A New Phase In The Republican Party's Koch-Funded War Against Science

Passing of the flame: Broun to Buck

Boehner and Cantor had a good laugh when they stocked the House Science Committee with a pack of wild anti-science yahoos like Paul "straight from the pit of hell" Broun (R-GA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Steve Stockman (R-TX), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Randy Weber (R-TX), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), et al. Right after the Republicans rolled up big victories in both houses of Congress. Frank Bruni opined in the NY Times, that science was in for an even rougher time for the next couple of years. Climate change may be an urgent matter for humanity-- but the GOP has its head buried deep, deep in the sand.

The refusal to accept or respond adequately to climate change is the most obvious example of their disregard-- and one of the most enraging ones. In a recent story in The Times, Coral Davenport described the maddening tendency of top Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, to deflect questions about greenhouse gases and volatile weather patterns with some version of the cop-out: “Well, I’m not a scientist.”

No, they’re not. But there are estimable ones all around Washington and the rest of the sizzling globe, and they’re happy to share their wisdom. The United Nations panel did precisely that, cautioning that a continued failure to reduce emissions of those gases would yield “food shortages, refugee crises, the flooding of major cities and entire island nations, mass extinctions of plants and animals, and a climate so drastically altered it might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year,” as The Times’s Justin Gillis wrote, laying out the stakes. They couldn’t be graver.

President Obama used his executive authority earlier this year on a plan to cut emissions some. But Congress has been largely useless, with a relationship to science that toggles between benign neglect and outright contempt. And many Americans have a similarly curious attitude, distinguished by woefully insufficient gratitude for the ways in which science has advanced our country and elevated our lives.

...Plenty of Americans without any strong religious beliefs opt not to vaccinate their children, ignoring the ironclad scientific arguments in favor of doing so. Plenty reject the virtues of pasteurization and feed their children raw milk. Plenty spend lavishly on herbal supplements and alternative medicine, defying physicians and deciding when myth suits them better than actual fact.

But that kind of fickle approach to science is most troubling in the people who make our laws. As several bloggers and journalists have noted, some Republicans say they’re not qualified to address global warming even as they opine readily and expansively on Ebola. They fault the appointed “Ebola czar” for not being a doctor, then reject what actual doctors tell us about the disease.

If they had proper regard for science, politicians in both parties would fight harder against the devastating cuts to federal research that have happened under sequestration, endangering medical progress and jeopardizing our global leadership. And lawmakers trying to prove their fiscal prudence wouldn’t irresponsibly smear all scientific inquiry by cherry-picking and theatrically denouncing the most arcane, seemingly frivolous studies the government has funded.

If science held the sway it should, the onetime Senate candidate Todd Akin wouldn’t have bought into and mentioned his ludicrous theory that “legitimate rape” precluded pregnancy, and the Republican flamethrower Ted Cruz might have to surrender his florid homophobia, which is reliant on his fantasy that same-sex attractions are some whimsical “personal choices.”

And with the right fealty to science, this next Congress would be forced to accept the overwhelming consensus on climate change and take action. It’s time to wise up and stop wasting all the knowledge we have.

Bruni states he "fervently hopes" that the GOP leadership, now that they're in a governing position, starts "to show more respect for science." Perhaps he hasn't read much about Senator-elect Joni Ernst, the likeliest senator to make the first statement as anti-science as Paul Broun's infamous "straight from the pit of hell" rant. And wait 'til Boehner starts putting some of the new Tea Party superstars on the Science Committee to take the place of the departing kooks like Broun and Stockman-- lunatic fringe ideologues like Mark Walker (R-NC), Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Jody Hice (R-GA), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Dave Brat (R-VA), Mike Bost (R-IL), Ken Buck (R-CO), David Young (R-IA), Bruce Poliquin (R-ME)...