in tune with science and scientists.
Sviluppo:
My previous to you was done before I saw yours; this is in response to yours.
Don’t make the mistake of conflating Rush with religious ignoramuses. As a matter of fact, my own attitude is extraordinarily similer to his, though I would describe the situation in somewhat different words (and I’m as secular as it’s possible to be: I haven’t got a “believing” bone in my body and can’t remember ever being otherwise). (I’m 72, can remember pretty well to early childhood, though with decreasing clarity much before 1940). I could (and so could you if you thought it over) express pretty much what Rush has expressed without the slightest reference to anything religious or supernatural. (At the worst, a case of fundamental optimism I associate, however mistakenly, with life itself.)
Bear in mind that the configuration of production relations presently existing on this Earth reflect the best efforts attainable under the existing incentive structure and encompass a range of living standards ranging from that prevailing (averages here; the outstanding outliers contribute but little effect to the overall statistical picture) in the advanced industrial nations down to conditions prevailing in extremely poor areas but still affecting relatively large numbers of people. At any given population (and distribution of the mentioned groups), it is obvious that any increase in production constitutes a general tendency toward a decrease in the price level throughout. That is to say, that the better the world does at any given population level, the better will be the position (whether in terms of mere survival or of propsperity)of those closest to the “margin” of existence. Conversely, for those existing at or near such margin, every diminution in such productivity must be viewed as a pending, imminent disaster and, for most, a virtual death sentence pronounced not only against themselves but even more certainly against any already-existing children. Malthus was always right, even if he didn’t accommodate the extraordinary creativity of men in his visions of the future.
Essentially, thought they do not say it, the global-warming crowd want to attack the problem they perceive (or pretend to perceive) from two directions. They want to reduce consumption by reducing production. That, itself, requires that extraordinary numbers (nearer the margin) either die of starvation or by fightiong over edible resources or that those same numbers be fed from some “rationing” of whatever reduction of consumables can be effected among the better-off. There are no other choices open. Either the reduction we enforce upon the production of the better-off simply kills the marginal OR we countenance further reduction in order to keep them alive. Remember, that the reduction in the production of the better off, to some diminishing degree, must be likewise enforced “all the way down” to achieve the desired production-reduction (otherwise, they’d simply be trading places with someone presently above them), so that each present population “band” is, somewhat uniformly, shifted downward (toward the prospectively deadly “margin). Is is to be imagined that those at the bottom (or anywhere near it and capable of reading the multilingual “handwriting on the wall”) will submit while life still gives them any possibility of avoiding their otherwise-certain fate? Is there the slightest doubt in your mind that folks who are so adamant about the prospective eventuality of changes in particular physical circumstances as have been posited will shrink even from murder on a heretofore-unimaginable industrial scale? Remember, according to their chief proponents, it’s already a “lifeboat” scenario, the threat is so imminent that we shall not, even by prompt action, be able to avoid some of its effects, and the chief obstacle to their competent management of the problem is merely the recalcitrance of a few loudmouths and scribblers who unduly influence the nincompoops among the common folk and whose irritating presence it is the duty of the lovers of humankind to remove in the interest of posterity?
Polichinello:
If you think that Evolution is the chief divide between Left and Right, that, in itself, is a testament to the left-wing brainwashing prevalent throughout the system of public education in this coutry.
Gene,
Spirited, reasoned debate! I love it!
There’s a lot more variety of opinion in the global warming crowd than you may think. Particularly among many on the right there’s been a transition from “it doesn’t exist” to “it exists but it’s actually beneficial, so keep burning!” while somehow asserting that Science Is Always Wrong along the way.
My argument with Rush and fellow believers tends to come from their odd melange of uniformitarianism and the anthropic principle with religious belief. For most of its existence the earth has been utterly uninhabitable to human beings. For the majority of the rest of its existence it will be uninhabitable to human beings. We’re here as a brief cosmic accident in the grand scheme of things.
But it’s also wrong to deny that life can have an impact on its environment. It’s not good or bad; there’s no morality involved. Organisms act in their own best interest regardless of consequence. Cyanobacteria and plants have been steadily oxygenating the atmosphere for eons while killing off tons of lifeforms that require a more anoxic environment. Hell, a stupid beaver built a dam next to a residential storm drain and flooded my apartment, forcing me to move.
Allowing scientific discussion and research to occur on the topic of global warming does not require the deaths of millions, the forced abolition of automobiles, or a return to a pre-industrial economy (which tends to be worse for the environment and humans anyway).
Well, left and right are definitionally ends of a spectrum. The fact that sometimes the ends of the spectrum behave in similar ways doesn’t change that. The technical term for the kind of argument you are putting forth (since last year) is “Jonanism“, and it’s really not worth a discussion by anyone serious.
Contrary to the ridiculous propaganda of the right, it is the left that has more consistently been on the side of Enlightenment values, including the universalization of human rights. The right is the party of tradition, authority, and hierarchy; none of which have anything to do with individual rights or small government. Libertarians function chiefly as useful idiots of the ruling powers. Every Republican administration since Eisenhower has used small-government rhetoric while radically expanding the size and scope of government.
As an antidote for the crap you’ve been exposed to, I recommend Phil Agre’s paper What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?.
None of this has much to do with science, so I’ll stop now, except to note that the right’s dislike of science is of a piece with their general dislike of everything else that emerged from the Enlightenment.
Sviluppo:
I’m as much in favor of literacy as anyone BUT I’m opposed to its legislation against anyone opposed. If you want to regard the failure of parents to recognize the advantages of literacy and their reluctance to provide its advantages to their kids as some form of child abuse, you are welcome to the view.
It’s true that there was widespread illiteracy, especially in the rural South, just a few generations ago. It’s also true that there is, currently, widespread illiteracy in the public schools both North and South, and even among people called “teachers” in some places. Illiteracy is a handicap, I’m sure–but it’s not only remediable in most cases but also rarely a direct causative factor in the origin of armed hostilities (as can be shown of partisan control of educational systems, particularly in “polyglot” societies–as ours is trending to become).
Personally, I’ve only been acquainted with two illiterates in my life. One was an uncle who’d already become a millionnaire as a result of being a gov’t contractor during WW II and signed with an “X” and, before retiring to FL, owned significant amounts of NYC real estate. The other actually learned to read while building, then operating, a motel just about a half-mile from where I live. He sold the motel (and an auction-house he’d also built and managed) about 20 years ago and yachts and fishes the Caribbean (though he still owns significant parcels of local land). They’re exceptions, of course. But illiteracy isn’t irrevocable.
The situation in the rural South was, at one time, more general throughout other areas. But, circa 1820, literacy was higher in the US than in any other place on earth. There were more newspapers in the US than in the entire rest of the world, and the expenditure of the American public on books, magazines, pamphlets, and periodicals of every sort dwarfed comparison with any other place. Just the other day, from a link over at GNXP, I read the account of a Congregationalist pastor from Massachussetts, an abolitionist, who in visiting the South for his health, found, as well as he was able to determine, that about a third of adult slaves could read, having been taught by their masters, and most of their children were also so taught (usually by the children of the planter class with whom they were raised. (Martha Washington “kept school” for the kids of both slaves and free employees of their estate.) DeToqueville, in “Democracy in America” (mid-1830s) was surprised to find, even on the frontier (Alabama and Michigan, for instance, in those days) a high rate of literacy and intense interest in reading the newspapers brought in by coach, and the tendency for the news items to form the stuff of dinner-table conversation.
@Sviluppo
“Hell, a stupid beaver built a dam next to a residential storm drain and flooded my apartment, forcing me to move.”
He’s still there; you had to move. Are you sure that the beaver’s the stupid one??? 🙂
Setting “standards” essentially gives the government the power to determine what must be taught. That’s even worse than determining what cannot be taught.
You’d be better off offering explanations for why it’s within the government’s rightful authority to concern itself with what its citizens learn and how they are to be educated.
You’d be better off offering explanations for why it’s within the government’s rightful authority to concern itself with what its citizens learn and how they are to be educated.
An ill-educated society will be a vulnerable society to enemies within and without.
They want to reduce consumption by reducing production.
That’s definitely a popular strain of thought among the global warming crowd, but there are also a lot who view it as a problem of efficiency, particularly if you include carbon in the calculation. Is there a way to produce energy (and hence production) more efficiently? Can it be done using less carbon? A lot of venture capitalists are placing bets on this, and they’re certainly not doing it in the name of reduced production.
Derek:
I wish I could agree with you. The plain, unadulterated fact is that everybody’s producing everything they’re now producing just as efficiently (in terms of everything, in order of costs, including carbon and pollution abatement) as they are able: that’s what’s the unifying characteristic of “going concerns.” Every possible “improvement” that’s not being made “is not” because it “costs too much” (translation: it’s unprofitable or less profitable), meaning, in economic terms, that it’s WASTEFUL, i.e., it uses MORE to produce LESS.
The law can affect the playing field. It can deny the use of certain materials or certain processes for various reasons: externalities visited on the public at large in the form of pollution, whether exhaust or waste streams, nuisances, etc. Under the present regulatory environment, where carbon-compound outputs are specifically demonized (and whether justifiably or not), it is not strange that some businesses view the new or expanding regulatory regime as an entrepreneurial opportunity and (regardless of whether the legislators, their science advisors, or the interested businessmen are correct or not in their assessments), will be induced (by their investment or prospective investment) to become staunch supporters of the proposed (and further)
legislation of the sort.
I do not maintain that businessmen want to reduce production. What I point out is that the normal course of production is to wring the utmost from the least. The fact that one can scrap an older machine and obtain a new one that’s twice as efficient only suggests such alternative if it makes economic sense. And that sense must even encompass not only justification for the cost of the new machine but also the fact that every such case may present the opportunity to exploit what is called a “failure monopoly,” where the mere existence of the newer equipment causes a revised valuation of the older, such that, in the new calculus, even the lesser sales at some lower price than attainable with the more efficient machinery may yet produce a higher rate of profit than before (when ROI is calculated on the reduced value of the antiquated machine). Even when we “junk” a car, it doesn’t go into a landfill; it gets parted out and what’s unusable gets scrapped. EVERYBODY DOES WHAT MAKES SENSE! (and without anyone telling them what to do!). Don’t you see all the ads by paper-products companies extolling the extraordinarily high percentages of their products that are recycled? Well, that’s great–but nothing new—paper products have been recycled as long as I can remember (I’m 72) at rates of 80% and more–it just sounds so warm and fuzzy to emphasize it now that they get “green points” for saying so.
Derek:
Have you seen those ads on TV by our ol’ buddy T. Boone Pickens? Now what do you think he’s trying to accomplish. He comes on like some sort of “public service message’ but there’s much more to it than any appeal for any such notion as “energy independence.” He’s angling for public (political) support for a scheme of immense importance (to T.Boone!) in which he’d get tens of thousands of acres via eminent domain as well as other help in realizing his windpower vision. And, from everything I’ve been able to read of the windpower projects and potential, there’s more carbon output in the manufacture of the turbines themselves (without counting that involved in their installation) than can be saved by their superiority over presently used sources. It would take them over 40 years to “pay off” and they don’t last anywhere near that long (I’ve read that most in use in Europe require extensive rework–read “carbon”–at intervals of less than ten years). I’m no expert–but it don’t sound like a ‘slam-dunk” to me!
This discussion has declined into generalities that have no real relationship to the original topic. I wrote a comment earlier in disagreement with David Hume but it somehow disappeared. I’ll try again.
There are clear differences between the left and right that one can set forth.For one the left dominates our culture since the sixties revolution, controls campus politics, and even polices political correctness on nearly every campus, newspaper, and government office. The right has been identified with the more conservative Protestant movements and has been splintered by the destructive force of the Bush presidency. Its opposition to science is focussed upon the creation/evolution battle which has been won in court by science but continues unabated in various communities.The left, however, has evolved into various alliances that include anti-scientific crusades by assorted “victims” of Westwern science who seek revenge through undermining its validity or by confusing their pseudoscience with science.
In the humanities and the social sciences today are many who espouse doctrines that are irrational and anti-science. One of the worst is Afrocentrism, a new movement full of deception and untruth. Others deny the Holocaust and carry on organized meetings of historians and journalists who actively advance such claims.Issues like AIDS, global warming, gender studies, race, and animal rights are areas that dominate the curricula of softer courses taught by often Marxist or at least postmodernist professors. Students are indoctrinated into leftist thinking without the benefit of critical analysis or factual investigations.
Fortunately Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, two eminent scholars, wrote Higher Superstition, a classic in which they excoriate the left for its fringe science and politically biased approach to teaching.Both Gross and Levitt are liberals who wrote this powerful critique because the left had strayed into the worst pseudoscience since its euphoric victory over the right and sinks into peurile gullibility in buying postmodern theory.
Skeptic Magazine often challenges the left for its fringe lunacies but it is ideologically as far left as Paul Kurtz and his humanist organization.Those of the secular right may have trouble with some of the beliefs of these groups but their critique of the often complex pseudoscience of the left is on target. While they endlessly battle the creationists they need to worry more, as do Gross and Levitt, about the yahoos on the left who are ordained as real professors. Obama’s overwhelming support by college students shows the power of leftist proselytizing.
Cornelius – There are certainly some very silly people on the left as well as the right, but I have a hard time seeing the hijinks of certain humanities professors as being worth worrying about.
One important difference, I think, is that leftist pseudoscience is always a niche position. Most Democrats, and even most self-identified liberals, recognize that this stuff is bunk. For all that certain academic departments provide a safe haven for this kind of thing, it seems to be on the decline, and graduates of programs like Women and Gender Studies are very rarely taken seriously, even by those on the left, and especially not by the vast majority of the (rather liberal) scientific community. Such is my experience, at least.
On the other hand, Biblical anti-realism is a mainstream position. Majorities of Americans reject the consensus science on evolution, and young earth creationism is hardly beyond the pale. There are also broadly anti-science views regarding sexuality that are perfectly acceptable coming from major politicians.
I don’t quite know how to use this kind of language, but, basically, being a liberal is a poor predictor of believing in the sorts of left-wing pseudoscience you discuss (because they’re niche positions even among liberals), whereas being a conservative is a much better predictor of rejecting evolution and similar. The left can’t be characterized as anti-science because of these things because these things don’t characterize the left. This is just my gut, though. I’d try to see what the GSS has to say about this, but I’ve got to be up early in the morning.
Gotchaye,
There is truth in what you say but “niche” is misleading because leftist lunacy is broader than you realize. Multiculturalism is a widespread dogma that is weakening our nation vis a vis immigration and its general infusion into pop culture. This dogma literally creates new critics of science because it cannot tolerate any one agency of culture as superior in epistemology. All beliefs are personal narratives to these people. They abound on the left.
You are right that highly educated leftists easily detect the quackery of their colleagues but the broader spread of fringe beliefs is a real problem for our society. We were never good at science education but if Susan Jacoby is half right in her The Age of American Unreason we are heading downhill fast.The left is leading the way.
The right is very largely Christian and creationist, as you correctly stated, but they were defanged in court and pose no real threat as they lie outside academia and rely primarily on faith.Their anti-science has little or no real effect on the course of science in America.Postmodernism, in contrast, may well eat away at the validy of social science to the extent that fringe “scholarship” is tolerated.Furthermore these practitioners spread the multicultural dogma far and wide.Not only are all individuals and races thought to be the same, but so are cultures.This myth, with its Marxist overtones is a leftist creation.
Cornelius and Gotchaye:
By and large, what both of you are seeing and describing is the semantic confusion surrounding the words “liberal,” “conservative,” “left-wing,” and “right-wing.” Even the term “secular” is pretty well fogged up to connote “anti-religious” in much everyday discussion. But, at its core, this very confusion is a deliberate tactical approach employed by one of the contending “sides” (for whom the most appropriate, definitive, and encompassing label is “egalitarian”).
And, Cornelius, your eyes are open and you get everything down–on film as it were–but you’ve got an interpretation of that record that might as well have been implanted by a cabal of your enemies!
“The left dominates our culture since the sixties revolution.”
That’s true as surface description. But a more complete explanation would recognize that the pro-socialist forces were (everywhere in society but most particularly in academia) already in an ascendancy whose origin lay back somewhere even before my own birth (1936), so I cannot track it from experience (added to which must be noted that I had only minor and supeficial interest in such matters in those days).
There was no revolution. What happened was: a set of presumptive “campus radicals” and “revolutionaries,” groomed for their parts by the existing professoriate and favored authors of the left, staged “principled” variedly-violent incidents, confident of “victory” to be achieved through transformational acquiesence of the very set which had prepared them for their roles. There’s no question of anything like a “Stockholm Syndrome” developing, as there was never any difference between the mob and the “beseiged” (like the sheriff fully prepared to turn the prisoner over to be lynched).
The very plain fact is that I PREDICTED the occurrence and spread of such events in the late ’50s, though, at the time, I had little to no understanding of the causes except the linkage to left-wing politics.
And how could I have imagined that such events would come to pass? That’s even simpler: I read and heard accounts in everyday media of events in European cities and campuses. One can connect closely-linked dots even when the connections themselves aren’t understood.
Socialism and its devastating socioeconomic effects are everywhere about us (and promising to worsen), with no relief or reversal whatever in sight. There’s not even a recognizable anti-socialist intellectual or political movement other than the highly-marginalized (and irreparably split) Libertarians and adherents of the Austrian School (as I am). If I had to estimate the degree to which the population is “infected,” I’d guess somewhere about 60% serious cases (including the 40% in a symbiotic relationship with the infection, seeing in it the source of their income, support, or other dependent relationship) and another 20% totally oblivious (but yet contagious) “carriers.” (What else can one think of smart young guys opining–and slavering–over the magnitude of government grants for their favored areas of cutting-edge research?)
I see the future and it is more fucked up than you could imagine.
Seems to me the proper, consistent and effective way to fight back against all these destructive “-isms” ( socialism, creationism, postmodernism, etc ) is to relentlessly advocate for the application, in all cases, of the scientific method, with is agenda-less pursuit of the truth, regardless the uncomfortableness.
We should all vow to become ardent Methodists.
@gene berman
Profound! ◄Dave►
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For Gene Berman,
I think you are wrong about the “revolution” of the sixties that shook and later confused a generally conservative nation to its roots and upended its fairly solid Christian morality. The emancipation of blacks and women shattered customs and mores with both good and bad consequences. This was a relatively bloodless revolution but a revolution nonetheless.The shift in thinking toward the left, which Bradlaugh has ably lamented in his writings, is exactly part of the Obamania we have just seen. You are absolutly right about the disintegration of the right in part because the right’s identity was based upon Cristian values which have been co-opted by the siren call of the left.Egalitarian thinking(and believing) is an overwhelming reality.Look at the normally conservative Catholic Church that hated Darwin now leading the battle over illegal immigration!
The victory of the left threatens our criminal justice system and the entire legal system as the poor and violent are viewed as victims of an unfair society. Therapeutic strategies of the left will soon be commonplace. Many have disdain for retribution.
In this PC world growing naturally out of the liberal psychosocial conquest we who would counter the worst excesses of liberalism face harassment and intimidation. How do teachers and professors, for instance, fail inadequate or plainly dumb blacks or Hispanics.Since we all know “smart” students, can we not locate “dumb” ones? If located in school environments, how do we evaluate their inferior work? If they are white we can do so quite openly, but even then many parents will strongly react to your honesty with profanity and worse.If they are black you could be fired! How can such double standards be tolerated in our supposedly meritocratic order? You need to wake up to this hatsh reality. I have had bad experiences directly as I dared to give low grades in collage psych classes to blacks who reported back to my dept chair, who happened to be black, and I was simply not rehired. It’s easy.This threat to all who think independently is real and pervasive.
Ivan, I agree fully. To channel Bradlaugh (I think), what could be more conservative than a grounding in cold hard reality? Of how the universe is, not a Gramscian Progressive fairytale of what it could or might be. Lets leave the fairy tales to their native home – liberalism, and get on with reality.
C.J. Troost:
I can’t answer “I think you are wrong about the revolution” because you haven’t stated in what you find error unless it’s contained in your reference to “a generally conservative nation.” In case that’s the gist of your doubt, I’ll elaborate on a point or two that may clear some confusion. I have no specialized knowledge or expertise (except amateur study of Economics over thirty-six years) beyond academic high school education. But I’ve always been observant of (and thought about) “what’s going on” and was a “news junkie” until 1980. At that time, long-festering suspicion that “news” itself constituted an irresistible catheterization of the mind–to a steady infusion of left-leaning memetic content of varying intensity–prompted me to shut it down; I’ve not read a newspaper or magazine since March, 1980. (And, other than a few science-fiction short stories in mid-’60s, I’ve not read fiction since 1947–and so, have missed nearly all such written in the 20th century–but that’s a different story.) About the same time I quit newspapers, I gave up TV news, though will watch O’reilly occasionally. On the web for a bit over 10 years, I’ll read opinion pieces or columns now and then and even a very occasional news item on Drudge, whose display of headlines I peruse daily.
I also get a bit of news also from Rush Limbaugh, with whose “take” on many things I’m in general agreement. Not only that, but the realization of his large audience is a constant reminder that I’m not the only sane one left in this country. But, at the same time, I’m aware that Rush has a very general “blind spot” that interferes with his grasp of certain events and processes. And the sole reason I mention this to you is that Rush’s blind spot is identical to yours. His oft-repeated phrase is:
“This is a center-right nation,” whereas you speak of “a generally conservative nation” and a “fairly solid Christian morality.” Would that it were true!
“Conservative” is neither a general political viewpoint nor a summation of particular moral qualities. Rather, it’s a description of a general
attitude toward change, an acknowledgement of inertia or habitual practice in social attitudes; its opposite would be “adventurous” or the pejorative “radical.” Neither denotes “good” or “bad” except insofar as a conservative attitude implies adherence to what’s been found “safe” or at least successful in the past while the opposite must content itself as representing openness to progress, to improvement of one kind or another, and those sometimes without firm prognosis for the innovations suggested. In that light, it is true that much of America (indeed, of most reasonably successful societies) is conservative. Most people, even on the left, are conservative in regard to free markets. Most people, even on the right, favor the public provision of education at all levels and a more or less rigid indoctrination of the young (in addition to the three “R”s) and a socialist array of departments and bureaus to oversee and administer an enormous welter of essentially behavioral regulations on many aspects of life, including agriculture, energy, transportation, health, etc. And, though the tendency is far more prevalent on one side of the political divide than on the other, there is a general acknowledgement of the propriety of the practice of expropriating some for the direct benefit of specific others. “Conservatives” are in general agreement with “liberals” on the need to restrain specific types of public expression via direct ooercion; in many instances, it’s only the specific content to be curtailed that separates. Even further, that which appears as conservative at one time is regarded as radical at another.
Over all exists a most widespread and profound ignorance of economic science, an ignorance so pervasive that its most well-known experts virtually qualify to wear the term “anti-economist,” as the entire thrust of their activities is the search for methods by means of which political leaders may be enabled to evade the consequences of previous ruinous policy and the devise of others even more ruinous. It is everywhere presumed that, with the right approach, governments, i.e., coercion, shall be omnipotently enabled to make everyone (or at least the vast majority) prosperous.
Civilization itself is the visible result of economic progress, intensification, and integration. It is the playing out, in the lives of humans comprising society, of the biologic law of the higher productivity of specialization of function; in human terms, it’s contained in the concept of the “long-run harmony of rightly-understood interests” and, in common parlance, in the recognition that “trade isn’t a zero-sum game.” In economic terms, the process consists in the natural force toward the employment of all economic goods in such way that their highest productivity is achieved–that the greatest satisfaction of the most urgent wants is achieved–that no factor capable of employment of a want be utilized for the satisfaction of a less urgent want (in other words, that it not be wasted). Little actual force is required to realize the operation of economic melioration–chiefly that to suppress activities of recalcitrant individuals; for most, the pursuit of their individual happiness is sufficient. But, everywhere, the chief activities of government consist precisely in attempts to thwart the natural operation. And, in general, “conservatives” differ from their opponents chiefly in agitating for a different agenda of interfrence rather than for a more all-round cessation of such interference.
In a world in which different societies and peoples are widely separated by geographical barriers to economic interaction, the negative outcomes of bad policies in a given fraction impact chiefly its own inhabitants. But in a world of far greater population (and population densities, in which e-mail connects buyer and seller in seconds between the most widely separated points on the globe and in which the food orders of the auto-lane at the local MacDonald’s may be relayed via India or the technical support for my Internet service or lawnmower be handled in the Philippines, there emerges a magnified significance of economic interference in any given place insofar as is concerned its effect on the well-being. It’s purely a domestic matter that NY, PA, NJ, CT (and others) wage war on the dairymen of WI and CA by means of minimum-price laws but those same laws adversely affect dairymen in NZ (and other places) and virtually assure that, in some concerted effort, those adversely affected will try to “get even.” Various industries here are protected against foreign competition by import duties and quotas at the expense of the American consumer (and taxpayer, in the case of subsidies); it’s impossible for that to endear us generally to foreign workers anxious to present their output to the legitimate scrutiny of prospective American consumers. It’s not just us, by any means, but our behavior is egregious to just such extent as our economy is paramount; moral leadership in this regard is a legitimate expectation of others.
Are you aware that the entire world is in a position never before experienced and about whose ramifications absolutely nothing whatever can be confidently foreseen? In the entire world (and since 1974), not a single currency in the world pretends to be anything else than a government statement that it’s worth whatever it says it is (and which changes contantly). Not only that, but all are subject to a constant and usually increasing inflation. Not only that–but every past example has resulted in failure and catastrophic (but localized) dislocation. But, at least in past times, there were always “refuges” in the form of still-convertible foreign currencies and gold. The US$ has a purchasing power currently equivalent to (in 1913, when the Federal reserve system came into existence) about 3 cents. But, a least until 1934, the paper could be converted to gold. What would be the social and public order situation be if suddenly nobody wanted the paper because nobody else wanted it? And bear in mind that news can be everywhere and anywhere in minutes. It literally boggles the mind to conceive such a situation; but, on the other hand, based on all past experience (and without even theoretical indication otherwise), it seems inevitable, perhaps, in another 100 (or maybe 6) years. have you heard anyone even mention such eventuality, let alone what might be done to forestall its occurrence (or what might be done in such actual event, in which some billion or more must certainly starve)? “Mene, mene, tekel upharsin” sounds like small potatoes, in my view. (And I’m an incurable optomist.)