#34283: — 08/08  at  11:35 AM
Ken Miller (I heard him Open Source, here: http://www.radioopensource.org/index.php?s=Miller) says that natural selection (or evolution, I don't remember) is emphatically republican, because it doesn't relies on centralize control as liberals do. I found the argument pretty silly, coming from Miller. Any ideas as to why this position?

Marco

#34284: notheory — 08/08  at  12:01 PM
I've been wondering more and more frequently if what evolution needs is a slight of hand PR rebirth. Evolutionary sciences stand on their own, constant references to Darwin make it seem as if evolution all returns to a single choke point, in which are wrapped up social darwinism, messy history of science and the absence of noting the consensus around evolution.

The other major problem is the association between atheism and evolution. And sorry to say PZ, you're not helping, because you are not ashamed to say you're an atheist (and good for you!). What we're engaging in here, and the game the IDCers play is all PR. It's all about the associations that people jump to, and short of the US school system being rescued from the depths it's dropping to, rational dialogue is going to be eschewed to the rantings of demagogues.

The creationists have attempted to remake themselves, why can't (or shouldn't) we?

#34286: — 08/08  at  12:14 PM

However, the idea that evolution is more compatible with
conservative
principles than liberal ones I'd disagree withscience and evolution are
about change, and that does make many conservatives cranky. It's also
about explanations of the world, which puts religious dogmatists on edge.

Those arguments go way, way beyond the science of evolution. Pretty much
all of academia contains something that makes conservatives cranky,
or puts biblical literalists on edge. In a nutshell, I think this is
because conservatism tries to preserve the imagined upright, enterprising
utopia of days gone by; academia, which favors reality over imagination,
often finds that that past never existed, cannot be attained, and if
attained would suck. Replace "...of days gone by" with "...depicted in a
the Bible" and you've got modern fundamentalism. The whole reality-based community is under attack for one thing or another.

- Historians have studied the historical Jesus, the authorship of the
Bible, early Christian history, etc., and the truth is chock-full of
heresies. History itself is also a long, long account of the victories of
progressivism over conservatism: the Enlightenment, American independence,
the fall of slavery, women's rights, civil rights. Conservatives gripe
about honest depictions of the Civil War, the internment of
Japanese-Americans, Vietnam, and even Watergate, in high school history
classes. Remember when the Smithsonian tried to mount a
less-than-lionizing exhibit on the Enola Gay?

- English classes are regularly attacked for the smallest hint of heresy,
sexuality, or liberal thought. The American Library Association's banned
book list contains, in addition to every "dealing with adolescence"
young-adult novel you've ever heard of, "Arming America: The Origins of a
National Gun Culture" by Michael A. Bellesiles.

- Sociology and anthropology are anathema to many conservatives, who think
that Adam Smith had the first and the last word about human interaction.
It outrages moralists when it studies, for example, the real-world success
of same-sex parents, or the ineffectiveness of imprisoning drug addicts.

- Medicine abets immorality. Doctors invented the Pill and the condom;
they develop therapies from embryonic stem cells; they dispute the idea
that prayer heals illness; they treat AIDS as a disease, not
as a divine retribution or a rational disincentive.

- Art and music don't have many conservative friends. Conservatives hate
funding them. Moralists hate the fact that sexuality is included under
the umbrella of free expression.

- Many other sciences---astrophysics, geology, Earth science,
ecology---contradict some conservative or religious dogma: global
warming, the finitude of oil reserves, environmental protection issues;
the age of the Universe, the age of the Earth. I can't think of anything
offensive about chemistry or math, though.

In a way, biologists are lucky; the debate is very visible, and it's being conducted on points of fact. Other academics are losing fuzzier challenges out of the public view.

#34291: — 08/08  at  12:47 PM

Art and music don't have many conservative friends. Conservatives hate funding them.

Conservatives hate funding them anonymously through tax dollars. Buying the right to put your name on a concert hall is a different story though.

It is true enough that there are good and sensible Christians and Republicans...

These days, anyone who is good and sensible should be having second thoughts about calling themselves 'Republican', as Bush & Co. turn the GOP into the party of treason and torture.

#34313: ekzept — 08/08  at  04:03 PM
y'know, in all this ID creationism discussion and froth, it's interesting that the ID and creationist side completely ignore the portion of American history devoted to Social Darwinism. it is particularly interesting how that philosophy was used to justify predatory market behavior, robber barons, and the rise of modern corporations. it is even more interesting that the so-called "christian Darwinists" are not even imagined. these were folks who accepted "Darwinism" as a feature of natural science -- for what reasonable person could doubt that? -- but who were repelled by what they considered to be its misinterpretation by Social Darwinists. essentially, the christian Darwinists argued a role for altruism in opposition to the simplistic "tooth and claw" view of Social Darwinists.

#34327: Jim Flannery — 08/08  at  04:48 PM
Story on the Front page of today's San Francisco Chronicle.

#34359: — 08/08  at  06:33 PM
my take on the republican/darwinism economic position has always related to the fact that darwin recognized that natural selection was adam smiths laissez faire economics translated to nature. each independant buisinessman/organism working to maximize his profits/reproductive success will as an unintended side-consequence of this activity with no directing controls from above(intrusive government/god) produce the most organized economy/ecosystem with the most total benefit for all. remember that it wasnt too far in the past that the republican party primarily was the political backbone of small independant buisnesspeople. only recently has it fully mutated into something that i cant recognize.

#34415: — 08/08  at  10:26 PM

Ben M:
I can't think of anything offensive about chemistry or math, though.

For the former, there seems to be something deeply unacceptable about self forming complex compounds to creationists, many engineers and one knightly physicist alike. For the latter, legitimate statistical studies seem antithetical to many politicians, ad campaigns and lobby groups.

-Schmitt.

#34439: — 08/09  at  01:01 AM
i'd like to see a phasing out of the descriptor "pseudoscience" when referring to ID. while i know folks are intending condescension with it, it seems to me to be just enough of a foot-in-the-door qualifier to give it some weight among our parse-challenged friends in government. i'd prefer we started labelling it something along the lines of "ID, the nonscience". faux-science isn't bad either.

#34464: ThomH — 08/09  at  08:24 AM
When we look the evidence--from funders to political endorsements--the current crusade against evolution in particular and other science in general comes largely from those on the Right.

Fair enough. But defending science should not be a "liberal" cause. Anymore than science itself has a political text for truth.

I just hope that when the political tides shift--and soon I would hope, that some of the new-found friends of science remain friends.

Evolutionary theory doesn't exactly support the Democratic party platform either. But let's hope that more people in general recognise the value of good science and science education.

#34479: notheory — 08/09  at  09:56 AM
<blockquote>But defending science should not be a "liberal" cause. Anymore than science itself has a political text for truth.</quote>

Not true. Such a comment displays an utter disregard for the history and sociology of science. Reality surely has no preference for human politics (although one might make the case that nature does), however science is a human endeavor, and as such most certainly does have social and political preconditions in order to function. This is why it is claimed that development requires freedom, and why nations from Iran to the US of A do their best to control the freedom of information. Sociologically, the States has had a deep-seated and intractable anti-intellectualist movement, and that is primary problem that faces science and science education here. The battle against literal bible creationists is merely a single campaign in a larger war.

#34480: notheory — 08/09  at  09:57 AM
bah, must use preview before posting :|