August 19, 2011 by David K. Sutton
The Anti-Science Crowd
There are prominent Republicans running for President that think opinions have as much weight as evidence and peer review. Rick Perry is the latest on the right to state that there are “gaps” in the theory of evolution. Another common attack from the right is on climate change. Do these people understand that science is nonpartisan? Sure, any individual is corruptible, but the field of science is the best system we have as humans for finding the truth. Opinion does not hold more weight than years and decades of evidence and peer review.
Something this anti-science crowd forgets is that science is responsible for just about everything we value in our modern society. Without science – and by the way, government too – there would be no internet. Without science we would not have the medical advances that have increased the average life expectancy by a couple of decades.
We don’t question the science behind the medical procedure we need to have done. We don’t question the science behind the technology that brings TV into our homes and the internet at our fingertips. It is because climate change is much less tangible in our every day lives that this anti-science crowd is able to continue to deny the science and preach it to their flocks.
