Friday, November 29, 2013

Global warming deniers and creationists join forces, while scientists around the world bang their heads on their desk in unison.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

All across the country—most recently, in the state of Texas—local battles over the teaching of evolution are taking on a new complexion. More and more, it isn't just evolution under attack, it's also the teaching of climate science. The National Center for Science Education, the leading group defending the teaching of evolution across the country, has even broadened its portfolio: Now, it protects climate education too. 

How did these issues get wrapped up together? On its face, there isn't a clear reason—other than a marriage of convenience—why attacks on evolution and attacks on climate change ought to travel side by side. After all, we know why people deny evolution: Religion, especially the fundamentalist kind. 

And we know why people deny global warming: Free market ideology and libertarianism. These are not, last I checked, the same thing. (If anything, libertarians may be the most religiously skeptical group on the political right.) And yet clearly there's a relationship between the two issue stances. 

Indeed, recent research suggests that Christian "end times" believers are less likely to see a need for action on global warming. 

And now new research by Yale's Dan Kahan further reaffirms that there's something going on here. More specifically, Kahan showed that there is a correlation (.25, which is weak to modest, but significant) between a person's religiosity and his or her tendency to think that global warming isn't much of a risk. Perhaps even more tellingly, Kahan also found that among highly religious individuals, as their ability to comprehend science increases, so does their denial of the risk posed by global warming. 

"I have to say, those effects are bigger than I would have expected," wrote Kahan of his findings. The researcher went on to say that he isn't sure why greater religiosity predicts greater denial of climate change. But in his data—with a representative sample of over 2,000 Americans—it clearly does.

The article goes on to give a couple of reasons as to WHY they think these two seemingly disparate subjects have become connected in  the minds of many religious Americans, and in the policies put forward by their conservative representatives in Washington.

However I have to say that the first time that I became aware of it was while watching the movie "Jesus Camp."

Frightening, isn't it? In the minds of these religious conservatives secular education is bad, and is simply an attempt by the non-religious to brainwash their children. And ANYTHING that is stressed as dangerous by scientists MUST, by definition, be false and should be rejected outright.

Besides how can the earth become dangerous for humans when God created it especially for them?


21 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:49 AM

    Just show you there is a whole lot of stupid out there. The thing I find odd is evangelicals don't believe in climate change, but will continue destroy a planet their god created. That is an odd way to say thanks for their existance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:59 AM

    On the video, do you see the picture of Bush on the refrigerator.. this is the same guy god told to invade Iraq. Same old g'damn religious wars that never get anywhere except for soldiers and innocent civilians dying for a cause that doesn't exist except in the minds of those profitting from religion and military weaponry.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:08 AM

    It's so arrogant for us to think we can wipe out God given diseases like small pox and polio... oh wait, we did that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:20 AM

      oh wait, we did that!

      Not entirely. See "Israel's Silent Polio Epidemic Breaks All the Rules" in the 8 November 2013 issue of Science. You can view it at http://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/8_november_2013?pg=19#pg19

      The first positive sample was detected on 29 May, isolated from sewage in Rahat, a Bedouin community in the south of Israel. Next came a sample from Beer Sheva, a larger southern city that also has a sizable Bedouin population. By July, 30 environmental samples had tested positive, and it was clear that 25 years after it had been dispatched, wild poliovirus was back in Israel and spreading fast.

      … Polio outbreaks are raging nearby in Pakistan and war-torn Syria. But in developed, prosperous Israel, no one saw this coming.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9:50 AM

      Ted, it's also known as population control. Kill the other and more land for your kind. The thing is that type of biological warfare (and blockages keeping vital vaccines out of areas they are need in are just that) can bite your own kind in the ass.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:22 AM

      Ted, it's also known as population control. …

      I don't think you've read the linked article.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous7:28 AM

    From Twitter: Kevin Mitchell ‏@WiringTheBrain
    SFI officer: "For those wishing to do pure basic research I’m sure there are plenty of European countries who’d be happy to host them"

    Who's number 1?

    ReplyDelete
  5. hedgewytch8:10 AM

    I think America is finally having enough of these Tea Party Evangelicals. Yes, they are loud. But they ARE a minority. As we have more super storms devastating communities, people are starting to say "oh shit"! Evangelicals in my community are more and more being discounted and laughed at, and this is a hard core Russian Orthodox community- and they believe in climate change, probably because it is a native community and they KNOW the climate is vastly different.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:49 AM

      As with everything else, it suddenly becomes important and real when it affects them personally. As more people around the country, but especially in the more conservative midwest and south, experience the destruction of these increasingly devastating weather events, they will begin to believe that there is definitely something changing our climate.

      It's much harder to maintain the belief that climate change is a big liberal government hoax and that God will take care of the faithful when your entire town is reduced to splinters.

      Delete
  6. Yes, I understand that some home-schooled adults have gone to Harvard.

    Yes, I understnd that some home schooling parents are intelligent and qualified to educate.

    But statistically, I will never be on DWTS, although I COULD be.

    And statistically, I regard the vast majority of home schooling as child abuse.

    I don't understand why we don't require attendance at a school--subject to a 25 page application for a one year exemption.

    And in the best of circumstances--and this is again my personal viewpoint--home schooling parents are over invested in their children.

    And knowing how hard it can be to challenge a teacher, I cringe at the difficulty of challenging a teacher-parent.

    Apparently we can't be trusted to choose not to have a child. But once we breed, it's OK to ignore their needs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:56 AM

      For some families, homeschooling is a matter of safety or geographical distance, and I can understand the decision they are essentially forced to make. Hopefully, they also make the extraordinary effort to provide a comprehensive and developmentally appropriate curriculum to their children. And hopefully they are capable of teaching that curriculum.

      However, as someone who has worked for 15 years in the public school system, I cringe at what far too many homeschooling families are producing. We cannot force families to send their children to public or private school, but there should be far stricter regulations and accountability for those who educate their children at home.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9:59 AM

      Their kids will literally be left behind and the parents, or most likely our tax dollars, will house, feed and clothe them. They will live a substandard existence beholden to others because they are unemployable.

      Romney liked to talk about the 47% that receive assistance and I guarantee you a large portion of this 47% are on public assistance because they received a substandard homeschool religious "education".

      It's sick, to set your child up for failure by teaching them fairy tales rather than educating them.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:40 AM

      9:59-
      This is exactly the kind of situation that corporatists like the Kochs want. Produce another generation of people so poorly educated and unskilled that they are desperate enough to take ANY job, regardless of the circumstances or wages.

      Slavery was made illegal many years ago, but they're trying to get as close to it as the law will allow. And when the laws keep them from their goals, they buy off a few more legislators to change those laws.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous9:17 AM

    IMPEACH OBAMA
    SAVE OUR COUNTRY

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:09 AM

      Call your doc, your meds have expired.

      Delete
    2. CUT AND PASTE
      CUT AND PASTE

      Lather, rinse, repeat.

      Does it hurt your head being a brain dead traitor?

      ALL CAPS is not going to make your comments smarter or truer. You are still a moron and a traitor. And we will not let you have our country.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous10:27 AM

    The Jesus Camp video shows global warming being laughed off because it's a 'belief' while 'belief' in the bible...and a very particular interpretation of the bible...is unquestionably embraced. Yea, logic!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This degree of ignorance makes my skin crawl. I honestly believe these Christians are trying to usher the world into another "dark age" when learning and reason pretty much vanished. That child is being brainwashed...good luck in him ever developing any kind of critical thinking skills....but as long as he believes in Jesus he is covered...

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  10. Anonymous4:44 PM

    I honestly could not watch the entire video. To me? Child abuse via indoctrination. Very sad.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous6:22 PM

    I wonder if these morons will call climate change and the resultant chaos the "tribulation".......it will indeed be apocalyptic......but certainly not in the sense they hope for.....

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous7:06 PM

    Science proves nothing... really mom, how about medicine which is where the medication you obviously quit using comes from.
    My favorite part is how the kid doesn't seem to be buying the bs his mommy is trying to feed him...

    ReplyDelete

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