Chris Mooney emailed me, asking me to sign this call for the Presidential candidates to have debates specifically about their attitudes towards science, and I was really happy to join in. Click the link to see some prominent names that are making this demand and what a general debate on science would look like.
Chris at Mixing Memory is skeptical, like a proper scientist should be I suppose.
The thing is, I’m just not sure I see the point. Several of the issues that would, I assume, be central in any science-related debate have already been central in the general debates of both parties, including stem cells, the environment, health care, and education. Each of the major candidates has laid out plans and programs related to these issues, either in the debates themselves or elsewhere. What would a science-only debate accomplish? What would we learn about the candidates that we don’t already know? Or if the purpose is to make science issues more salient to the general public, isn’t the fact that they’ve already been central in the debates enough to do that?
I think I can answer this. A presidential race, for better or for worse, functions as a year-long (now longer) “state of the nation” time of reflection on national values, identity, etc. Which is why the media obsession with Clinton’s pantsuits, Gore’s nerdiness, Bush’s have-a-beer-with-ability, Huckabee’s sense of humor,* etc. are so dangerous, since they affect the national character, helping push us towards a people that are increasingly shallow and materialist. And ignorant, above all, which is why the science debate needs to be framed as if it’s in fact about science. It’s true that all these issues are touched upon during other debates, but I don’t think many Americans (most are still unfortunately not addicted to blogging) really think of reproductive rights, education, the environment, etc. as issues that have “science” in common. And they need to.
When wingnuts bellyache about the culture wars, they prefer to pretend it’s all about preserving “Western civilization” against barbarian hoardes who would tolerate intermarriage, long hair on men, and “fuck” on the TV. While that’s a part of it, it’s a much smaller aspect, and I’d argue that one of the much more important battles is the one over ways of knowing. Authoritarians rightly see science as a threat to authority, because it breaks up their ability to define “truth” as what it needs to be for them to hold onto power. The common thread to various wingnut stances on everything from education to health to the environment is their belief that when science and received wisdom concocted to uphold their authority clash, reality must submit to their fantasias. And all too often, in the name of “balance”, the media will present someone who is essentially making shit up vs. someone who is invested in proof and evidence as equals on TV, not revealing to the audience that some kinds of knowledge are gained differently than others. And I suspect Americans, being a generally pragmatic people, would be much more pro-science if they had the entire clash defined that way. I suspect the right wing nuts know this, too, which is why putting forth a science debate as such will inevitably scare the shit out of them.
Too bad. Americans have a right to engage in the debate as it is, and not just to pick up on a hint here and a hint there—inevitably distorted hints, no less—from the TV. We live in a country where huge percentages of otherwise smart people fall into thinking global warming is a conspiracy theory, that scientists want to pursue stem cell research out of sadistic baby hate, and that there’s any real debate between creationists and reality-based biologists. This kind of systematic ignorance needs to be addressed for what it is, a science debate could help move us in that direction.
*Which I’ve come to believe is mostly remarkable because we think of stick-up-the-ass patriarchs as humorless, except for indulgence in occasional unfunny jokes about having to tolerate women. You just expect cranks to be uptight, I guess.
15 Responses to “Science debate 2008”
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What I find most funny, is those that claim that it is a sacred duty to defend western civilization are often those who have very little knowledge about what they would want to defend.
Also one thing that I’m interested in is how the wingnut memes perpetuate around the world. I know people in South Africa who have been infected by the “flag burning” ,”keep god in school”, “the world is 6000 years old” and global warming is myth.
The talking points propagate over 13,000 km and I want to know how and the why.
I really want to watch an hour of Huckabee, Mitt and the gang sweating as they try to sound like they know the first thing about science while simultaneously spouting absolute nonsense and superstition.
That would be a hoot and give any democrat with half a spine* plenty of ammunition later on.
*Like the Giant Squid, there have been some reports of these elusive creatures seen in the wild but very rarely have they been captured on camera.
“Authoritarians rightly see science as a threat to authority, because it breaks up their ability to define “truth” as what it needs to be for them to hold onto power. The common thread to various wingnut stances on everything from education to health to the environment is their belief that when science and received wisdom concocted to uphold their authority clash, reality must submit to their fantasias.”
It’s just an extrapolation of their religiosity. Religion demands that you accept what you are told, and typically proscribes or greatly downplays independent study.
Once you have handed your “soul” over to an outside “authority”, handing over the rest of your worldview, including science, is a simple and relativity painless step.s
BTW, one of the most fascinating and scary trends to observe over the last 40-years is the way science has been turned into to just another religious belief system. In turn it has been connected most often with the Left, and therefore becomes something that most “good” Reichwing Authoritarians can safely and properly ignore.
The irony that science - a rational attempt to make sense of what is all around us while avoiding the use of supernatural means, based entirely on facts and not “truths”, pursued by people all over the world (who at least try to be culturally neutral), and whose understanding has lead to incredible human advances - can be made into just another “irrational” belief system…well, words fail.
Of course, if that “science” managed to produce a new way to torture prisoners, force pregnancy, kill thousands of “unbelievers”, or stop the DFH’s from “ruining” god’s America, the wingnuts would be falling all over each other to support it. But when science demonstrates we are killing the Earth (for example), the excuses and justifications quickly drown out all rational discourse…
“*Like the Giant Squid, there have been some reports of these elusive creatures seen in the wild but very rarely have they been captured on camera.”
I’m pretty sure there have been more giant squids seen in the last 20-years than “spinefull” Democrats.
What a choice - Reichwingnuts with steel spines who are utterly insane in their beliefs VS. Democrats who talk about good and reasonable solutions to our real problems and then fold like a house of cards when called on the act on their beliefs…
I’m so embarrassed…
Another issue that has not been touched on upon in general debates to my knowledge* is that of scientific integrity. For those that keep up on science there are many claims with the Bush administration doctoring documents purported as science or tying to silent scientist that speak with a government mantle. We have the right to expect when our government issues health warnings and studies on climate change that the information contained therein is true and those that write these documents are not coerced.
In the larger frame this is just another piece of the authoritarian environment it seems this country is heading in.
*I stopped watching most of the debates after the third only purposely catching some of them and am relying on the coverage I have read.
I’m still stunned that we can have candidates for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES who believe in creationism and a 6,000 year old earth.
I mean, really, WHAT THE FUCK? How can it be true that someone so ignorant can actually have a chance to be elected “leader of the free world”?
In a related note, I’m kinda proud of my little boy. He’s figured out there’s no Santa, and now that mind is working on other “proofs”.
He’s afraid of “dopplegangers” from his monster book, but he doesn’t believe in God. His CCD-teaching grandmother is having a fit. She tried to tell him some claptrap about God protecting him from evil (some crazy pre-Vatican II shit, I’m sure. The Vatican II reforms never seem to have reached Chicago.)
Boy wants some proof or evidence of this God.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I had a boy like him in my CCD class.” she whines to my husband.
Well, the typical response is to tell the kid to shut up, learn what you’re teaching, and keep all independent thought to himself.
I say it’s good for her, b/c she has to *think* about her responses! I was always taught that God prefers a questioning faith anyway, and that one’s conscience was primary. Which, while it is what the Catholic church is supposed to believe, is not what the hierarchy generally teaches. Patriarchal authorities prefer to be obeyed, especially by silent drones.
Now, I have to teach him to respect his grandmother and her beliefs without succumbing to them, even though he’s growing up in a world where whackadoodles who invent their own personal realities and try to force others to accept them are CONSIDERED VALID CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT.
Well, it’s exactly those reasons, why I think we are never going to see it, and why we probably should never see it. Conservatives are unwilling to engage in any kind of debate about science that is not pre-stacked in their favor.
Conservatives are unwilling to engage in any kind of debate about science that is not pre-stacked in their favor.
Agreed. It would be a Democratic debate only. I think it would work well before the primary though, if only to vet the Dem candidates’ understanding of the many, many important scientific issues their administration would have to deal with.
I don’t think any of the Republican candidates believe the world is 6000 years old, though I’m sure the Anti-Evolution Three (now Two) support Intelligent Design. For people who need deities, the idea that gods aren’t to be found in the cracks of human knowledge or past the limits of what is provable via the scientific method, ID *becomes* default science. I wouldn’t have a problem with this kind of wingnut ignorance if people weren’t hypocrites about it. The same scientific method that established the faculties of evolutionary biology and genetics and provided valuable contributions to all sorts of other faculties is the same scientific method that gave us the atom bomb, chemotherapy and heart transplants. So if they deny the truth of the scientific method in one aspect, they should deny it in all. No cherry picking allowed.
Next time Cheney needs a heart transplant??? Nope, sorry, got that via the scientific method. Next time Bush wants to drop napalm on some civilians in Fallujah? Nope, sorry. Scientific method. This could work out well for us.
whackadoodles
Heh.
Amanda, thank you for answering. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would, as the thing seemed to have gathered so much momentum.
My biggest worry, which I express in the second post on the debate, is the intermingling of science and politics. I think science should in many cases, inform politics (politicians should be aware of the science on global warming, for example), but the one question I’d like to see candidates asked is, “Will you leave science the fuck alone?” Because that’s what I want them to do. The problem with the Bush administration has been politicians trying to dictate what scientists can and can’t say about the science, or misrepresenting what the scientists are saying. Let the scientists speak science, and the politicians decide policy based on that information. Republicans will still screw it up (and so will the Democrats much of the time), of course, but at least they won’t have fucked with the message science is giving us, and the public can see the disconnect between fact and policy.
Scientists shouldn’t be determining policy, of course, and I’m a little afraid that some scientists want to do that, but politicians sure as hell shouldn’t be determining what questions scientists can or can’t ask and what answers they can give to those questions. And by making science a political issue, I worry that the two will get too tied up together and it will be easier for politicians to influence science.
I should probably add that I realize that science has already been made a political issue, for all the wrong reasons, but I worry that if we play into that — if, in a sense, we operate with their framing of science — we can only do more harm to science.
The public in general does not think that science is important. They like technology, but think it comes from thin air. I think that candidates should be forced to admit that decreasing numbers of Americans become high-level scientists, that increasing numbers of foriegn-born scientists are returning to their own countries to set up real research, and that the USA is in danger of being left in the dust should trends continue. No science - no technology - no saleable products for export.
I would settle for each candidate having to explain just one of the basic facts of the universe, from f=ma to why the double helix is important…
Maybe it’s because I live in California, but I do believe the general public cares about science AND would be interested to know which politicians pay attention to it and which ones would push policy on science instead.
Actually, I believe a study was done on people reading science articles and over 50% do, and discuss what they’ve read in conversations. (Which also means badly done science writing is reaching and influencing a fairly wide audience).
A debate on science issues would only help to increase public awareness of very important issues, and help uncover flaws in candidates the corporate media glosses over.
There should be a panel of scientists in the next room with those Frank Luntz dials.
Anytime one of the candidates stray into BS, obfuscation, and/or outright lying, the dials get turned up by the expert panel.
It would be great to see Huck in the red the whole time.