Cosmic Log - Study tracks how conservatives lost their faith in science Interesting article. Interesting study, but, it contradicts itself, in a way. It says the reason for the drop, is that "the character of the conservative movement has changed over the past three and a half decades..." Yeah, they're called neocons now, and they're on both sides of the aisle, both W. and Obummers would fall into the same category. The real conservatives are now called libertarians and/or classical liberals.
I've lost a lot of faith in science although not from a religious prospective, I am an atheist, but because I have seen just how easy to manipulate it really is. Science has been so politicized and sensationalized that its become just like the news media, unreliable. Whenever you here about a scientific study nowadays you can't take it at face value you have to study who funded it, and what their motives are. Its a real shame.
No doubt there, that whole "global warming" deal sounded legit, then governments started taxing carbon emissions. Next thing you know, there will be a "fart tax" since methane is also a greenhouse gas. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn't born on the wrong goddamn planet...
Politics changes, not science. Manipulation of scientific research is just politics. Has nothing to do with science itself. I agree with op, just a missclasificaton. The only way you can lose faith in science is if you gain faith in religion, And there aren't more religious people around than there used to be. Those who don't fall under the classic religious category just aren't classified as conservative as often anymore.
No the title is misleading. Conservatives have not lost faith in science, but in the highly politicized scientific consensus. Obviously largely due to the ridiculous global warming agenda.
[quote name='"Brenjin"']Politics changes, not science. Manipulation of scientific research is just politics. Has nothing to do with science itself. I agree with op, just a missclasificaton. The only way you can lose faith in science is if you gain faith in religion, And there aren't more religious people around than there used to be. Those who don't fall under the classic religious category just aren't classified as conservative as often anymore.[/quote] Politics can change the direction of science. If you are looking into energy and need capital for research its easier to get government grants for alternative energy then it is to study fossil fuels. The government will throw endless amounts of money at environmental friendly alternatives no matter how good they work and force inferior products on the unwilling buyers. While mostly private business fund most other technological advances in energy Private business which can't afford wasting liquidity are limited to do research especially on energy technology which is often regulated out of existence.
Gotta say, if this is the type of science your talking about... Monsanto ~ Home Then by all means count me out of it!
Science doesn't have a direction. Science is fact. You can manipulate the spectrum of science that is investigated but once again this is politics not science.
I've worked as a researcher and I have to say that SO MUCH of it is total bullshit. its just a bunch of lazy/garbage/lowlife professors/academics that juice private/state/government grants for money. they "massage" their data so they have something "noteworthy" of publishing. you really need 3-5 different groups of people studying the problem at hand, and then see how many people comeback with the same results.
I don't think that evolution fits into the story here. The claim is concerning post 1974, the theory of evolution is much older than that. In fact, given that train of thought, can anyone name ANY scientific acheivments post 1974 that aren't politicized? (granted, I'm not asking about technology, ie computers, phones, etc, even though, in a way you can argue that our modern technology fits this too, because now our big brother government is using our own technology to spy on us...)
But evolution is continuing to cause political changes in its favor post-1974. In fact, evolution is mentioned as a big factor in the article itself. Yes, of course there are scientific achievements that aren't politicized, that's a ridiculous question. Just because the only scientific achievements you hear about are on the news and tend to be (non-coincidentally) politicized, doesn't mean there aren't achievements that occur outside of the media. There's something wrong with people who lose faith in science because 0.1% of it is politicized (which can be good or bad). Anyone who doesn't see this clearly knows nothing of the advances made.
I'd love it if you could PM me your scientific study that comes to the conclusion that only 0.1% of science is politicized.
I would show the number of scientific advances but the sheer number of scientific literature would bore you and overwhelm you. I doubt you'd scroll through dozens of scientific journals and texts. But hey, you guys can keep pretending the majority of science is politicized.
Well evolution is definitely politicized science, but I don't think these educated conservatives are the creationists. They don't trust scientific institutions because they've pushed a lot of bs in the past 40 years in the political sphere, EPA and regulations etc. The global warming agenda began in the 70s...
Science sucks, my life was so much better before I had to do fucking everything on the internet. Fuck computers.
The problem with science is, because it's viewed as an empirical institution with authority, people use the institution of science as a means to confirm their own bias, post hoc. Because they know something about biology or chemistry, which are relatively uncontroversial fields, all of a sudden, everything coming out of the institution of science, is unquestionably true, or the best we have. Bad science is constantly being put forth, and constantly put to the side. This is a good thing. The bad thing is when science gets politicized, and as with all things political, entrenched interests seek to protect themselves from competition by manipulating the political process in their favor. Science is a great thing especially when it comes to 'the hard sciences'. It starts to lose ground when you get into the grey areas where the PC machine has stuck it's ugly tendrils.