The War on Science

Michael Gerson, noted Bush speechwriter, neoconservative, and staunch Evangelical, writes in the Washington Post that the Republicans are not waging a "war on science" as Democrats claim. However, he mainly addresses bioethical issues. The War on Science, at least as I see it, is not primarily about bioethics. It's about denying global warming (at the behest of oil companies), denying evolution (at the behest of Evangelical churches), denying the Big Bang (just to annoy scientists), etc.

Is the War on Science going to cause immediate harm to our country's scientific and technological prowess? Does it signal the start of our decent into a new Dark Age? No.

But it is part of a bigger and much more worrisome trend - the resurgence of American anti-intellectualism. The idea that scientists and other intellectuals are "elites" whose theories somehow harm the common people has always been around in this country, but seems to wax and wane. I feel like it's waxing right now. Republican attempts to accept only the parts of science that they happen to find appealing to their religious values or profit margins send a bad message. So does Hillary Clinton, for that matter, when she dismisses economists with a wave of her hand.

The danger is that Americans will start to see science as some kind of grubby low-level technical detail that they don't need to dirty their hands with, and is thus better left to the Chinese. But if we delude ourselves into thinking that our "moral superiority," or "Anglo-Saxon values" or divine providence, will keep America at the forefront of world civilization, we are in big big trouble.