THE ANTI-SCIENCE PARTY: Paul Krugman
writes, of major GOP candidates:
Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.” That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”
And, perhaps more importantly, offers a much-needed correction.
The second part of Mr. Perry’s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming — which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences — is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting. In fact, if you follow climate science at all you know that the main development over the past few years has been growing concern that projections of future climate are underestimating the likely amount of warming. Warnings that we may face civilization-threatening temperature change by the end of the century, once considered outlandish, are now coming out of mainstream research groups.
Perhaps not only the anti-science party, but – as casual observers of Michele Bachmann's antics can likely attest – the fallacious party. It seems that the number of factual errors (which often go unnoticed, uncorrected and underplayed) within the rhetoric of this year's GOP candidates comes close to what one could accurately describe as laughable. Time for a party-wide fact-check?
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