Helping “Conservatives” understand Science

Recently in a conversation with a self-proclaimed conservative about global climate change I was told that numbers can say anything, that there is no consensus on global climate change and its connection to man’s activities.  It was explained to me that numbers can be audited to get at the truth of things.  So I asked to be pointed to one audit in a credible scientific journal that proved that global climate change was the hoax he and other conservatives claim it to be.  The reply I got back was the typical whoa, you mean an audit in those liberal environmental whacko sources.

This of course made no sense, there is a well established process by which science works and is published through peer-reviewed journals.  You basically could say science gets “audited” before it is even published.  Of course no audit system is perfect and occasionally we find errors in this process.  The way these errors are caught is that science demands that experimental data be replicable.  An example, if you publish a paper and claim you have a process for producing energy via cold fusion, your data may look good enough to get you published.  However, when no one, following the process you outlined, can replicate your results you quickly get doubted and then discredited in the scientific community.

So why did I get such a disjointed reply?  I was confused for a bit then it dawned on me, conservatives don’t understand science or the scientific method because it is so foreign to the way they have been indoctrinated to think.   So I thought I would take a minute tonight to help them out, you know, the sort of thing I learned we should do under the philosophy of compassionate conservatism espoused by a former conservative president.

Science is a system of inquiry by which people ask questions about the world around them.   You look at some phenomena and you take an educated guess about what’s going on.  Under the scientific method  you then construct an experiment to gather data, and then analyze the data to see what rational conclusions you can draw from that data.  So far I think all of you on the right are with me, but hang on, this is where the right turn comes.   You do all of this without having pre-determined the answer, you actually look at the data objectively as opposed to looking at it to make sure it fits the requirements of a particular, let’s say as an example conservative ideology.

Many times the conclusions we draw from experiments in science provide us results in directions we never even expected in the first place and that’s when science gets exciting for us, because it provides so many more questions.   For this very reason much of science is funded by public institutions and governments.  Why is that?  Well the fact is when private companies do research they have limited acceptable answers.  For example, if you’re a tobacco company and doing experiments to see if smoking causes lung cancer and your results suggest it does, then you can’t use that work because it goes against your dominant paradigm that suggests smoking is not harmful.  This is considered very bad science by cigarette companies, but a good conservative capitalistic process.

Conservatives have been taught to “think” by the leaders of their movement like Limbaugh, Bush, Cheney, Fox News and Rove that answers that don’t fit their dominant paradigm, conservatism, cannot possibly be correct so those conclusions must be based on faulty data or conclusions.  Not surprisingly, if the same process produced answers in support of the dominant paradigm, the data, analysis and conclusions are of course beyond reproach.  It’s a hypocritical position without a logical foundation but that is a fundamental characteristic of all “isms.”

You see conservatism isn’t alone in this flaw; it applies to liberalism, capitalism, socialism, environmentalism, etc…  It also applies to any extreme position in any belief system or religion.  It is this type of thinking that led to decades of denial that smoking was harmful, to wars like Vietnam or the invasion of Iraq.

I’m not advocating that science should be our sole philosophy or that scientists should run the world.  However I believe we’d be in much better shape if our government, the public, our political talking heads and media would take the time to develop a better understanding of the scientific method and critical thinking in general, it’s a dream I have.

Let’s recall the current Miss America

Apparently it wasn’t too cold on stage!!

 

The current Miss AMERICA, Molly Hagan recently told newspapers that she’s probably going to decline on attending the inauguration of the President of the United States of AMERICA because it will be too cold.   The really amazing thing here is that she’s Miss New York, you know that tropical zone where in winter it is so much warmer than it is in Washington, DC.  Oh wait, that’s right, no it’s not!!!!  The temperatures are expected to be cold, in the 30’s a pretty typical temperature for New York this time of year.

What I want to know is where are all of my conservative friends on this issue?  Why isn’t Fox News screaming from the high heavens about Miss AMERICA not willing to attend the inauguration because it will be cold out?  I wonder, were this a Republican administration would they all be so quiet or would she be branded a liberal socialist?  No matter what your political persuasion, how is this anything but insulting and quite frankly un-American.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s a beauty queen, few of the former Miss Americas have been all that impressive, but come on, your title is Miss America, what else don’t we know about her, does Miss New York not like cheesecake, bagels, pizza?  Seriously, if she doesn’t like pizza her and I are going to have a serious problem.

Ok, so before one of you knuckle-heads chimes in with, but she grew up in Alabama let me warn you against that argument.  You see we might draw another conclusion about her reasons should we start exploring her Alabama roots, but then again, suggesting she might be racist, WOULD actually bring out the ire of all of my conservative friends and FOX News would be all over that idea.

Miss AMERICA, go to the damn inauguration and post a picture of you eating a slice!

Gay Marriage, Don’t be on the Wrong Side of History

Gay Marriage, Don’t be on the Wrong Side of History

Today, North Carolina became the 30^th state in the supposedly most exceptional and most free country in the world to ban marriage for same-sex partners.

The fact is that America has been here before; in the early 1960’s 41 states had laws banning marriage between races.  In 1967, 16 states still had these laws on the books.  I’m sure that the people in those former 41 states truly believed they were right and that God was on their side in prohibiting inter-racial marriage.  That in fact they were protecting traditional marriage as it was intended to be, that marriage should only be between two people of the same race as it would be unnatural for marriage to occur between races. 

Today, except for an attempt by a church in KY recently, people generally see the stupidity of the idea that two people of different races shouldn’t be allowed to be married.  Oh, I’m sure some racist bastards out there still believe this, but generally society has come to realize this prohibition was absurd.  Like people often say, hindsight is 20/20. 

My hope for you today is for you to realize that five, or ten, or twenty years from now people will think the same damn thing about the opposition to same-sex marriage and the ridiculous argument that gay marriage somehow threatens the validity of a marriage for heterosexual couples anywhere.  That somehow allowing same-sex couples to marry will lead to people marrying animals or inanimate objects, this is just ridiculous.  I don’t want you to have to lie in the future when your grandkids ask you what side of this issue you were on.  I want you to proudly look at them and say I supported gay marriage because it was the right thing to do, because two people who love each other should always have had that right.

I leave you with the words of Mildred Loving, the wife in the case that helped eradicate the idiocy, the injustice of the ban against interracial marriage.

“My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.”

“Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.”

“I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

Mildred Loving died in May of 2008.

Why Fox News and conservatives think women are stupid and lazy

The logic of conservatives forces them to think women are less intelligent and lazier than men

Recently a piece in CNN by Nina Easton of Fortune magazine puts forward all too common refrain of conservatives and their network Fox News.  This is the idea that people who are upset about the wealth gap in America and the greed of the 1% are just jealous, whiney, losers.  You see from their perspective, the reason people are rich is that they are smarter and better than the rest of us and just plain work harder.  You see to conservatives the idea that they are not better than others and morally superior is unfathomable.  There is no luck involved, where you start out in life is irrelevant, they can’t conceive that America might actually be a country that does more to support and maintain the wealthy than to support the basic living standards of the poor or provide opportunities to the poor and middle class.

See considering that America might not be the most perfect nation ever created or conceived of violates another core conservative principle, that of American Exceptionalism.  You see according to conservatives there is something uniquely and inherently special about the United States of America.  This is fact is actually code for America is God’s chosen nation and that of course would be a Christian Protestant God.

However, these underlying principles of conservatism deny many very real facts about America.  I think the biggest one involves healthcare.  If America as conservatives claim has the greatest medical system on earth, if Americans are so special, than why do we have such a horrible infant mortality rate in this country?  We have the 28^th lowest infant mortality rate and that is behind countries like:  South Korea, France, Japan, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and even Cuba.  That’s right the United States ranks behind, non-Christian countries, socialist leaning countries, countries with socialized medicine and even communist Cuba.

Back to Nina Easton’s article, if the reason the rich make more money than the rest of us is that they are smarter and work harder, how do conservatives explain that women make 77% of what men make?  Well, let’s use typical conservative logic, since you make more if you work harder and are smarter, I guess that conservatives must believe that compared to men, women are lazy and less intelligent.  Can’t imagine why the GOP struggles to get a majority of the women’s vote.

 

Fox News lies too much for Canada

Fox News lies too much for Canada

I was sitting yesterday at a conference listening to a speaker and was surprised to hear her assert that given Canadian law Fox News can’t broadcast from Canada.  Why?  Because they tell too many lies.  So I set out today to explore this issue a little bit and really was shocked to find out, she was telling the truth.  According to the Huffington Post, there is a push in Canada by the conservative minded Prime Minister to repeal a provision in the Canadian Broadcasting regulations that ban networks or shows that broadcast any false or misleading news.

It is this law that has kept Fox News from being able to broadcast from Canada, this doesn’t prevent Fox News from beaming a signal into Canada, but they can’t broadcast within Canada.  For all of those people who believe Fox News is fair and balanced guess again, not so fair, not so balanced, not so honest  and not broadcasting from Florida because of it.  Spin that O’Reilly!

Fun Friday: Rick Santorum quotes

Fun Friday: Rick Santorum quotes

So the psychobilly nutjob Olympics, also known as the GOP presidential primary is down to a two man race.  So I figured for fun Friday I’d give you a deeper look at one of the men at the top, former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.

 

First of course, if you haven’t before, check out the Urban Dictionary entry for Santorum

 

On contraception:

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country…. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” –Rick Santorum

 

The best part of this quote on education is that the speech made by Obama actually suggested the exact same thing Mr. Frothy suggested:

 ”President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob … Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.” –Rick Santorum, speaking to a Tea Party group in Michigan (February 2012)

 

On the speech JFK made to show why Catholic’s like Santorum should be considered for president:

“Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.” –Rick Santorum, on JFK’s 1960 speech about the importance of separation of church and state (October 2011)

 

Uhhhh Whaaat??

“The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person — human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, ‘We’re going to decide who are people and who are not people.’” —Rick Santorum, CNS News interview (January 2011)

 

Maybe Rick should take a history class from Professor Gingrich

“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. … What I’m talking about is onward American soldiers. What we’re talking about are core American values.” –Rick Santorum, campaigning for president in South Carolina (February 2011)

Screw global climate change, conservative Republicans sign this!

Screw global climate change, conservative Republicans sign this!

As a scientist it drives me crazy that science seems to have taken a back seat to misrepresentation in the media. Essentially today if someone has media access and can say enough times this is false, then people will believe it, after all, it’s on television. This is particularly true of both evolution and climate change. Both concepts are overwhelmingly accepted by science yet if you were to listen to conservative talk radio, Fox News or even the main stream media you’d think both of these concepts were radical new ideas that only a small percentage of scientists supported. Ironically in Europe, you know all of those countries we seem to feel so superior too, these concepts are broadly accepted. This is another nod to the fact that America is one of the more religious and uptight countries on earth.

No place is the idea of repetitive bullshit being treated as fact more apparent than on the presidential campaign trail. If you say your opponent is soft on crime, fiscally irresponsible, unsupportive of the military, in a cult, etc… and you say it enough times, it becomes the truth. On the subject of global climate change the current crop of Republican presidential candidates keep hammering on how climate change is bullshit, how they believe the concept is only fear mongering on the part of liberals who want to ruin the economy.

I would ask those people to go and talk to the people on the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea who are having to leave their island home due to global sea rise as a result of global climate, there is a really fascinating documentary about this called, Sun Come Up check it out. But hey, they’re not Americans so who cares, no one in Boca Raton has had to move, and so everything must be fine.

While thinking about this the other day I’ve come up with an idea. The Republicans are very fond of signing pledges that they won’t raise taxes, inconvenience rich people or allow homosexuals to be treated like humans, so I have another one for them. If they think global climate change is such crap then sign the following pledge:

I {insert the change of your favorite conservative climate change denier} do pledge that I am so unbelievable sure that global climate change is a crock, that if it turns out to not be, I hereby pledge that my descendants will accept financial liability for any and all global climate change related financial impacts, including housing any and all climate change refugees with said descendants.

So screw global climate change, Republicans sign this!

 

 

Today is a very sad day, the American Dream is dead

Today is a very sad day, the American Dream is dead.

So today at work I found out that a 30+ year employee of the college had died, her name was Cleone.  She was the prototypical lunch lady in many ways and worked as a cashier in the cafeteria.  She was older, probably in her 60’s and worked hard for what little she was making in her job.  She was a very nice woman, although she routinely put up with a lot of lip from students, staff and faculty she kept a generally positive attitude. 

I usually buy breakfast at the cafeteria on Thursdays and she would be working the register, we’d stop and chat for a time and we always made each other laugh.  Hell, occasionally she’d even cut me a break on the price of my breakfast burrito.  She was a nice person; it makes me sad to know she won’t be there this Thursday morning.

What makes me even sadder is the realization of how many people in this country, like Cleone, work right up until the day they die.  Good people, hard-working people who cannot afford to retire because of the realities of the costs of housing and health care.  The American Dream is dead, we were told when we were young that we could be anything we want.  We were shown a model where you go to school, get good grades and work hard and you’ll be rewarded.  Your company will give you a gold watch and a nice retirement check, you’ll be able to take cruises or go fishing, Social Security and will make up the difference.  You’ll be taken care of in old age between Medicaid and your retirement benefits. 

Conservative commentators like to tell us that the reason people like Cleone are in the position they are in is because they just didn’t work hard enough, or weren’t motivated enough.  If you believe them, anyone with wealth in this country is essentially just better than those who haven’t achieved it.  There are no twists of fate or unfortunate circumstances, if you work hard you win, if not you lose.  Bullshit to that, my buddy Cleone worked hard and she lost, the asshole commentators in their suits and ridiculous hair are not better than her, or you, or me, do you hear that Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck.

The dream is dead and Cleone is just one of the first wave, there are a lot of baby boomers who will make out fine, but my generation, many of the people I grew up with are heading for Cleone’s fate, hell, I may be heading for Cleone’s fate, like I said when I started, it’s a sad day today.

Congress don’t raise the debt ceiling!

Congress don’t raise the debt ceiling!

Congress, don’t raise the debt ceiling, seriously let the United States default on our debts, watch the stock market crash, watch more people end up out of work, and watch interest rates rise.  The reason I want this to happen is that people don’t really pay attention to anything unless it hits them in the pocketbook or the wallet. 

Global warming won’t be real until it costs people money, the utter stupidity of a fossil fuel economy didn’t even cross most people’s minds until gasoline hit $4.00 a gallon, a level we’re unfortunately getting very comfortable with.  And so, the debt ceiling won’t mean anything until it goes boom and people are suddenly less able to retire, or their adjustable rate mortgage jumps up a couple of points.

Maybe, if congress lets us down on this issue to the point that our collective and individual bottom lines suffer then maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally understand that in America there is just one political party, the re-election party.  Jokers wearing elephant lapel pins can’t possibly vote for tax increases and jokers with jackass pins can’t possibly cut any entitlements because they are afraid their base will desert them and they won’t get re-elected, which of course is the sole reason they are in office.

I consistently hear politicians, especially conservatives, and idiot commentators like Sean Hannity talk about the debt in terms of personal finance.  They are always saying if you are out of money you can’t print up more, you have to cut back.  Well you damn fools, when people are truly broke they don’t just cut back on spending, they often also go out and get a second job.  You see ordinary everyday people are smart enough to understand that in order to solve a debt problem you have to decrease spending AND raise revenues. 

So the hell with the debt ceiling let it all crash and then maybe just maybe we can finally start getting rid of these bums and actually put somebody from something other than the re-election party into office.

 

Muslim radicalization hearings or state sponsored bigotry?

Republican Peter King of New York, and today I’m ashamed of the New Yorkers who voted him into office,  in a bit of political grand standing, meant I’m sure to solidify his “conservative” credentials, is holding hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims. 

Now let’s look at those two words, American Muslims, so Americans are being investigated for their religious beliefs.  I believe they tried this in Spain once, it was called the inquisition.  By what right does our government have to investigate a whole religion of people based upon the acts of several individuals?  And I don’t want to hear the nonsense some conservatives spout about how Islam is a violent religion, read the Christian Bible then read the Koran, there is a lot of overlap and a whole lot of violence in both books.  As a matter of fact if you made a movie using the literal stories in the Christian Bible it would have to be rated NC-17 due to violence, sexual situations and rape.  Yet Christianity is considered by conservatives to be the peaceful and “right” religion and Islam is violent and wrong. 

There are radicals in every religion; I’ll bet Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph were all Christians, so why aren’t we having hearings on the radicalization of Christianity.  Hell American Muslims haven’t actually killed anyone but these white Christians did?  Oh that’s right, they are white Christians so they can act as individuals, but brown people who are Muslims are incapable of individual thought, at least that is what these hearings suggest.

Peter King you should be ashamed of yourself and your state sponsored bigotry.