Fletcher Christian #79-
Let’s take a more careful look at where on the political spectrum the ‘anti-science’ impetus originates, because, like so many others, you need to be disabused of the notion that it is the exclusive venue of the right.
Consider the following:
1. Most global AGW followers are left of center politically.
2. For all that they scream about the truth of evolution (and I heartily agree that evolution exists), the left is absolutely adamant in their refusal to consider the implications of evolution and natural selection in the areas of psychology and criminology.
3. Alternative medicine, populated almost exclusively by leftists.
4. Opposition to genemod crops, which is just a faster route to the hybridization humans have done for millenia, but is feared like inscrutable black magic by – again – leftists.
5. Anti-vaccination hysteria – again the exclusive province fo the left.
6. Being forced to use flourescent bulbs in order to ‘save the planet’ – by the left.
7. Attacks on science curriculum as being “poisoned” by racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, eurocentrism, etc., not only by leftists, but more specifically by those on the left who are supposedly the smartest and most educated – college professors (and not just in the U.S. but throughout the developed world).
8. No nukes? Left again.
9. PETA, ELF, Earthfirst, and the rest of the animal rights extremist crowd? Not the right.
Those are just the things I could come up with in a few minutes. No doubt there are others.
To say that the right or people of faith have some monopoly on being anti-science is ridiculous on its face. Most of the forays into antiscience by the right in the U.S. are from poorly funded individuals or small groups in the area of public education and are largely defensive in nature. Most of the anti-science from the left comes well funded (often by taxpayer subsidy) and are of an offensive and bullying nature. And in areas where there is an effective bully pulpit and means of spreading the information.
No comparison, really. I don’t like anti-science, whether it comes from the left or right. But to say that it is firmly in one corner just isn’t so.
