Archive for February 2009
Why Can’t The GOP Answer Questions Like This?
When Dogma Poses as Rationalism
Charles is one of my favorite conservative bloggers simply because he and the community he has built at Little Green Footballs have such a savvy style about them. These are the people who exposed Dan Rather for the fraud he is, after all.
But lately Charles and company have been on a jihad of their own against intelligent design (Creationism.) I’m an agnostic / atheist myself and I consider the whole premise of ID to be simple theology posing as science. It’s laughable.
However, there is a large, large number of people who still believe in Creationism, and as Charles revealed this week three of them happen to be popular GOP governors Mark Sanford, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal – all of whom are considered potential Republican frontrunners for 2012. LGF’s take seems to be that the instant you have a politician who publicly expresses support for Creationism in any form, then they are no longer a viable candidates in the GOP and must be removed from contention. Their empirical evidence supporting this theory? The number of Google search results for “sarah palin creationism.”
In sum of all things responsible for the downfall of the McCain/Palin ticket, I would put “collapse of the economy under incumbent president of same party” as the 90% factor, media portrayal of Sarah Palin’s intellect and experience as a 9% factor, and everything else, including Sarah’s devout religious beliefs, in some minute category comprising the remaining 1%. But then again, that’s just my opinion.
Charles and company couch their resistance to Creationism as an intellectual/rationalist effort to combat pseudo-science being taught in schools, a completely understandable movement given that the vast majority of Americans believe in Creationism over Evolution. However, in the spectrum of political issues that plague this country, Creationism in schools is a minor one – if you want to see some pseudo-science in schools that’s actually harmful then see what our nation’s teachers are preaching about climate change and “social economics.”
So why the fuss over whether or not prominent GOP governors are Creationist? Why should the GOP cut its nose off despite its face by taking the three most viable candidates for 2012/2016, four most if you count Sarah Palin, out of contention simply because of some belief that by and large most Americans agree with?
My Theory: Charles, Allahpundit, and a slew of other conservative bloggers who rightly regard Evolution as the currently accepted theory of the origin of humanity are personally embarassed by being associated with Creationism.
These people are “rationalists” supposedly, yet they haven’t produced a single shred of hard evidence that Creationism is a major factor that can ruin the chances of otherwise fantastic candidates.
They haven’t set up any repeatable experiments where they have been able to conclusively state that “Creationism” is the specific, isolated factor that caused one candidate to lose.
They haven’t even produced any political science data which indicates that belief in Creationism is a significant negative for any candidate.
All they have done is equate Creationism with defeat, without any correlating evidence aside from anecdotes, and doggedly decried any GOP candidate who dared express a belief about the origins of humanity that wasn’t firmly in lockstep with their own.
I can only conclude that the jihad that LGF and others are waging against Creationist candidates isn’t one rooted in rational thought, but rather one waged out of personal embarassment to have to defend and associate themselves with these people. Scientists don’t wage crusades – they try to argue and persuade; they don’t shut the door on any debate, as the LGFers have, and say “nope, our theory is right yours is wrong it shall not be discussed hence forth you are wrong goodbye.” That’s what Dogmatists do, and that’s what Charles and Company are – they are dogmatists.
I love reading Little Green Footballs, but they’re so far off the reservation now that they actually want Hot Air to ban Creationists. Open debate and free exchange of ideas, even if one idea is considered to be an unsupported theory in the eyes of science, should be the highest conservative value and these people are so personally aggrieved by Creationism that they are willing to put that value aside just to wipe it out.
So shame on them for masquerading as rationalists when really, they’re just as dogmatic and close-minded as the Creationists they hate so very much are.
