It won't come as a surprise to anyone here that the party of climate-change denialists on the grounds that God told Noah that He wouldn't destroy the world again isn't big on science.
It won't come as a surprise to anyone here that the party that opposes stem-cell research extracting stem cells from lab-grown specimens that will be destroyed anyway isn't big on science.
But I have to say that even I, a frequent user of the phrase anti-science is pro-stupid, have found myself surprised at just how stark the situation is. Science is, apparently, not something the Republicans get.
From Slate:
A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation.
This immense imbalance has political consequences. When President Obama appears Wednesday on Discovery Channel's Mythbusters (9 p.m. ET), he will be there not just to encourage youngsters to do their science homework but also to reinforce the idea that Democrats are the party of science and rationality. And why not? Most scientists are already on his side. Imagine if George W. Bush had tried such a stunt—every major newspaper in the country would have run an op-ed piece by some Nobel Prize winner asking how the guy who prohibited stem-cell research and denied climate change could have the gall to appear on a program that extols the power of scientific thinking.
If your jaw just slapped against your desk, I understand why. Six percent?!
We really are the members of the reality-based community, aren't we?
I can't get over this bit of wisdom from Sherri Shepherd, of The View:
I keep thinking of Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, a stubbornly fact-resistant man who thinks Global Climate Change is some sort of hoax cooked up by liberal scientists.
And Rush Limburger Limbaugh, who has claimed for years that the hole in the ozone layer was some sort of liberal NASA science hoax.
A big shout-out to KingOneEye, whose diary on a poll showing just how misinformed Fox News viewers are is a related must-read.
All in all, I find it frightening, frankly; how does this scale of just-plain-stupid fester and grow to this point? And why are we giving people like Shepherd and Inhofe platforms from which to spread the stupid?
Horrifying.