Why DO conservatives hate science so much?

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Once upon a time, America was THE smartest nation on the planet. We were the most advanced. We invented almost EVERYTHING and the stuff we didn’t invent ourselves, we improved on. We were at the cutting edge of science. Or, as Michael “I look like a Muppet” Steele might say, beyond cutting-edge! We invented the internet (and if you still think Al Gore claimed he did, you’re a chump and I have a bridge to sell you). We put a man on the moon to play freaking golf. GOLF! How awesome were we?!

Now? We’re that cranky old man down the street who can never remember your name even though you’ve mowed his lawn for five years. We still use a rotary phone and drive a Model T compared to the rest of the industrialized world.

You think we’re still the smartest people on the planet?

We don’t even have the potential to be the smartest anymore.

We have literally lobotomized ourselves.

And to what do we owe this gift of dumb? Right Wing fundamentalism, both religious and political.

The rest at: http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/09/why-do-conservatives-hate-science-so-much/ One of the better pieces I have seen on this for a while.

[Beartracks]

1. I love it when people say, "Oh, I don't *believe* in science"...

... as if science were a belief system and thus in competition with their religious faith, which *is* a belief system.

=========

[Grokenstein]

6. But that's exactly what they think!

I've heard people call science "just another religion." It's po-faced insanity, but they'll stick to it no matter what.

Conservatives have been cultivating it in public education for decades, from whitewashing history books to the whole "teach the controversy" nonsense.

That ends, or the nation as we once knew it dies.
It really is that simple.

[robbob]

15. I have a friend who "doesn't believe in science"

Last edited Sun Jun 21, 2020, 08:31 AM - Edit history (1)

because “they are always telling us different things”, ie the explanations change over time. I had to very patiently explain to him how this is the whole premise on which science was built; hypothesize, theorize, test, refine hypothesis, get peer reviewed verification of experiment results, etc. etc. For a scientist, proving a theory wrong is often as important as finding it true, because it means you are one step closer to understanding the nature of the problem.

Religion, by contrast, is the exact opposite. It presents ancient texts as absolute proof and no one is allowed to question the “word of god”. It was a major shift in thinking for the Roman Catholic Church to admit maybe the universe doesn’t revolve around the earth, and the imprisonment of Galileo for heresy before a simple scientific fact could be accepted as truth.

[AllyCat]

23. Yeah, I hear that too.

Somehow, not having it the same for millennia makes it untrue.

[Beartracks]

29. And they think scientific "theory" is the same as other meanings of "theory"...

... which is to say, they tell themselves scientific theories are just flat-out guesses.

========

[treestar]

30. Just got that too

"Science once proved that the world was flat."

In those days, there was so little science. Just religious belief. That the world is round has been proven by science, that it was flat was just default medieval belief.

Technology is more advanced now than in 1450. That's because scientific theories were proven.

How right wingers manage to get through the day can be a mystery.

[DBoon]

34. Pythagorus demonstrated the earth was round in 500 BC

Long before modern science existed

[vercetti2021]

2. I'll give you two answers

Number one. They are too stupid to understand science, these are the kind of people that probably failed it in elementary school.

Number two. Because God is the answer to everything

[lastlib]

7. I'll give you one more.

Science is inquiry--asking questions, thinking out answers. TPTB want to discourage that. People who ask questions are dangerous to the established order, and they want no challenge to it. (Maybe that's WHY God is the answer to everything.)

[2naSalit]

27. +1

[vercetti2021]

35. Great point

Makes more sense

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Even for christians, god is not the answer. Their PREACHER who interprets god is the answer. . nt

[StarryNite]

36. Yup

[TheBlackAdder]

33. Conservative minds, which lack nuance and critical methods, will see in black & white as anarchy.

.

Their minds generally stop developing in their teen years. While they can learn things, it's how they process that information that counts. If it takes too much effort, it it's not comfortable, they reject it.

.

[handmade34]

3. excellent read!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

28. TY

[safeinOhio]

4. The "Know Nothing Party" from the 1850s is back.

Know Nothing
Citizen Know Nothing.jpg
Uncle Sam's youngest son, Citizen Know Nothing, an 1854 print
Other name Native American Party
American Party
First Leader Lewis Charles Levin
Founded 1844
Dissolved 1860
Preceded by Whig Party
Succeeded by Constitutional Union Party
Headquarters New York City
Secret wing Order of the Star Spangled Banner
Ideology American nationalism
Anti-Catholicism
Nativism
Republicanism
Right-wing populism
Progressivism[1]
Temperance[2]
Political position Far-right[3][4]
Religion Protestantism
Colors Red White Blue
Politics of United States
Political parties
Elections
The Know Nothing, formally known as the Native American Party and the American Party from 1855 onwards, was a far-right nativist political party and movement in the United States which operated nationwide in the mid-1850s. It was primarily an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, and xenophobic movement, originally starting as a secret society. The Know Nothing movement also briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to simply reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its common name.[5]

[3Hotdogs]

9. Ya forgot the "Plug Uglies."

[jimlup]

5. I only partially agree... it is true of a faction of American society but not everyone.

By many measures, we still are the strongest in science, yet we certainly risk losing this if we go underwater for another four years.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. Religion, for the most part. And TV, radio and social network brainwashing

Also, apathy/laziness. Science, inquiry more work than mindless faith

[hlthe2b]

11. "Inconvenient Truth" that thwarts their greedy exploitations

[tecelote]

12. Science is just like Magic, but real.

They hate science because they can't manipulate it like they can God.

[treestar]

31. Take for example COVID-19

"Warm weather will make the virus go away." A hypothesis. But no need to test it. After all, it might turn out not to be true, and we can't have that.

[Hav]

13. Not sure whether it's science itself that they hate

but rather that the science doesn't support what they believe and what they are told to believe. They happily point to (often poor) studies when those support their claims, for example.
In the end, it results in the same anti-science attitude, of course.
It's just like Trump attacking institutions like the media or the intelligence services. When you cannot make your case based on facts, you try to discredit those who refute your claims.

[treestar]

32. And in the science of debate, "ad hominem"

is a fallacious argument. They don't even get that. I've tried with them, saying who cares who is saying it? Can't you look at the statement aside from who is saying it? They can't. They think it's an argument. It came from CNN, so it's fake news.

[usaf-vet]

14. Excellent Post. Thanks for blazing the way to other articles. Such as!

Barr, Trump’s attorney general wants god’s moral order enforced by government.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213629023

[Javaman]

16. Because science uses facts and

Facts get in they way of the right wing trying to explain away their many many failures via blaming someone else. Hence the crazy ass conspiracy theories.

All conspiracy theories are is: the inability of taking ownership of ones own fuck ups or your cult leaders fuck ups. It’s always someone else who caused the problem; not him or you.

[Ohio Joe]

17. The right not accepting science was a problem 20 years ago...

Today, the problem is that the right no longer believes in reality.

[NNadir]

18. While conservatives in recent years certainly represent the largest anti-science wing...

...we should not pretend that contempt for science and engineering does not exist among us on the left.

We have among us, many "antis" anti-vax, anti-nuke, anti-GMO, to name a few.

All three I've just described have done tremendous damage to the world at large, both in human health, environmental sustainability, and the rights of human beings to decent health and nutrition.

My personal feeling is that one has to know some science to be able to comment on its value. That takes hard work and concentration; something not popular in a world where Twitter witticisms are more highly valued than, say, the critical laws of thermodynamics. This extends to applied science, aka "engineering." To be sure, many engineering practices on a massive scale have created intractable problems, notably climate change. On the other hand, addressing climate change - or even more challenging, reversing it - is a tremendous engineering challenge. And, no, holding "Live Earth" concerts and buying Sierra Club calendars doesn't cut it.

What passes on the left for a "pro-science" attitude is often cartoonish and ill advised: We will not save the world by worshiping Elon Musk and his cobalt laced electric car, or processing billions of tons of iron ore and coal to make steel to erect wind turbines served by diesel trucks or diesel barges in once pristine wildernesses.

The fondness here and elsewhere on the left for SpaceX, for just example, with dreams of colonies on Mars, isn't science. It's a carny show.

I believe that the majority of Americans who think that they respect science should not only look for disrespect among red necks at a Trump event in Oklahoma. Sometimes a good look in the mirror might help.

[gulliver]

38. Very well put.

[dlk]

19. My dear friend's daughter-in-law has literally said she doesn't believe in science about Covid-19

Religious fundamentalism is why wearing masks has become such a hot political issue and why the Covid-19 pandemic is spreading like wildfire in our country. Political fundamentalism is why the multi-trillion dollar redistribution of America’s wealth, upward, continues unabated and our country has been taken down, piece by piece. We have been played.

[JHB]

20. They hate what gets in the way of their ideology.

They're fine with science when it doesn't.

Invent more chemical products? Make bombs more deadly? No problem, no problem at all.

Science that forms a basis for regulating companies? That paints borders on carte blanche? Well, then it's those damn liberal pinko egg-heads pushing their ideology.

I'll dispute the article on one point, though. The first big success wasn't by Big Tobacco, it was by creationist evangelicals. They've been equating evolution and Marxism pretty much since Darwin's time, and those were seen as tools of Satan to lead people astray from God's light. And when your Big Bad is an immortal and infinitely devious being, it really lets you go wild when it comes to conspiracy theories.

The success wasn't a big-ticket victory, but the dumbing down of science curriculum in schools and keeping of suspicion about scientists and intellectuals at a pretty lively simmer. When Movement Conservatives and the Republicans came courting for their votes back in the 70s, they were prepped and ready to turn it up to full boil.

[ancianita]

21. Maybe they just don't want to bear the responsibilities that knowing brings.

Just making a living and earning a family and being in a great country is all they can handle.

Like Bill Maher sometimes recites, maybe they can't prove it, but they know it's true, that the coming technological world has no zeros and ones for morality or conscience.

Maybe they just want to delay the future a little while longer, while leaders learn how to handle the technologies that are already here.

Not that they know Einstein, but he did say, "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

I don't accept their fears, but I think I understand them.

They might come around some day, but right now, since it's all they can do to know and cope with changes science brings, all too fast, they don't have to like it.

[JT45242]

22. They confused their books

As a Christian, I know that the Bible is about philosophy. A philosophy based on loving your neighbor and looking out for the poor and weak. (Matthew 25)

Unfortunately, there are a lot of unscrupulous folks who have convinced the masses that it is a Science book and a History book. That way they can control those masses. I don't think that most of the evangelical leaders believe that it is. But the people they scam out of money do.

Falwell (both generations), prosperity ministry type like Osteen, and Graham Junior have convinced many that the Bible is in the wrong section of the library so that they can gather wealth and power.

[Baitball Blogger]

24. It's all about control. Anything that threatens to provide information that will question their

authority is a target.

[diverdownjt]

25. "We have literally lobotomized ourselves." ???

We were willing participants...but the doctor performing the surgery was a hack.
Dr. Bill O'Reilly, and all the hacks at Faux Snooze were in the operating room giving
bad advice.

[vlyons]

26. Because the 1%ers and corporations refuse to pay their fair share of taxes

So public education and state universities don't get funded properly. I went to the University of Texas in 1965. My tuition for a 15 hr class load was $125 for the semester!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

37. Many of them believe what they WANT to believe.

Science sometimes provides evidence to the contrary.

At least we haven't abandoned the heliocentric model for our solar system, in general, but I could see those self-centered people and their large egos wanting a return to the Earth-centered universe if they had a chance.

[gulliver]

39. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not...

...understanding it." That's an old one.

Dostoevsky noted long ago that people basically don't care that 2 + 2 = 4 as much as they care about having a good supply of food. They want to be comfortable. They want to have fun. They want their Maslow needs met. When they think they aren't getting their needs met, they start to snap at the chickens. It isn't just science and rationality that suffer under the modern Republican-style lostness. Honesty does too. Civility does. Virtue itself does.

Science needs to be a whale of a lot smarter, and people need to understand its limitations. It's not that we need to believe nonsense over sense. That's not what I'm saying. Science just need to keep its eyes on what makes things work for people while staying scientific. We need to watch for side effects. We need to first do no harm and so forth.

[crickets]

40. K&R for the post and the discussion.

[Skittles]

41. because it conflicts with their pandering to religious idiots

yup