Republican Presidential Candidates Debate Science, Climate Change, Evolution (VIDEO)

During the Republican primary debate Wednesday night, Jon Huntsman was called out for his comment that the GOP is at risk of becoming the "anti-science party."

"Your chief political adviser has been quoted very prominently as describing the Republican Party as 'a bunch of cranks,' and said your opponents on the stage 'make a buffet of crazy and inane comments.' I'm sure that's insulting to some of these people up here," moderator John Harris said. "Who on this stage is anti-science?"

Huntsman declined to name exactly which of his opponents were making anti-science comments, but he did lament individuals who are questioning evolution and climate change:

"When you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call to question evolution, all I'm saying is that in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science," Huntsman said.

"We can't run from mainstream conservative philosophy."

Rick Perry is someone who has questioned the scientific consensus on both climate change and evolution.

"I do believe the science is not settled on this," he reiterated when asked about climate change tonight. He compared climate skeptics to Galileo, saying, "Galileo was outnumbered for a spell" -- even though in that case, Galileo was the scientist facing skeptics.

Below, a video of highlights from Wednesday night's debate.

 

 

Comments

[John Lewis]

10:18 PM on 09/18/2011

GOP candidates will run from science. Or anything they can't comprehend.

[StephenBP]

09:00 PM on 09/11/2011

Huntsman appears to be the only Republican candidate with enough intelligence to be an effective president of the United States. He gets it. Do you?
1. Arctic ice volume is at its lowest level since satellites started recording the area. Volume is calculated from area and thickness.
2. Humans are putting carbon dioxide into the air at the rate of over 30 Billion Metric Tons per year. That is 2 million pounds per freaking second. One thousand one, on thousand two, like that… Picture an exhaust pipe a quarter mile in diameter pushing out exhaust at hurricane wind speed. That is how much waste exhaust gas humans are producing.
3. Carbon dioxide impedes infrared escape from the atmosphere. That means nothing to people without a basic science education.
4. Denialists get very excited just hearing the name Al Gore. Apparently the Pavlovian conditioning from the 2000 election was very thorough.
5. Carbon dioxide levels are the highest in over 800,000 years thanks to humankind.
6. FOX [not] NEWS, a nearly full time media outlet of human caused climate change denial, is supported by and apparently strongly influenced by petro dollars from Saudi investors, from sponsors like Exxon Mobil, and by a political agenda crafted by petroleum billionaires decades ago.

Huntsman is an intelligent man.

The rest of the pack of Republican presidential candidates, however, resembles a troop of escapees from a VW clown-mobile, only less interesting.

[peter specht]

09:26 PM on 09/12/2011

If the voters actually did their duty in researching the candidates and listened to what was said other than sound bites, you may be right. But what are the chances that is going to happen?

[FrankLuchan]

06:38 PM on 09/11/2011

Not at all.

The Replicans fully accept the REAL science of Robert Kaufmann who tells us that "...it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008..."

Or the REAL science of Henrik Svensmark and the folks at CERN that tells us that cosmic rays have an impact on Clouds? So much so that they can account for all of the warming that has taken place since we have come out of the little ice age?

You mean that science?

We fully support science.

Not the whacky unsupported Al Gore stuff mind you. REAL SCIENCE.

[StephenBP]

08:03 PM on 09/11/2011

1. Robert who?
2. You completely misinterpretting the CERN results.
3. You wouldn't understand real science if it bit you on your tiny little brain, sweetheart.

[jimboy71]

08:16 PM on 09/11/2011

You need to read the CERN study. It has no bearing on climate science yet, and if the findings are corroborated, it will mean that cosmic rays are actually COOLING the planet by generating more low level cloud. Which means we've been earningn a small respite from ACC.

[syllable]

03:05 PM on 09/09/2011

We're all still clawing our way out from the economic debacle of 2008. I don't know if discussions about Galileo or Evolution will make things better. I think we need to look at the market dynamics of that economic collapse, the deregulations that benefited the banks but failed the people, and determine which of these presidential candidates would do it again and vote them out. We need to get tough.

[grayplace]

01:41 PM on 09/09/2011

Science must have been a really tough clas for these numb-nuts in high school. So much so that they're trying to "save" the rest of us from it now.

[Tom V Anderson]

11:34 AM on 09/09/2011

I'd like to think that most educated Americans do believe in science & evolution. But with the Republican equivalent of the Afghan Taliban just inventing their own facts as they go along & many folks believing them - I'm not that sure anymore. I am quite sure, however, that the oil & gas industry, big Pharma, major banks, Wall Street, defense contractors, etc are enthralled with this group. With their direct line to God - what a combo !!

[syllable]

02:56 PM on 09/09/2011

Keeping the public stupid keeps them rich. That way, no one asks questions or uses scientific breakthroughs to improve the status quo.

[Aleks Hunter]

08:56 AM on 09/09/2011

Governor Rick Perry has no inten tion of running from so called sciences like climatology and evolution. He wants to meet them in the street for a showdown, draw on them and shoot them dead. All in self defense, of course.

Its gonna be rough on them seven billion innocent bystanders though.

[Seymourhiney]

01:20 AM on 09/09/2011

Huntsman, is much to smart to be a Republican.

Jesus says Perry is a flash in the pan.

[Seymourhiney]

01:16 AM on 09/09/2011

Hey Rick Perry, Viagra is a product of science, you need it to make yours big, come on.

[Gadgetman]

12:54 AM on 09/09/2011

And the GOP said, "Science? What's that praise the lord?"

[Nighthawk1982]

12:38 AM on 09/09/2011

GOP= anti-logic

[JDZSB]

12:33 AM on 09/09/2011

Most people will accept that the earth has gone through major climate changes over the millions of years of existence from a hot period to the ice age and various other periods of climate change. And, it is reasonable to believe that the earth may be warming at this time as well. The issue is whether or not it is a natural cycle or due to manmade pollution or a growing carbon footprint, etc. The zealots like Al Gore believe that global warming is manmade and has been pushing major environmental regulations on our energy industries that is killing the coal industry and forcing major added costs to the oil and natural gas industries. Because the environmental activists in this country have embraced the Al Gore premise, and have gotten support from the liberals in our country, the USA private economy has been crippled in terms of global competition against companies basically in all other countries all of whom have much more moderate environmental regulations. The science on global warming is controversial and not convincing and keeps flip flopping back ands forth. Twenty years go, these scientists were predicting global cooling. Now, there are new theories having to do with cosmic ray impacts on our weather and new experiments that prove that this could also affect the weather cycle. So, with the economy in trouble, and the actual source of the problem unclear, we should be putting a moratorium on these overly energy constraining environmental regulations.

[Chase Miller]

10:15 AM on 09/09/2011

No. It's simply not true that "all other countries" have less stringent environmental regulations than America. It's also not true that the coal industry is dying, the "USA private economy" is crippled because of energy regulations, or that "the science on global warming is controversial and not convincing and keeps flip flopping back ands [sic] forth."

These are all just anti-science, anti-government talking points.

[deafwolf]

02:07 PM on 09/09/2011

Exactly, Chase!
Europe has much more stringent regulations across the board. China and Russia and some others? Maybe not so much. Regulations "crippling" economic growth is a bunch of crap, since we've been regulating emissions and pokkution since the '70's and had growth WITH regulations during that time. The economy is crippled because of two wars, tax cuts for the top tier and the loosening of financial regulations that cause the big bubble to pop...
And the sciene behind AGW or climate change, from a sheer statistical view, is pretty solid and there's not much "flip flopping" on the amounts of greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere over the last century.

[ChrisCavanagh]

08:39 PM on 09/09/2011

Extraordinary. In one paragraph, you have managed to trot out every BS cliche of the skeptics. If you bothered to read just a little on the actual science, instead of getting your information from Fox News, you might want to retract a fair swath of your points. I thought of rebutting your points one by one but I just don't have the patience. Just one request: read the science of the subject, not the opinions of the chattering class.

[kinogod]

07:56 PM on 09/08/2011

Tha devil's in the details when you examine Herman Cain's 9 9 9 jobs proposal inside out and upside down because it reads 6 6 6.

[HellerHighwater]

07:40 PM on 09/08/2011

Some career advice for scientists:

See if you can become useful in munitions science. Fasc.ist regimes don't really care for your contributions outside of that field; you can be a threat to profits.

[tdsding]

07:20 PM on 09/08/2011

We will put people to work right now, what happened to last month, not one new job, but, now that you realize that you are not going to get elected, NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU HAVE FOUND NEW JOBS FOR EVERYONE, I am laughing at how you are trying to shove another bunch of BS down our throats, No MORE hussein!

[King Banhammer]

08:37 PM on 09/08/2011

What does this rant have to do with the republican candidates science debate positions?

[Jerrodg]

10:35 PM on 09/08/2011

Ignore the man behind the curtain....

[NeuroscientIst]

02:20 PM on 09/09/2011

at first i thought this was a satirical or joke post, but i suppose this character thinks he is somehow being cogent. maybe to the audience in his head but, here on earth, not so much. what's the matter, tdsding, miss the birther issue? oh, and nice, scatological imagery. keepin' it classy, huh?