Will The Republican War On Science Lead To A Paul Broun Victory In Georgia?

Friday, Alan Grayson endorsed particle physicist George Gollin for Congress from Illinois' 13th congressional district. He began his endorsement with a simple statement you can hear all too often from the more educated members of Congress-- Grayson has three graduate degrees from Harvard: "I’m really getting tired of listening to people who don’t know what they’re talking about. One of the dirty little secrets of Congress is that many of us legislate in areas in which we are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of our Members must be deliriously happy." He says it's why he decided to back Gollin.

George Gollin is a physicist. In the 70s, he worked on muon scattering, to test quantum chromodynamics theory. (I’m not making this up.) In the 80s, he studied neutral K meson decay, to test for CP violation. (I swear that this is true.) In the 90s, he measured the production and decay properties of heavy quarks. (I kid you not.) Since then, he has specialized in the design and construction of electron-positron colliding beam facilities. (This is indeed bona fide.)

…I serve on the House Science and Technology Committee. It is bleak, really bleak. A few months ago, one of our Members on the Committee said that evolution is “a lie straight from the pit of hell.” Most of the Members are climate change deniers. I keep encouraging them to transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling. (There is no House Religion Committee, but their eyes light up anyway, when I tell them that.)

I just finishing up, Predisposed a book by 3 academics, John Hibbing, Kevin Smith and John Alford, about how genetics plays into political affinities. They refer to the very well-known Science Magazine article from 2006 by Jon Miller, Eugenie Scott and Shinji Okamoto, Public Acceptance of Evolution which begins, ominously with a warning: "The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States." The chart below comes from that study. From Predisposed:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Actual responses taken from polls conducted in 34 countries between 2001 and 2005 make for a fascinating comparison of attitudes toward evolution. There is little controversy in the most developed countries included in the survey. For example, in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Norway, between 80 and 90 percent of the population agrees that "humans developed from earlier species." On the other hand, in countries with lower levels of development and education agreement sometimes dips below fifty percent. The five countries on the low end of the "support evolution" spectrum include Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, and Turkey, the Turks being the most skeptical: Only 23 percent of them agree with the statement.

What is the country rounding out the bottom five, a country that ranked just above Turkey in its skepticism of evolution? Astonishingly, it is arguably the most educated and economically developed country ion the planet. It is acknowledged as the world leader in scientific accomplishments, it spearheaded the development of nuclear power, is the only country to put people (12 of them) on a celestial body, and boasts 338 Nobel laureates (nearly three times as many as the country with the next most-- the United Kingdom), and year after year attracts undergraduate students from all over the world to study biology and medicine at its world-leading universities. Yet only 40 percent of the citizens of the United States believe humans developed from earlier animals. Significant portions of the remaining 60 percent are convinced that humans burst on the scene in their current form, shape, and size, approximately 6,000 years ago and have not changed since. Any way you slice the numbers, a good chunk of Americans simply do not believe the most basic and rudimentary tenet of modern biological science: the evolution of species.

The situation might be slightly more excusable if Americans actually knew what they are rejecting. Yet the denial of evolution is accompanied by a remarkable level of ignorance concerning evolution's basic principles. Maybe some of this ignorance can be traced to the difficulty K-12 biology teachers and students have concentrating on the topic because of all the screaming from people who believe The Flintstones is an animated documentary series.

When Grayson wrote that he encourages his science denying Science Committee colleagues to "transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling." He's only half joking. Presumably you've watched Georgia Congressman Paul Broun-- the current frontrunner among Republicans for their party's Senate nomination-- talking about his views on science. This is a congressman, an opinion leader, a respected Georgian, a "doctor" and a member of the House Science Committee. Watch:



And it isn't only Paul Broun. Most Republican Members of Congress believe exactly the exact same thing-- or, at the very least, pretend to. And although he's classified as a "conservative Democrat," Arkansas' senior senator, Mark Pryor, can't even fall back on Republican orthodoxy to excuse his idiocy. This is the senator who will fight with his dying breath to protect the ability of the Walton family to exploit working families in his state-- and to make sure you never have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate: