The most striking part of the first full-blown debate in the Republican primary was the total rejection of science.
In a surreal scene near the night's end, Gov. Rick Perry likened the people denying global warming science to Galileo. To observe that he has that history exactly backwards -- it was the Church that accused Galileo of heresy in 1633 for scientific theories which were on the right track -- is merely to observe that Perry's substantive errors come with their own stylistic snafus. Perhaps that is fitting. More consequential, however, was the answer that Perry failed to provide.
The original question asked him to name a single scientist that supported his views. None of his opponents seized on the gaffe, since apart from the exception-of-the-night, Gov. Huntsman, every other candidate was aiming for the same conservative turf on which Perry stood. And unlike Gov. Palin's famous inability to name her sources, the media is likely to put Perry's problems aside, in order to focus on the "fireworks" that finally broke out between top tier candidates.
It says a lot about the weakness of the GOP field, and the hunger of its would-be supporters, that Rick Perry could not only burst to the top of the race at such a late date, but also begin reshaping the field in his image. Meanwhile, the Romney Campaign seems to think Perry's extremist rhetoric on Social Security creates an opening for arguments rooted in rationality and electability. Still, this is a battle on Perry's turf, as he announced on Wednesday night. "Maybe it's time," he argued, "to have some provocative language in this country."
Now, it has become something of a trope to talk about how the GOP is suddenly more conservative than people might remember, when it's actually been pretty hardcore for a while. But still, it is striking to see just how tough its litmus tests have become this year, from denying global warming to decrying the kind of tax-to-benefit-cut ratios that President Reagan would have loved. In the last presidential cycle, after all, the Republican nominee wasn't just factual in his discussion of global warming, he'd even proposed bipartisan legislation to curb greenhouse gasses.
Back in September 2007, of course, John McCain was trailing Guiliani and Romney in early states. It's possible that the GOP base will get fired up and ultimately cool down before it's all over. But this time, I doubt it.
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Ari Melber writes for The Nation, where this piece first appeared. Contact via Facebook.
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Clark Freshman: Examining Body Language at the GOP Debate
I should also add common sense !
It is not only our Progressive ideals, but, the ruling party has been put on notice that this nation changed. Changing, and it's too late to put the genie back in the tea kettle. Businesses don't care about their workers, they care about their profits.
Lemme think on that...
You didn't get the gaff about Galileo did you?
Oh man, Perry is saying the naysayers are like Galileo when in actuality the naysayers are like the church; wrong in every way
No, you got it backwards, he was saying the fallacy of Global Warmng is like in old days when the Church knew what they were teaching was false but tried to intimidate those who proved them wrong.
Read again carefully at what he said because he's absolutely right.
Perry had it right. The global warming religion an its pope, AlGore, won't even debate global warming with any scientist, but simply try to vilify those that are skeptical. This is exactly like the church in its religious zeal making Galileo's beliefs heretical. In light of the emails about falsifying data to the name change to "climate change" because the earth is now cooling to the most recent research of CERN, there are reasons for thinking people to question the "church" of global warming and demand that its pope debate the issue.
The answer is inherently political because proponents of global warming are those that advocate bigger government control of individual behavior, which is the real driver behind most in the group.
CERN is hardly questionable and is an uber scientific entity revered by the likes of the UN. Because its findings would be controversial they refused to draw the obvious conclusions to their work.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract
The scientific community lives on grants and without those they do no research and it is not suprising that they will come in line and hide information (as outlined in the email debacle) in order to continue funding. Even when sicentists with a group as well respected and powerful as CERN do studies indicating that there are far greater influences on climate than man, they are told not to draw conclusions for fear of running afoul of the global warming religionists.
The bottom line is that climate changes all the time and it is not unscientific to make the case that there are bigger factors than man. It is unscientific to dismiss this notion out of hand.
As in that it's scientifically, historically, morally and psychologically wrong. One of the most damaging human inventions ever (next to organized, militant, fundamentalist, authoritarian religions of course). But of course you can't really blame the source material, just the people who blindly, unquestioningly, incredulously accept it as anything other than just another book.
It's not a pretty picture she paints of America's reputation in Europe. To a person who cares to give their opinion of what's going on here, she's inevitably asked, in effect, "Why are you people going backwards?" "Are there any intelligent people in your country who vote?". "Is your Speaker of the House actually the one running your country?" (These are actual quotes without paraphrasing).
What she also has found is that the majority of people she converses with know much, much more about American history and current news than any American she's ever met.
Ordinary citizens should either avoid arguing with zealots, or else prepare themselves well before entering the fray.
You can't talk to crazy.
Where are you getting 80% from? "80% of the public" seems like such a vague and large number for that matter.
Despite whatever holes there are in the theory of evolution, it doesn't "require faith" to fill in those holes. Science is about not knowing because it is with this lack of knowledge that we are able to make progress and give us direction. Just by saying we don't know something, filling it in with faith, doesn't bring us any closer to that knowledge. In scientific terms it may actually cause a backwards slide. If you care to fill evolutionary holes with Faith, that's a personal choice, however don't fight progress when we are able to finally fill in those holes with science. Without scientific curiosity there is no progress. I
Darwinists have not marched whole ecosystems into the lab for double blind experiments, but they can write hypotheses and look to nature's record to see if there's evidence that such an experiment would produce. Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates can't come up with a testable hypothesis if their lives depended on it.
The reason journalists haven't exposed this double standard is "Limbaugh dancing," bending over backwards as far as they can in hopes ol' Rush won't find something to whine about in the inch their shoulders are off the floor.