Why are republicans so afraid of Science?

Question

Seems like they are on the losing side of every major scientific endeavor- evolution, global warming, stem cell research etc...

Answer 1

It's not that Republicans are afraid of science, it's just the liberals are afraid of objective science.

Liberals rather have a vote, and let the consensus say what is science, and what is true.

Answer 2

Not all are.

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air.  We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

"I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

"Republican governors team up against global warming"

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Republican...

"the overwhelming number of scientists now believe that there is significant human cause,'' Giuliani said, adding the debate on the existence of global warming "is almost unnecessary ... ''

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=...

"(from Republicans for Environmental Protection) The consensus of almost all climate scientists is that global warming is already happening, that human actions are causing it, and that it will cause major problems for our planet."

http://www.rep.org/news/GEvol5/ge5.1_glo...

Answer 3

You are speaking specifically about the ever growing (and quite frightening, IMO) neo-conservative, Christian sect of the Republican party.  Those that fear the world beyond the four corners of their homes, church, local McDonald's and Wal-Mart.  They are afraid of science b/c they don't understand it. They simply cannot process it so they deny it exists and simply cover it up with some God-fearing explanation. Its a terrific real life display of just how powerful brainwashing can be!

Answer 4

why are weak liberals so afraid of violence.  Our country was founded on it and without war we will lose our country all tpgether

Answer 5

Global warming is a myth. I'm not afraid of science. I just don't accept people's lies - they get paid by big companies to say global warming is true even when they don't believe it's true.

I agree with Dr Jello.

Answer 6

Afraid of how libs like to selectively use facts to steal other peoples hard earned money and destroy their way of life and prosperity instead of producing anything usefull of their own.

Answer 7

That's not really true.  There is a subset of republicans (religious right) who opposed the teaching of evolution & stem-cell research and there's a subset of republicans (those at the extreme anti-government unregulated-capitalism end) who oppose dealing with global warming.

Answer 8

I'm a lifelong Democrat, please keep that in mind.

About 30% of Republicans are evangelicals. About 40% of them reject evolution. Thus, about 12% of Republicans reject evolution. Doesn't look like a landslide.

Global warming is accepted by most Republicans and most Democrats. Where they differ is in accepting that man-made emissions of CO2 are the cause, and that the fix is to transfer enormous amounts of wealth from countries where scientific inquiry is encouraged (the U.S., Japan, Western Europe) to countries where scientific inquiry is discouraged (China, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc).  Yes, some Republicans are playing ostrich about global warming, denying that it is real. They are hardly more than a few percent. Far fewer than the members of my own party who deny that births outside of wedlock represent a major obstacle to improvement in the quality of life of African Americans.

Republicans do not object to stem cell research. They object to harvesting embryos to get at new lines of stem cells. In fact, the largest state budget for stem cell research was proposed by a Republican Governor.

Something to think about if your concern is science rather than partisan politics: "The scientific debate is over about global warming" is something no scientist would ever say, but a politician would. The scientific debate is not over about Newtonian physics; why should it be over about global warming?

I'm a liberal Democrat who supports the liberal agenda. Please do not confuse that with a partisan agenda of a group of thugs who serve no principle except lust for power.

Answer 9

They're not afraid of Science, they're afraid of facts.  Their rhetoric is fear based and the light of truth tends to harm their emotional persuasiveness.

Answer 10

Your definition of losing is arbitrary.  I am a republican that certainly knows more about evolution than 99.99 per cent of the people and I could add a few more 9s.  There is no equivilence with evolution and global warming.  Stem cell research is a moral issue.  You may think it appropriate to harvest embryos but I think it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the issue.  Rather than taking embryoic stem cells, research might be better spent on understanding the underlying issues with how cells replicate.  It turned out that some of the biggests discoveries came, not from embryoic stem cells, but from other stem cells.  Using embryoic stem cells was never outlawed by Republicans.  Bush simply limited the federal research to a few lines.   You put etc. on your question but you haven't even come up with one example.  Global warming is more about wishful thinking from liberals and less about science.  There is a smidgeon of science in that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is emitted from humans.  The lack of science comes from the claims of alarmist pretending to know we are the cause of harmful warming.  Nothing could be more politicized and far from the truth.

Answer 11

Some of it has to do with religion.  The science behind evolution, stem cell research, and the Big Bang go against what the Bible says, so religious people tend to reject and fear science for that reason - it has the potential to undermine their faith.  And of course most strongly religious people are Republicans (religious right).

Global warming is actually a seperate issue.  Conservative Baptists have actually called for us to take action on climate change.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

So the Republicans who are denying AGW are a completely different subset.  They're the ones who are afraid that reducing our greenhouse gas emissions will require that they give up their perceived "rights" to drive a big honkin' SUV, or make gas prices increase further, or generally make them pay for the damage our emissions have caused.  They're afraid of the science for economic reasons.

Answer 12

Broadly speaking, the conservative / republican political discourse in the United States, is for the most part, centrally controlled, Fox News, AM Radio , Republican Politicians, all coordinate talking points and fact-bytes that are then communicated to the people in the party.

While this is excellent command and control from the perspective of voter mobilization and - in theory - could work to benefit and communicate knowledge effectively, they are pretty heavily ideologically encumbered.

So because evolution is a serious concern to the evangelical literalists in the "base" of the Republican party, it's not possible for Republicans to side on anything approximating a realistic point of view - at least not publicly.

So while there certainly are educated conservatives whom know better than to try to involve literalist tripe in a scientific discussion, the same cannot be said of the political / ideological communications.

After the Pennsylvania decisions, the matter was simply not discussed, the merits of evolution aren't acknowledged, the matter is simply off the talking points.

Global warming is even more firmly impeded by both ideological constraints against the conception of doing anything in a collective way to solve a problem.

This from a generation of conservatives whom have never fought a large-scale war, or had to face serious social disruption of any kind whatsoever (think dust-bowl or Great Depression or a famine), since anything which smacks of "socialism", or collective action is dead from the start, the concept of mass conservation or regulation of industrial standards of operation are simply not something they can even debate.

To be perfectly fair the idea of forced mandates and serious changes and enforcement mechanisms is highly undesirable,

but I would rather light enforcement and mandates earlier than heavy mandates later on.

Consider the enforcement mechanisms for CFC's , the costs of consumer and industrial HVAC equipment and automobile AC units went up - relative to their pre-enforcement prices, for a short time, while industries re-tooled and r&d groups developed alternatives, but now that they have, the relative costs are negligible, and enforcement is handled well within the private sector.

This leads to the second impediment, corporatism, the influence of industries, particularly energy (read oil) producers, and weapons manufacturers its hard for me to imagine how their influence could be stronger upon the GOP practically speaking.

Largely speaking, conducting a Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt campaign against anything which might lead to regulation upon doing business as usual simply - again means they are encumbered from making decisions which might follow from the obvious facts at hand.

To be perfectly fair , however, there are some topics - such as embryonic stem cell research , where there is a genuine ethical concern, regarding the overall scientific development process.

Fortunately, overseas research has allowed embryonic preservation, where stem cells can be harvested at the 8 cell stage of post-conception mitosis and still preserve the embryo, should that be considered desirable.

This in effect short circuits the debate over stem cells, unless we then have an ethical responsibility to preserve that 8th cell, as well, effectively getting ourselves into the cloning business at square one.

This perhaps more than most other topics tends to be one where the "reality" of the situation, is moving so rapidly and the scientific competition between nations is so fierce that the circumstances have completely bypassed whatever the GOP ideologues decided to "hold debate about" in the first place.

So it's not that they are afraid of science, they just are for the most part , pretty poorly educated , with respect to technical or scientific matters , and it shows.

My friend has a former Republican congressman as a father, and we discussed NASA funding one day , while I was observing the sky.

The congressman asked me - what are stars?

I replied that they are suns, just like our sun but very very far away and sometimes much larger or smaller...before I could finish he dismissed the idea as preposterous.

I was wrong, he wasn't sure what stars were, but I was wrong. This gentleman was being considered to sit on a science advisory panel in Congress.

So it is , with most matters on which they hold discussion, where advances in economics or environmental science or energy production will simply bypass the "debated" subjects at hand, leaving republicans and those whom choose to "engage" their debates far behind.

For my money , this is not necessarily , an problem exclusively endemic to the Republican party or conservatives, it's certainly the case that politicians on the left can and could in the future be susceptible to either ideological encumbrance, or ignorance.

This gets - as they say - to the core of the REAL problem, competence.

What is unfortunately seriously lacking in our political discourse, is ANY sense of overall real competence, on the part of many/most politicians, unfortunately the penchant for liberal arts majors to go into politics means that these folks tend to be even more out of touch with scientific matters than their fellow citizens.

Answer 13

Why are Democrats afford of God?

Answer 14

I understand exactly what you are saying, but it is unfair to stereotype all Republicans or Conservatives based on the very real types you describe.  A few bad apples should not spoil the barrel.  You will find I have no trouble discussing science without mentioning Hillary Clinton or Al Gore, and I think the same is true for the vast majority of Republicans and Conservatives.  Major figures from the Republican and/or Conservative ranks you would normally think of as "Right Wing"  have disowned these backward anti science positions, and placed themselves far, far to the left of the people you refer to by doing so.  These more enlightened individuals include Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, George Bush, and the Southern Baptists.

Answer 15

and God said you cannot and will not find the answers for yourselves, so stop looking.  

and the ppl rejoiced.

Goof

Answer 16

Maybe what you regard as science is really politics.  Where is the science in believeing what you want to be true rather than what can be proven.

Answer 17

Being Republican has very little to do with science, much more to do with economics.  You may try that with Conservatism, but even there you will run into faulty reasoning.  Most skeptics just want to see some actual proof involving causation rather than correllation.