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Tldr
It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable for U.S. politicians to be antiscience. For some two centuries science was a preeminent force in American politics, and scientific innovation has been the leading driver of U.S. economic growth since World War II. Kids in the 1960s gathered in school cafeterias to watch moon launches and landings on televisions wheeled in on carts. Breakthroughs in the 1970s and 1980s sparked the computer revolution and a new information economy. Advances in biology, based on evolutionary theory, created the biotech industry. New research in genetics is poised to transform the understanding of disease and the practice of medicine, agriculture and other fields.
The Founding Fathers were science enthusiasts. Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer and scientist, built the primary justification for the nation's independence on the thinking of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and John Locke—the creators of physics, inductive reasoning and empiricism. He called them his “trinity of three greatest men.” If anyone can discover the truth by using reason and science, Jefferson reasoned, then no one is naturally closer to the truth than anyone else. Consequently, those in positions of authority do not have the right to impose their beliefs on other people. The people themselves retain this inalienable right. Based on this foundation of science—of knowledge gained by systematic study and testing instead of by the assertions of ideology—the argument for a new, democratic form of government was self-evident.
Yet despite its history and today's unprecedented riches from science, the U.S. has begun to slip off of its science foundation. Indeed, in this election cycle, some 236 years after Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, several major party contenders for political office took positions that can only be described as “antiscience”: against evolution, human-induced climate change, vaccines, stem cell research, and more. A former Republican governor even warned that his own political party was in danger of becoming “the antiscience party.”
Such positions could typically be dismissed as nothing more than election-year posturing except that they reflect an anti-intellectual conformity that is gaining strength in the U.S. at precisely the moment that most of the important opportunities for economic growth, and serious threats to the well-being of the nation, require a better grasp of scientific issues. By turning public opinion away from the antiauthoritarian principles of the nation's founders, the new science denialism is creating an existential crisis like few the country has faced before.
In late 2007 growing concern over this trend led six of us to try to do something about it. Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, science writer and film director Matthew Chapman (who is Charles Darwin's great–great-grandson), science philosopher Austin Dacey, science writer Chris Mooney, marine biologist Sheril Kirshenbaum and I decided to push for a presidential science debate. We put up a Web site and began reaching out to scientists and engineers. Within weeks 38,000 had signed on, including the heads of several large corporations, a few members of Congress from both parties, dozens of Nobel laureates, many of the nation's leading universities and almost every major science organization. Although presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain both declined a debate on scientific issues, they provided written answers to the 14 questions we asked, which were read by millions of voters.[quote]
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Tldr
That's too bad because it's extraordinarily well written and the second half of it is an analysis of survey responses about science POLICY issues that both candidates responded to.
Postmodernism and it's root cause is perhaps beyond your scope though.
"For some two centuries science was a preeminent force in American politics"
but not in the uneducated, mostly rural populace. anti-intellectualism is an old American story, from a book 50 years ago:
http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellect...dp_kinw_strp_1
Bible-thumpers pushing the Bible as science, as inerrantly, literally true, and the unquestionable Word of God, has dumbed down millions of Christians. Corporations and their products responsible for pollution of air, land, water, animals, humans also contribute to confusion and outright ignorance because it would hurt their wealth if they had to stop polluting.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has an incredible presentation on intelligent design that touches on a lot of the same things that article does, and makes some worrying comparisons of our nation's evangelical turn to that of the Muslims back around 1200 or so that destroyed their societies and turned them into the backwater holes they are now.
His closing segment on stupid design is hilarious too.
Coming from a Luddite 'engineer' cannot say that i am surprised.
Good stuff
When I saw "U.S. Democracy" in the le I had the same reaction, tbh... it's a REPUBLIC, people....
We are nurturing hostility towards education and intelligence in order to make people feel okay about their stupidity so they will vote for the right party in election years or donate to the right religious causes.
That's just semantics. Representative democracy whatevs. That point of the article was that the principles of rationalism, empiricism and inductive reason from the likes of Locke and Bacon on which the founders relied for the basis of government have been rejected in favor of convenient ideology.
if only the electorate were compliant to the consensus of legitimate science, technocratic/bureaucratic control of everyday life would be so much easier.
Thats what you got from this? OK.
I don't see the existential threat to democracy, just scientists pissed off at being marginalized politically.
do you see it, Manny? what's the threat to our form of government?
When the demos is replaced by the ploutos, democracy fails to exist, becomes a plutocracy, of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy, which is what the US has become.
If Gecko/Ryan win on the propaganda paid for the 1%, the plutocracy's dominance will be strengthened.
which has what to do with the supposed threat of unscientific thinking?
an anti-scientific stance (in USA) is very probably tied to other bull , ignorant thinking, like "market is sacred and always right" and "business is highest human" achievement, and "financial wealth means personal value, virtue" and of course "The Bible is word for word literally correct and scientific". The 1% has suckered the "Christians" and uneducated to their side, which is the side of plutocracy over democracy.
Governor Romney's path to endorsement exemplifies the problem. “I don't speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world is getting warmer,” Romney told voters in June 2011 at a town hall meeting after announcing his candidacy. “I can't prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer, and number two, I believe that humans contribute to that.” Four days later radio commentator Rush Limbaugh blasted Romney on his show, saying, “Bye-bye nomination. Bye-bye nomination, another one down. We're in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax! And we still have presidential candidates who want to buy into it.
When scientific denial is a cornerstone of achieving a presidential nomination I most certainly see it. The threat is that we ignore valid scientific concerns for reasons of political convenience which then have serious consequences for our nation. It doesn't have to be climate change but that is one of the most obvious examples right now.
Of course. Republicans and entrenched wealth have the whole world dancing at the end of a string. As you often point out, Enlightenment stands no chance against evil manipulators and their all too willing dupes.
The article is absolutely full of examples of politicians arguing for piss poor policy decisions based on atrocious science. I would say that is an absolute threat. Sure, maybe scientists are pissed off that the facts are being ignored. You seem to frame that as a bad thing. Why?
that's a threat to the environment and possibly to lots and lots of people, but I don't see how that's a threat to democracy or our form of government.
democracies making bad or very short sighted decisions based on ignorance or ideology isn't anything new. more a feature than an exception, tbh.
Do you feel that our democracy is threatened at all currently?
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