But religion *is* science, didnt you know?

(For good humor on this topic, google the phrase "combine science and religion atheist" and click on the first link to the "friendly atheist" blog. funny stuff, that.)

Science needs money. Liberal money wants results. Science bends for low hanging fruit.

Conservatives hate the truth that science proves for the mere fact that Conservatives can only use words to prove their beliefs where they then create laws to force people to believe the words they use that say their belief is real.

Science on the other hand uses numerous methods to prove what they have theorized about.

Conservatives hate science because it also takes to long to learn to understand how the natural world around them actually works.

Conservatives are only concerned about making money any way they can so they can create laws that say they are correct without needing to prove that they are correct.

The more concervatives continue to move away from science the more voters will realize that they have lost touch with reality and will not want to vote for them.

Who wants to vote for an ignorant politician that create laws that force people to believe their message when science teaches people the forces present within the Universe that are actually provable based upon experiments that the person can see.

Conservatives are the same group of nutters from the time of Newton when the Catholic Church denounced the findings of science and sought out such scientists to kill their advancements that have since Sir Isaac Newtons theory of gravity created a better and more advanced human society.

Evolution shows through once again that if you are not the intelligent and knowledgeable then you are nothing more than fodder and are the ignorant.

To not be considered ignorant means that you understand basic science and either through schooling or independant studies continue to want to be intelligent and knowledgeable based upon scientific research.

Conservatives won't be around in the next 100 years as they are politicking theirself right out of existance.

Want to survive in the next 100 years? Stay on the side of science and technological advancements which will keep you not only from being brainwashed by the Neo-Cons but will also put you above their base of thought.

Conservatives think.

Science proves.

Alan Boyle is trying to make sense out of something he doesn't understand. Maybe I can help him. As a southern raised "churchgoer" (two demographics he cited) I can respond to his comments with some insight. As a youth, I, like most, were politically Democrat, even though I didn't vote. More Democrat by default than any other reason. In those days, Republicans were nearly non existent in the South. My dad knew a lot of the politicians as friends and I was privy to many conversations that they participated in. I would say that our opinions were very similiar on a variety of subjects. So, why the shift away from the Democrat politics and towards the Republican politics that we see in the South today. It boils down to who moved. It wasn't the Southerners that changed opinion. It was the Democrats who moved away from conservative principles. Here, again, I have to define certain labels. Democrats now support statist solutions to sociological problems. When I was young, I would have been called a liberal, because I believed in the liberty of the individual, apart from government coersion. Today, a liberal is something entirely different. What I believe more closely matches what is called a libertarian today. Southerners also support the Christian faith (mostly Protestant Christian beliefs) more than people in other parts of the country. Democrats used to do the same. Again, who moved. Democrats today have shifted away from Christian beliefs to something more socialistic and in many cases atheistic. They have adopted an attitude where problems need to be solved by government action rather than letting the pillars of society define solutions. Evolution is but one issue where we see this principle in action. Schools are forced to teach evolutionary theory as truth rather than just defining it and then letting it go. This doesn't sit well with those who believe it is not proper for government to take away the freedom to choose whatever we want to believe. Big government leads to too much power in the hands of the few who are defining what we should do and ultimately what we should think. That is Facist thinking where government decides what is right and wrong. The further we go down that road, the less freedom we all have as citizens. America did just fine for almost 200 years by allowing the individual to act independent of government. That is what liberty means and it is a founding principle of the American Constitution. Democrats, as a political party, are fully supporting the progression (maybe that is why they call themselves Progressive) away from individual freedom to universal solutions that mandate everyones compliance, such as the Affordable Healthcare Act. Conservatives, Libertarians, or whatever you want to call us are not anti-science. Science is a wonderful tool to discover the inner workings of our world. Many of the early scientists in the West were Christian. Virtually all the universities were Christian. But science today has strayed far from it's moorings. At least the politically correct governing bodies of science. Because of their atheistic presuppositions, they have ruled out super natural cause and effect from consideration in their findings. They say it is not scientific because they cannot detect it through natural means. Well, isn't that convenient! Science has limits in what it can define and call the truth, but the scientific leadership as well as many scientist who have bought into this way of thinking refuse to believe that science doesn't possess the whole truth. So, then it goes on to pronounce "truth" on subject matter it has no knowledge about. This is where Southern Christian Conservatives take issue with "science" as it is practiced today. There are many scientist out there today who are performing some very useful research in a variety of scientific fields but their papers are automatically rejected because they wont hold to the athiestic presuppositions of the governing bodies who control what papers get published. This is censorship at it's worst. As a Southern Christian Conservative, I take issue with that position. What needs to be understood is that Christians do not have a problem with true science. It is only when "science" starts to pronounce "truth" about subjects in which it doesn't have a clue or starts to doctor the research whenever it doesn't fit with their presuppositions. Such is the case with the research about global climate change. The only "consensus" there is where the governing bodies have selectively deleted any contradictory evidence. In fact, there is no consensus about what causes global climate change, and that is what the governing bodies should be saying to the public. It is a relatively new scientific discipline that still needs a great deal of research before people start pronouncing it a done deal. Let alone enacting major legislation that will cost everyone a small fortune. So, to answer the question posed by Alan Boyle, no, we haven't lost our faith in science, just bad science as practiced by today's scientific elite.

I've watched the Republican party slowly devolve over the years to a sad caricature of what it once was. This is what I now see routinely:

-Leadership that makes poor decisions for the country, but are followed blindly because they say they go to church.

-A priority to force religion upon citizens through legislation.

The party should be renamed "The Pharisees Party" as that would be a much more succint description.

Religious belief and entitlement are closely related. that is a concept the old European monarchies understood well. "I deserve this because I am the envoy of God" sorta thinking. Religion explains and justifies the unexplainable and the irrational. Comes in handy when you want to screw people. then you go to sunday church, flip em 5 bucks and your conscience is cleaned, it's a beautiful thing.

Conservatives today (who are very different from conservatives 30 years ago; even Reagan would not be considered a conservative today), don't like science because it does not support their ideology. I used to be a conservative Republican, but I make decisions based on facts rather than what I would like to believe. As the party moved to the right, it left me behind. The refusal to make decisions based on facts rather than ideology is what led to Republicans destroying our economy under Bush. I am not terribly happy with Democrats either, but I can not support Republicans that insist on bringing back the same policies that destroyed the economy only 4 years ago. It is unfortunate that the insist they can not learn from their mistakes, because they will not accept that they ever made a mistake. People like Santorum can not make mistakes because everything that comes out of their mouth comes from God.

Not uncommon; we see the same thing in the middle east where conservative Muslims prefer to make decisions based on their ideology rather than facts. Again, since they speak for God, they can not make a mistake. It is funny that Republicans can hate conservative Muslims while acting the same way.

Global warming offends the oil & coal companies. They have hired the same type of "scientists", who used to tell you that smoking was not so bad for you.

Evolution--the foundation of biology and medicine--offends fundamentalist Christians, who believe that the varying accounts in Genesis are the literal truth. (Ironically, the folks who wrote the Bible for themselves in about 660 BCE, took the best available science from that day--from Babylon--to tell the story of Creation, with some key differences.)

Most oil men do not think that all of that oil down there, was placed there 6,000 years ago.

Much of today's GOP is a strange coalition of the oil interests, the cynical (Fox & Friends), the willfully ignorant but pious, and the downright dumb, on these issues.

It would be a good thing for the USA, if traditional Republicans--who were often open-minded and willing to compromise for the greater good--could take back their Party.

The charge that conservatives do not believe in science is based on a study derived from the General Social Survey (GSS), 1972 to 2010 (Smith et al. 2011). The GSS was administered annually between 1972 and 1994 (except 1979 and 1992) and biannually since 1994.

The GSS asked respondents the following question: "I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them the Scientific Community?" Respondents were then given the choice to respond "a great deal," "only some," or "hardly any" (they could also choose "don't know" or "refuse").

That's not a question about confidence in science, but about confidence in scientists and their organizations. And conservatives know full well how politicized many scientists and science journalists -- such as you, Mr. Boyle -- have become. Your blog is at best borderline unethical.

Mr. Boyle, this is about the worse offense I have seen recently in regard to journalistic ethics. You and your editor owe your readers an apology and a retraction.

Hello, when your life is based on selfishness, any information that contradicts your goal will appear to be false.

I think the fact that many good comments that support science and where not offensive got deleted proves the article 100% correct...

and I have a QUESTION????? .....does every one else look at the deleted coments to ...I mean I gota know what someone else didn't want the rest of us to know about.

The concept of faith doesn't belong in science - it's about rigorous proof and hypothesis - no more, no less.

Re: An_Engineer--Your replies seems to prove what PsychoDoc saying, that your factual specialized knowledge is better than you overall grasp of arguments and logic. First of all you didn't reply to his argument at all. Second you present some outdated study that maybe was wrong that involved global warming and then proceed to throw out the whole theory based on that. The truth is the trend is that Manmade Global Warming is more and more accepted by scientists and that some former sceptics have now changed sides. The defense that frequently a majority of medocre scientists hold on to something that a minority of brilliant scientists disagree with was true at the beginning of a debate, but over time in science the evidence convinces the rest to get on board.(I take it you are claiming to be the brilliant one.) Then you have minority of sceptics that are in fact the least brilliant or most biased compared to the majority. That's where we are now. The fact that those few have an disproportionate influence has less to do with climate science than psychology and conservative media bias. Mainly the observation that denial is a built in defense mechanism that the person may not be aware of, that people are going to deny something that threatens their occupation, that it is such a big problem with so many ramifications that many people would have to readjust many personal views and values. Result: denial is very attractive. The ugly truth is that the longer we wait the harder it will be to correct. If we wait until every denier can no longer deny it, it will be far too late with disasterous consequences. This should be your concern. Not convincing yourself that your denial is the result of some exceptional brilliance. That's delusion. This fits into the larger topic in that it is the religious that have had thier viewpoints challanged more and more by recent scientific advances so are more likely to be in denial or think that political action can change the science, a dangerous idea that needs to be fought at every turn.

The central problem of the right/left division is that only the left brained, when engaged, can discuss this problem, in a meaning full way.

This is true, but not furtive, meaning that you can't get past the initial discussion. This is because of baboon bottomed descendants, are either looking down from the hierarchy, and seeing agreeable faces, or looking up from the bottom, and looking at more baboon bottoms. This situation has the obvious potential of following along the even more generalized primate behavior. This may be, of either target practice or ducking something more substantial than air biscuits. As you can see, this discussion immediately, heads toward the usual level of discussion, but resist you must, and become upwardly mobile. It would be up looking, first to understand, the frequently over looked characteristics, that primates share with that apex of intellectual development the self-described species same-wise or homo-sapiens. Starting upwards from waste, we look into diet and its relationship to the hurling power of the waste material, from the perspective of economy, this is quite at arm’s length handy, and in that it is a primitive way that always stays primitive. To get the point across, from what we see when looking to primates is a general irritability seen in primates or all kinds.

Much in the animal world deals with waste by avoidance, however there a goodly number that makes use of waste. The irritability we seen in primates, is more sustained, than in animals; defending turf and group or herd inbreeding rights. The human have taken irritability to higher levels, into its ruling hierarchy, tribal (group) tensions, self-governance, organizations, a range of functions that stem from higher brain function. The higher brain function in fact can be well described as a causative agent of brain evolution with a balancing / supplemental causative effect that has accelerated brain development and propagated the very primitive irrtability incumbent in the species. Or having brains enables higher social functions in three ways; one increasing survival with bigger brains, decreasing survival with smaller brains or less used or as typical of primates in particular to kill off the smaller brains.

The later has the prejudicial effect of favoring bigger brains, but along with enhanced primitive irritability retains the primitive instinct. This brings to the speculation that bigger brains are effective in enhancing survival, and that success drags along amplified primitive behaviors, having both in the same species is likely the definitive cause of speciation (differentiation by murder?). Then a matter of degree; human dimorphism between opposite sexes indicates that the same template was used in embryogenesis (women having more parts, men having lost women parts) [quite impossible for this be the opposite, gaining parts not inherited?]. Simpler women/men share the brainer design, but the brain men have to convert testosterone hormone (male) to estrogen (female), yes the brain uses the female hormone (to think). [It is quite unlikely that two brain designed was used, women have reproduction responsibilities, embryogenesis.]

Since higher intelligence evolved with highly retained primitive irritability, we have in one thought explained away much confusion that which redeems the human species also condemns it, nature in its balancing act. Let’s not describe balancing and fittest as being more than they deserve, like calling them a force, force is euphemisms for irritability. The cause is very interesting, cells in life everywhere respire, water, gas, nutrients, but the most important aspect is at the cell level, and in all levels above making life possible, there is very little waste, the waste that is discarded itself becomes a resource for some other process or being and even if has to pass whole from animal to plant and return as food.

The balance between intelligence and primitive irritability is in the fact that few things of benefit in nature are discarded wholesale; both are preserved even if by accident since being forward things that were useful in the past. This is not based on a detachment from DNA levels of explanation; DNA is advanced by a process of replication, where whole genes are duplicated and a species survives and successive generations. The replicated genes that not otherwise used can differentiate into new capabilities, where the old capability is not lost. Replicate and Differentiate, RNAplicate and DNAerentiate.

The challenge for the species is to survive having survived and using more of the brain to improve and keep the primitive irritability in check.

The human character ranges from good to bad, as though it were a side bar tuning base and treble on the music of life.

I wrote the above without needing to read this reference Chris Mooney’s book see http://www.waronscience.com/home.php, however when I saw the April 5, 2012 segment on Now with Alex Wagner, I witnessed squirming and the mention of the word skepticism, that word is only slightly less irritating than the word believe, when is used in discussing science. Primal instinct intact if we use words like belief and skepticism within science then it not science that is being discussed. In the alleged discussion, in no more than 5 seconds the conservative young lady, introduced word skeptical as counter weight to all science measured facts everywhere. Proving the point that conservative have only two words and both are disputative, disruptive, and the emphatic end to any scientific exchange. The political advantage in the modern media goes to the sound bite, decisive clear and wrong, trump’s deliberative balanced through discussions exchanging available information and outlining the next step.

You can imagine presenting the following article in a 6 minute video segment, or you dare estimate the effort needed to make the whole article accessible, yet you can just say that you’re skeptical and mention the East Anglia University, and the possibility of revealing abject ignorance in total. It is no wonder that took 2000 years to get science in to the human experiment against belief by sound bite ignorance.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html

The covariation of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and temperature in Antarctic ice-core records suggests a close link between CO2 and climate during the Pleistocene ice ages. The role and relative importance of CO2 in producing these climate changes remains unclear, however, in part because the ice-core deuterium record reflects local rather than global temperature. Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO2 concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.

Our political allegiances could be hard-wired into our brains, neuroscientists believe.

Researchers have found evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of Left-wingers.

Scans of 90 students’ brains at University College London uncovered a ‘strong correlation’ between the thickness of two particular areas of grey matter and an individual’s political views.

Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion.

It is an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain's medial temporal lobe.

However, those aligned to the left had thicker anterior cingulates - which is an area associated with anticipation and decision-making.

The research was carried out by Geraint Rees director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience who said he was 'very surprised' by the finding, which is being peer reviewed before publication next year.

It was commissioned as a light-hearted experiment by actor Colin Firth as part of his turn guest editing BBC Radio 4's Today programme but has now developed into a serious effort to discover whether we are programmed with a particular political view.

Professor Rees said that although it was not precise enough to be able to predict someone's stance simply from a scan, there was 'a strong correlation that reaches all our scientific tests of significance'.

'The anterior cingulate is a part of the brain that is on the middle surface of the brain at the front and we found that the thickness of the grey matter, where the nerve cells of neurons are, was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing,' he told the programme.

'The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative.

'It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes.'

Mr Firth - who recently declared he had ended public support for the Liberal Democrats - said he would like to have party leader and now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg subjected to the tests.

'I think we should have him scanned,' he said.

He said the coalition made him 'extremely uneasy' but would not rule out voting Lib Dem in future.

'I would have to see what identity they took on because I don't recognise them at the moment. I think all three parties are in a state of re-evaluation.'

Talking about the experiment, he said: 'I took this on as a fairly frivolous exercise: I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don't agree with me and see what scientists had to say about it and they actually came up with something.'

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342239/Brain-study-reveals-right-wing-conservatives-larger-primitive-amygdala.html

The study DOES NOT say conservatives are losing faith in science, it says conservatives are losing faith in the scientific community. And why shouldn't they when you have someone like Gauchat who is willing to confuse the two just to make a political point?
Don't believe it? Here's the study: assets/2012/03/28/document_cw_01.pdf.

And then Gauchat roams WAY beyond the boundaries of the study to speculate on why conservatives are losing faith in "science." Incredible.

For a more complete debunking, see reason.com: 2012/03/30/why-dont-conservatives-trust-scientists.

Meanwhile, in the news:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer -- a high proportion of them from university labs -- are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

The study DOES NOT say conservatives are losing faith in science, it says conservatives are losing faith in the scientific community. And why shouldn't they when you have someone like Gauchat who is willing to confuse the two just to make a political point?
Don't believe it? Here's the study: assets/2012/03/28/document_cw_01.pdf.

And then Gauchat roams WAY beyond the boundaries of the study to speculate on why conservatives are losing faith in "science." Incredible.

For a more complete debunking, see reason.com: 2012/03/30/why-dont-conservatives-trust-scientists.

Meanwhile, in the news:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer -- a high proportion of them from university labs -- are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

The left has peverted science over the last 30 years. Remember the population explosion, DDT (getting rid of that has allowed countless millions to die in Africa), heterosexual AIDS epidemic in US, and many more foolish scares. Now they call us idiots for questioning the hypothesis as to why an event that has reoccured for millenia when their solution to their speculation is draconian, totalitarian change! The Left does not value Truth in science because their version is their religion.

The moment that American Conservatives lost their faith in science was the moment the scientific community announced a virtual consensus on predictions of the Nuclear Winter hypothesis. This offended Conservatives because it undermined the pride of their international power - the bomb.

There are two types of people:

People who believe and accept subordination to a creator, accept equality with other children of that creator and seek harmony within creation and with its creatures; and there are

People who envy the creator, reject equality with anything and are compelled to impose their order upon creation and its creatures.

Conservatives are the latter. They support any logic that facilitates their rule and reaffirms their superiority. To that effect bullying and lying is acceptable behavior. Even lying to themselves about reality.

Science was their ally when it gave them a big stick (the bomb) they could use to threaten their rivals, technology they could use to make money or statistics they could use to assert their own superiority. Science became their enemy when it "normalized" those statistics, revealed the environmental costs of cheap manufacturing techniques and rendered the bomb useless in a Terran Biosphere.

Their refuge became religion. The beauty of that approach is that they don't have to seek the True God, they can make up their own. Who can prove otherwise?

Hey!

Your wrong, engineering is dominated by conservatives (its what is commonly accepted). Your basing your argument on studies you hope to predict the future with. It works with physics, but not with society. humans are more unpredictable. we are the only species that will set aside our needs for something we want. (ie skipping a meal to work on a project)

Also, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics are dominated by conservatives and libertarians.

Biology, social science and other softer sciences are dominated by liberals. WHY?

well Physics and math and chem are based on math and logic. conservatism comes about by thinking logically, regardless of the latest study.