Not a Scientist

According to Dave Levitan, author of Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science, it was Ronald Reagan who first used the phrase “I’m not a scientist, but...” and then proceed to make outrageously false statements that were easily disproved by scientific evidence. The plague of false statements has proliferated until now politicians, almost all of them Republicans, seem to feel obligated to tell lies and pretend that they are being scientific in doing so.

Politicians, like most other people, can be forgiven for not understanding science. It can sometimes be very complex. But what any reasonable non-scientist would do is to trust scientists to understand science. It is reasonable for politicians and others to demand to see some evidence, and I think scientists are obligated to provide evidence. I present evidence to my students and readers all the time. But once this is done, the non-scientists should at least acknowledge that the evidence has been presented. It would really, really, really bother me if I made a statement outside my field of expertise, only to discover that 99.9 percent of the experts disagreed with it. But this never seems to bother Republicans.

Levitan goes through lots of examples of Republican politicians lying and trying to cover it up with the appearance of scientific fact. He classifies the examples into a small set of patterns. I mention just six of them.

One of these patterns is cherry-picking. In global warming, a Republican can pick the warmest year in the 1980s and the coldest year in the 2000s and point out that the temperatures are not very different—deliberately ignoring the fact that all the other 1980s temperatures were cooler and all the other 2000s temperatures were warmer. It’s like finding a seven-foot-tall giantess and a four-foot tall male dwarf and saying that women are three feet taller than men.

Another pattern is to ignore the follow-up. For a while, the so-called Climategate scandal circulated around the conservative pseudo-media. When the news first came out, there was the possibility it might have been true. Subsequent investigations have shown, however, that there was no scandal at all. But Republicans still talk about it as if it is true.

Yet another pattern is to praise scientists and then, behind their backs, undermine them. Many Republican representatives have praised NASA then said that NASA’s climate data are false.

Yet another pattern is for the politicians to claim that if we do not know everything about a subject, then we know nothing about it. Republicans demand absolute certainty about every aspect of climate science—every ocean current, every glacier, every local slight variation of temperature—or else we can say nothing at all about climate science. This is, of course, hypocritical, because these same Republicans make statements about things regarding which uncertainty remains, in fact, they make stuff up without any evidence at all.

Yet another pattern is for Republicans to make fun of anything they do not understand. Following the lead of Sarah Palin, they love to make fun of biologists who study fruit flies. What Republicans deliberately ignore is that fruit flies have many of the same genes, and mutations in those genes, that we do. Biologists can study the effects of those mutations in fruit flies, which have two-week life cycles and regarding which there are no ethical concerns. There is an autism-related mutation in fruit flies. Fruit flies don’t get autism, but we can experimentally study the gene in them, which we could not do in humans.

The last category that Levitan considers is the straight falsehood, in which a politician just makes something up. His first example is Todd Akin saying that a woman’s body can spontaneously abort a fetus that resulted from rape, and that therefore abortion laws should not contain any exceptions for rape—since rape pregnancies simply do not occur. But I think Levitan missed something here. Todd Akin must have heard, somewhere in a biology class in which he was half asleep, about what biologists call the Bruce Effect. Some mammals, such as mice and monkeys, are, in fact, able to abort unwanted fetuses. In geladas, for example, when a female is taken over by a new dominant male, her body aborts fetuses that were fathered by a previous dominant male. This must have been what Akin was thinking about, only it does not happen in humans.

Of course, there are examples of Republicans just making stuff up. Mike Huckabee (who fancies himself a highly ethical Preacher of the Gospel) said that a single volcano can produce as much carbon dioxide as a hundred years of human activity. In actuality, the biggest recent volcano, Pinatubo, released 0.05 gigatons of carbon; but human activity releases 10 gigatons per year, that is, 1000 in a century. Huckabee’s numbers were off by a factor of twenty thousand. But, if you are a preacher, who’s counting?

Understandably, in the infinitely tortured world of Republican political thought, there are examples that may not fit into any of Levitan’s categories. One example that he did not (as I recall) mention comes from Michele Bachman (whom he did mention in a different connection.) She said, in 2006, that we should not worry about global warming, or any other environmental issue, because Jesus has already saved the world. You will notice that Bachman did not say, “Don’t worry about terrorism; Jesus already saved the world,” or, “Don’t worry about the economy, Jesus already saved the world.” She used—deliberately—a line of reasoning that she would not use in other contexts.

The only problem I have with Levitan’s book is that it is too timid. The Republican politicians he cites are not merely making mistakes, or bending the truth, or even merely lying. You can pretty much summarize the entire Republican position as, “I’m not a scientist, but I don’t need to be, because God has made my brain infallible and utterly incapable of error, so I can just make stuff up and God is obligated to make it true.” Republican politicians do not merely mangle science. They are blasphemers who consider the possibility that they may be wrong to be as unthinkable as God Himself being wrong. Of course, if Levitan had said this, the publisher would have rejected it. (Maybe Levitan tried and had to back down.)

Republicans have guns and consider themselves to be incapable of error even after thinking about something for only a few seconds. What could possibly go wrong?

Do Conservatives Hate Altruism?

On August 16, billionaire Warren Buffett announced his belief that rich people, such as himself, should pay higher taxes than they currently do. This was a direct statement of altruism. He was almost immediately attacked by Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann who said in a loud sarcastic manner, “I have a suggestion. Mr. Buffett, write a big check today. There’s nothing you have to wait for. As a matter of fact the president has redefined millionaires and billionaires as any company that makes over $200,000 a year. That’s his definition of a millionaire and billionaire. So perhaps Mr. Buffett would like to give away his entire fortune above $200,000. That’s what you want to do? Have at it. Give it to the federal government.”

Not surprisingly, Bachmann was wildly inaccurate. The president does not want people to earn only $200,000; he just wants slightly higher tax rates on people earning more than $200,000.

What Bachmann did not say, but clearly implied, was “Sucker.” Any rich like Buffett who would actually want to pay more taxes to help his fellow citizens must clearly be a sucker.

In encounters between animals of the same species, there are cooperators and there are defectors. Whenever a cooperator encounters a defector, the cooperator loses (becomes a sucker) and the defector wins. It would seem inevitable, in a world that consisted only of simple and direct interactions, the defectors always win, even though they cause themselves to become extinct. The world, however, is not that simple. Intelligent animals such as humans can recognize and remember one another as individuals, and they can remember the bad reputations of defectors and the good reputations of cooperators. In a world of complex interactions, cooperators can work together and drive the defectors into obscurity. In ways such as this, altruism (animals being nice to each other even if they incur a cost) can evolve.

Republicans clearly hate altruism. Some hate it more than others. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry do not make statements as extreme as those of Bachmann. It seems inconceivable to extremists like Bachmann that citizens should ever want to help each other. The Tea Party tirade of anger is not so much against “big government” as it is against a societal expectation that we, as fellow citizens, should be expected to help one another out, and that government should be a mechanism to facilitate altruism.

This conclusion is obvious not just from Bachmann’s statement, but from statements by the founding mind of modern extremist conservatism, Ayn Rand. She wrote, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” She was as wrong as anyone could be about anything, and so are her modern disciples. Humans are the most altruistic species, and the most successful, in evolutionary terms. Our survival cannot be assured if the Republicans succeed in destroying altruism.

What Rick Perry Thinks about Science

The new Republican candidate, Rick Perry, is what many Republicans (such as Michele Bachmann) call a liberal. Maybe that just means that he does not scream and condemn all his opponents to Hell. He speaks smoothly and politely. But his approach to science, and therefore perhaps to all of the data of reality, puts him in with people like Bachmann who just make things up and expect us to believe them.

First, Rick Perry tells us that global warming is not happening. He says this despite the fact that his state, Texas, has already suffered $5.2 billion of damage from a year-long drought and its current heat wave. It is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe in Texas. He offered no evidence. He simply said, “from my perspective,” global warming is not reliable science. He used that phrase twice. Has he studied the issue? No, nor did he make any such claim. He just chooses not to believe it, and that settles it. But his position is rather frightening. Not only does he oppose taking actions to reduce our carbon emissions and to promote alternative energy sources, but he says we should not even be studying the issue. This seems to imply that he would have NASA and NOAA discontinue their investigations. Or else, might he require them to reach his conclusions?

Of course, Michele Bachmann uses even worse logic about global warming. In 2006, she said that we do not need to worry about global warming because Jesus has already saved the world. Of course, she does not say, “We do not need to worry about the economy, because Jesus has already saved the world,” or “We do not need to worry about terrorism, because Jesus has already saved the world.” She just picks out environmental issues and says, don’ worry, be happy.

Second, Rick Perry has come out against evolution. Typical of his smooth style, he did not say (as did the church marquee; see previous blog entry) that anyone who accepts evolutionary science is going to Hell. His words were almost innocuous. He said “It’s a theory that’s out there, and it’s got gaps.” He went on to say that “…in Texas, we teach both creation and evolution, and I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” The problem is that he just presented his personal opinion as being the final conclusion of the matter. It does not require any further thought. He was even wrong about what is taught in Texas. They do not, as a matter of fact, teach creation in Texas (at least, according to the state guidelines). He has a right to his opinion, but he wants to make his opinion into federal policy if he is elected president.

Conservatives just make stuff up. To a conservative, it is not what you know, but what you believe. You can create reality by believing something to be true or untrue.

The rest of the world should be alerted that, if we have a Republican president starting in 2013, the United States will do absolutely nothing about global warming, and if Obama remains president, the Republicans will continue to prevent him from taking action. Rest of the world, take note: You will have to take the lead on resolving global warming, because the United States will not, and we may even discontinue researching it or paying attention to it. You will have to solve the problem without us. The same is also true of scientific leadership. Scientific research, in the United States, may soon become a mere restatement of Republican beliefs, no more to be trusted than Lysenkoist genetics from Soviet Russia. Rest of the world, take note: You will have to take the lead in scientific research, because the United States will not. The United States will ride the falling stars of fossil fuel dependence and creationism until they, and we, crash.