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I think the Republican Party supports science denial - Here is Why (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Captain Cranks
- Start date
Ilov80s
Footballguy
A much more interesting thread would be differing opinions between believers in climate change. That has been done less, would be more civil, more productive and more interesting.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Like I said, it's been this since 2016 election season. People are trying to shame others into how they vote. Some are single issue voters. Some just sat out the election. But it's pretty asinine to accuse someone of supporting every single aspect of someone they voted for.
supermike80
Footballguy
Unfortunately it isnt civil here. I did that.....I got attacked hard. If you dont believe that climate change is a real thing and in many ways going to destroy the planet, you get your butt handed to you here. It's not civil and was a wake up call for me to kind of just stay out of some of the conversations here.
supermike80
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I think it's a little incomplete to describe it as caring about "abortion," because abortions will always exist. Being "anti-abortion" has a lot of nuance- eg are you anti Roe but still a federalist and constitutional originalist, or do you want a federal abortion ban? If it's the former that means you care more about merely leaving abortion decisions to the states than climate change, which says something about how you prioritize climate change. If it's the latter that's different ... but it also means you care more about making abortion illegal than you do about climate change AND core conservative principles like federalism and originalism.
squistion
Footballguy
No, evolution is a fact. Before Darwin was born, scientists knew from fossil records that species have evolved over time. Darwin gave a theory as to why creatures on this planet have evolved, which is natural selection. You can dispute Darwin's theory of evolution, but not the concept of evolution itself.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
And the crazy part is that it's much more civil here than almost any other corner of the internet.
supermike80
Footballguy
supermike80
Footballguy
Yes...There are people who care more about making abortion illegal than climate change. I don't know how many times I have to say that
jonessed
Footballguy
That’s been done. It inevitably becomes a Trump thread. People can’t help themselves. Just about anything that has a foot in politics turns out that way.
Policy discussions take time and energy. Once the morons show up anybody willing to listen and have an actual conversation bails.
It wasn’t always like that. There used to be a space for nuanced discussion here.
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TobiasFunke
Footballguy
And I don't know how many times I have to say that this is not an accurate assessment of anyone's positions. If you want to make abortion illegal and vote for federal officials who feel the same without regard to their other positions, that means you care more about making abortion illegal than you do about climate change, federalism, constitutional originalism and whatever else that federal official is peddling or defending combined (in the current era that means supporting Islamophobia, xenophobia and misogyny along with a broader rejection of science that includes a president that peddles anti-vaccination junk science).
We're basically in agreement here: people's actions matter more than their words, and actions in the political sphere are complicated things with lots of variables. Simply supporting a politician or party doesn't mean you wholeheartedly endorse everything they do. But I find it telling that you are consistently ignoring many of those variables to make it simply about caring more about abortions than climate change in this hypothetical.
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shader
Footballguy
It's easy to throw a blanket on an entire group of people. That's politics in 2019. Throw that opinion up on twitter and you're gonna get a bunch of re-tweets.
Climate change - Republicans have convinced much of their base that the science around climate change is fake. Including this issue as a slam on Republicans seems relatively fair as I have no idea why republicans feel this way. Really strange opinion to hold, imo.
Big Bang Theory - Do republicans deny this? I think that's nonsense. Also, what does the big bang theory have to do with politics?
Evolution - Everyone knows aspects of evolution are true. It's the rare person that denies every single aspect of evolutionary theory. I guess your assumption is that many republicans are christians, which means they deny "evolution". A Christian is more likely to think that God was the primary cause of creation, rather than blind evolutionary forces. Again though, I don't see how this is a political issue. The aspects of evolution that a christian might deny have nothing to do with politics or with our day-to-day lives.
Stem Cell research - Republicans are more likely to be opposed to abortion. I'm not sure how that makes Republicans anti-science. As an example I'm sure drug companies could learn much more about the drugs they are developing if they could test on humans all the time with no restrictions. But the laws "slow them down". It's pretty abhorrent to imply that a group of people are "anti-science" because they respect life.
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TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I think the conversation has been civil and respectful. But the thread has "Republicans" in the title. The president is a Republican, and the party is under his control as perhaps no political party has been in our lifetimes. This didn't become a Trump thread, it started as one.
supermike80
Footballguy
You're seriously going to tell people how they think? I can't do this with you..I'm sorry. Have a good day
jonessed
Footballguy
I don’t think Republicans in general have ever had an issue with the basis of stem cell reasearch. The issue is specific to embryonic stem cell research. That makes sense for those that are pro-life. That’s not really anti-science.
shader
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Huh?
I'm not telling anyone how they think. I'm saying people should be judged based on actions, not words, and then accurately describing what certain actions say about them. If you think something I said was unfair or inaccurate, let me know. If not, I hope you have a good day too.
jonessed
Footballguy
I’m not referring to this thread. I’m referring to past threads that discussed climate science specifically as well as other policy based topic threads.
This thread was clearly meant to be political from the start.
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shader
Footballguy
Before 1809, "scientists" (using the word in that way implies that this was some kind of universal belief among scientists) already knew that species evolved over time?
jonessed
Footballguy
No. There were other theories that led to Darwin, but the scientific consensus was not that species came from a family tree. Many believed the earth was much younger, and hence, the species were unconnected.
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squistion
Footballguy
Yes, from those who studied fossil records, although scientists might not be the best choice of words.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yeah, I guess I meant it would be nice to have an on-topic thread about it. I do agree that at this point everything comes back to the President. It's tough to avoid.
Skoo
Footballguy
We can argue about GOP voters being ant-science or not all day long.
Republican elected officials is a whole other story.
It can't be argued that they aren't science deniers. Maybe deep down they aren't, but their votes most definitely say they are.
Way beyond argument at this point.
Republican elected officials is a whole other story.
It can't be argued that they aren't science deniers. Maybe deep down they aren't, but their votes most definitely say they are.
Way beyond argument at this point.
jonessed
Footballguy
People get irate about it as well. If you don’t support “x” you are destroying the earth or if you support “y” you are destroying the economy. Some take those things very personally. You can’t look at it that way if your intent is to learn and discuss.
The new era of discussion is basically a Twitter feed. Not much room for anything but “gotcha” shots.
sho nuff
Footballguy
But the opposition to embryonic stem cell research was nearly anti science from the get go...the whole reasoning for some of the pro-life stance was about life beginning at conception which is, by definition, against what science says. Science doesn't agree those embryos are life yet, correct?
joffer
Footballguy
OP is not a very fair characterization. There's anti-science on both sides. A better summary might be: If you did a study on all scientific areas of discipline and looked out how some demographics accepted the consensus on each, you may find that overall a slight majority of the those that don't accept the science fall to the right of center on the political spectrum. And I would think the difference correlates pretty strongly with religious reasons.
Not really that important of a question to me. The more important question is where is the denial impeding our progress as a society. From that POV, climate change and anti-vax are at the top of my list and its not even close. Denial of the former leans significantly right, the latter leans slightly left, so I don't think there's a lot of room for pointing fingers.
Denial of origin theories (evolution and the Big Bang), primarily due to religion, is certainly frustrating. But I don't think its really holding us back at this point. We've come along way on the public education front, and even though it's still not taught in quite a few places, a curious student can still learn about it on his/her own. That's how I did it, although it didn't happen until my early 20s.
Anti-nuclear is an odd one. Is it really anti-science? I suppose to a point, but it seems more like irrational fear. I would think that leans left.
GMO is another one where the scientific ignorance seems to lean left.
Edit: to mention stem cell research I think you have to be specific about what science is being "denied"
I guess my point is there's plenty of ignorance to go around.
Not really that important of a question to me. The more important question is where is the denial impeding our progress as a society. From that POV, climate change and anti-vax are at the top of my list and its not even close. Denial of the former leans significantly right, the latter leans slightly left, so I don't think there's a lot of room for pointing fingers.
Denial of origin theories (evolution and the Big Bang), primarily due to religion, is certainly frustrating. But I don't think its really holding us back at this point. We've come along way on the public education front, and even though it's still not taught in quite a few places, a curious student can still learn about it on his/her own. That's how I did it, although it didn't happen until my early 20s.
Anti-nuclear is an odd one. Is it really anti-science? I suppose to a point, but it seems more like irrational fear. I would think that leans left.
GMO is another one where the scientific ignorance seems to lean left.
Edit: to mention stem cell research I think you have to be specific about what science is being "denied"
I guess my point is there's plenty of ignorance to go around.
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jonessed
Footballguy
You seem to be conflating life and when that life becomes a human being. An embryo is clearly life.
As to when that life becomes a human being there really isn’t a consensus. Science can define development stages, but where one draws the line is subjective.
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supermike80
Footballguy
Stealthycat
Footballguy
squistion
Footballguy
joffer
Footballguy
zoonation
Footballguy
shader
Footballguy
Some who studied fossil records might have come to certain theories about why animals were where they were in the ground, but they certainly didn't "know" and there certainly wasn't a consensus.
shader
Footballguy
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Science isn't capable of answering the question of when a thing acquires personhood, in the sense of having rights that need to be protected. That's a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
squistion
Footballguy
They knew that some species had evolved over time, but they didn't know why. Darwin came up with a theory as to why (which is the reason it is referred to as Darwin's theory of evolution as no one claims that he was the first one to come up with the concept of evolution).shader said:
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Ditka Butkus
Footballguy
Like the denial that a person with a penis is a man?
AAABatteries
Footballguy
100% moronstimschochet said:
AAABatteries
Footballguy
PROXY Norman Papermansupermike80 said:
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
munga30
Checkin' my email
Norman Paperman
Footballguy
Just as an aside - the "Dark" theme on the board is 1000% better than the "White" theme.
Stealthycat
Footballguy
the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.squistion said:
the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.
how do you think the theory of evolution works? BANG! and everything is exactly how it is? no, in a nutshell its everything changing and morphing into other things from a primordial soup .... things changing into other things
Stealthycat
Footballguy
sn0mm1s
Footballguy
Well, we have modern examples of plant speciation. Some where two plants, through a freak occurrence, make a plant species that can't breed with the species that created it. Ergo, brand new species.Stealthycat said:
Complex animal speciation takes a much longer time and is generally thought to be gradual - at least in regards to the average human lifetime. However, that doesn't mean that evolution is not provable or incorrect. FIrst off, you have DNA - which was discovered long after the evolutionary theory was first described. DNA validates evolutionary theory in a manner that was inconceivable to someone during Darwin's time. The very fact that we can tweak genotype to affect phenotype, find relatives, identify/clear suspected criminals etc. etc. is all based on evolutionary theory.
The fossil record also supports it. The fossil record shows that mammals first lived on land. However, we now have mammals that live in the sea - like whales - who haven't been around all that long. Putting aside the fact that the foundation of evolutionary theory would suggest that we are most closely related to whales than fish genetically (which is true) even though a couple hundred years ago it would be argued otherwise because there shouldn't be any relationship/lineage between two different species and, well, a whale looks much more like a fish than a human. Evolutionary theory also makes a prediction (that has absolutely no reason to be true if evolution is false). If mammals first lived on land, and a whale is a mammal, then there, at some point, must have been a whale-like ancestor with legs. It wasn't that long ago that this fossil was found. A whale with vestigial legs.
To deny evolution, is to deny everything that science is about.
