The GOP's attack on science

[The Muckraker]

Right-Wing Whackos at Work (http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:15286)

It's a long article, but it's well worth the read. For example, it contains gems like this:

Reconstructionists believe the Lord will provide, and their view is laid out in America's Providential History, a religious right high school history textbook: "The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece," write authors Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell. "In contrast, the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's Earth. The resources are waiting to be tapped."

And this:

More troubling is the case of W. David Hager, one of Bush's nominees to the influential Food and Drug Administration panel on women's health policy. Hager, says the New York Times, has a resumé "more impressive for theology than gynecology." Hager emphasizes the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life and recommends specific Scripture readings to treat headaches, eating disorders and premenstrual syndrome.

While dealing mostly with the GOP's attack on the environment, and it's probably worse than you think, it also talks about their extreme anti-science "thinking." The US is being controlled by unelected religious zealots. Think it will be reported on Fox News?

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

This is disturbing! The secular or socialist...?What the hell is this!!?? The US is [supposedly] secular! I would love to see a republican try to defend this one. There is absolutely no room for religious interference in the government!

[redstar2000]

The attitude of late capitalism towards science is a curious one.

The capitalists understand that science, properly managed and guided, is a potential source of enormous profits.

Yet, any kind of scientific outlook on the world in general is a deadly threat to their class interests. Anyone who has gotten past the prevailing superstitions, patriotic horseshit, etc. and has begun to see the world as it actually is -- or even just wants to try to do that -- is a potential communist revolutionary.

From the capitalist standpoint, that is not a "good thing".

So what are they to do? One thing they've done in the last few decades is encourage superstition domestically while importing real scientists from other countries. These "imports", whatever their personal views, are so glad to get out of places like, well, like Iraq, that they will gladly parrot whatever their employers want to hear while hoping to be able to do some real science on the side.

The strategy appears to be one of superstition (religion, patriotism, etc.) for the masses and carefully-controlled science for the elite.

I suppose they may get away with this...for a while, anyway. But the long-run effects on capitalism itself will hardly be salubrious.

"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

:cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 8:59 pm on May 9, 2003)