{"id":42,"date":"2005-09-29T01:28:50","date_gmt":"2005-09-29T07:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=42"},"modified":"2010-09-12T11:19:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-12T17:19:43","slug":"the-republican-war-on-science-by-chris-mooney-and-how-the-media-plays-into-the-radical-wrongs-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/the-republican-war-on-science-by-chris-mooney-and-how-the-media-plays-into-the-radical-wrongs-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney — and how the Media plays \r\n\r\ninto the Radical Wrong’s hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know of Chris Mooney (and others) thanks to links from John Fleck<\/a>. The title of Mooney’s new book seems apt (mjh to jfleck — a review?). <\/p>\n

mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An interview <\/p>\n

with Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science | By David Roberts | Grist Magazine | Books Unbound | 27 Sep 2005<\/a><\/p>\n

My thesis is that this is a political phenomenon that is unique to Republican rule in the United States, and which is epitomized by the <\/p>\n

Bush administration. This administration is constantly doing favors for its big-business and religious-right constituents. That prejudice <\/p>\n

drives distortions of science on issues ranging from global warming to sex education. …<\/p>\n

Poor science education doesn’t help <\/p>\n

matters, but I wouldn’t link it directly to the kinds of abuses we’re seeing. The role of fundamentalist religiosity — and <\/p>\n

particularly, politically conservative Christianity — is, I think, more significant.<\/p>\n

On evolution, on embryonic stem cell <\/p>\n

research, on alleged health risks from abortion, and much else, religious conservatives have their own spin on the science, and even <\/p>\n

their own “experts.” For instance, they deny evolution and have come up with a scientific-sounding alternative, “intelligent design.” <\/p>\n

Because of this phenomenon of science appropriation, Republican politicians sympathetic to the religious right can easily cite their own <\/p>\n

favored experts, in the process distorting mainstream scientific understanding. This sets in motion a wide array of abuses. …<\/p>\n

Through their instinctive tendency to create a “balance” between two sides, journalists repeatedly allow science abusers to <\/p>\n

create phony “controversies,” even though the scientific merits of the issue may exclusively be with one side.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s my <\/p>\n

real fear when it comes to the press. Suppose there’s some mainstream scientific view that you want to set up a think tank to challenge <\/p>\n

— to undermine, to controversialize. Suppose further that you have a lot of money, as well as an interested and politically influential <\/p>\n

constituency on board with your agenda. In this situation, it seems to me that as long as you are clever enough, you should be able to <\/p>\n

set your political machine in motion and then sit back and watch the national media do the rest of your work for you. The press will help <\/p>\n

you create precisely the controversy that lies at the heart of your political and public relations strategy — and not only that. <\/p>\n

It will do a far better job than the best PR firm, and its services will be entirely free of charge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think we <\/p>\n

have actually seen this happen repeatedly. A good example is the issue of evolution. …<\/p>\n

We have to drive a wedge between moderate <\/p>\n

Republicans and conservative ones on matters of science, because only the moderates can rescue their party from its current, destructive <\/p>\n

addiction to abusing and distorting scientific information.<\/p>\n

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney<\/a> [mjh: numerous copies on order at the <\/p>\n

Albuquerque Public Library but not yet received.]<\/p>\n

CJR September\/October 2005 – Undoing Darwin<\/a><\/p>\n

The [evolution trial … in <\/p>\n

Pennsylvania over intelligent design] is likely to be a media circus. And, unfortunately, there\u2019s ample reason to expect that the <\/p>\n

spectacle will lend an entirely undeserved p.r. boost to the carefully honed issue-framing techniques employed by today\u2019s anti-<\/p>\n

evolutionists<\/strong>. …<\/p>\n

As evolution, driven by such events, shifts out of scientific realms and into political and legal <\/p>\n

ones, it ceases to be covered by context-oriented science reporters and is instead bounced to political pages, opinion pages, and <\/p>\n

television news. And all these venues, in their various ways, tend to deemphasize the strong scientific case in favor of evolution and <\/p>\n

instead lend credence to the notion that a growing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153controversy\u00e2\u20ac� exists over evolutionary science. This notion may be <\/p>\n

politically convenient, but it is false. …<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, then, political reporting, television news, and opinion pages are <\/p>\n

all generally fanning the flames of a \u201ccontroversy\u201d over evolution. Not surprisingly, in light of this coverage, we simultaneously find <\/p>\n

that the public is deeply confused about evolution.<\/p>\n

In a November 2004 Gallup poll, respondents were asked: \u201cJust your opinion, do <\/p>\n

you think that Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution is: a scientific theory that has been well supported by evidence, or just one of many <\/p>\n

theories and one that has not been well-supported by evidence, or don\u2019t you know enough to say?\u201d Only 35 percent of Americans answered a <\/p>\n

scientific theory supported by evidence, whereas another 35 percent indicated that evolution was just one among many theories, and 29 <\/p>\n

percent answered that they didn\u2019t know. Meanwhile a national survey this spring (conducted by Matthew Nisbet, one of the authors of this <\/p>\n

article, in collaboration with the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University), found similar public confusion about the scientific <\/p>\n

basis for intelligent design. A bare majority of adult Americans (56.3 percent) agreed that evolution is supported by an overwhelming <\/p>\n

body of scientific evidence; a sizeable proportion (44.2 percent) thought precisely the same thing of intelligent design. …<\/p>\n

One <\/p>\n

thing, above all, is clear: a full-fledged national debate has been reawakened over an issue that once seemed settled. This new fight may <\/p>\n

not simmer down again until the U.S. Supreme Court is forced (for the third time) to weigh in. In these circumstances, the media <\/p>\n

have a profound responsibility \u2014 to the public, and to knowledge itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris C Mooney<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know of Chris Mooney (and others) thanks to links from John Fleck. The title of Mooney’s new book seems apt (mjh to jfleck — a review?). mjh An interview with Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science | By David Roberts | Grist Magazine | Books Unbound | 27 Sep 2005 My … Continue reading The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney — and how the Media plays <\/p>\n

into the Radical Wrong’s hands<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya","tag-fleck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}