As many GMD readers know, there’s another Vermont political website that leans in the rightward direction. It’s called Vermont Tiger, and it features the postings of local conservative luminaries such as Art Woolf, Geoffrey Norman, and El Jefe General John McClaughry.
It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with one of Vermont Tiger’s penmen, so it was with some amazement that I began reading an essay by Tim Hayward entitled “A Retreat From Reason?” In it, Mr. Hayward (former Chief of Staff for Gov. Jim Douglas) bemoans the increasing tide of anti-intellectualism. More and more people, he complains, are rejecting science in favor of their own preconceived notions:
Science and informed thought are under constant siege. There is now a seeming 21st century “know nothing” movement which, with blinders well in place, ignores science and evidence. And with a mixture of fear and rhetoric, and a media which skims the surface and feeds on controversy, the new know nothings are indeed affecting our lives and our state’s and nation’s policy decisions.
To which I can only say, Bravo, Mr. Hayward! The anti-scientific strain in modern political discourse is a severe handicap to the progress of our society and of humanity in general. It takes on many destructive forms: climate change denial, creationism and its lipstick-on-a-pig cousin “intelligent design,” pseudo-science on the health effects of abortion and birth control, the advocacy of the almost worthless abstinence education, the opposition to embryonic stem cell research, the constant attacks on education. The list goes on and —
Wait, what’s that?
…Ohhhhhhh.
It seems that Mr. Hayward isn’t concerned about all those excrescences of conservatism. He’s all het up over opposition to genetically-modified organisms and vaccines and wireless smart meters. Funny how his outrage is so narrowly focused.
Funny, and absolutely hypocritical. Listen, Tim, the modern Republican Party is the epicenter of anti-intellectualism. Your party has been making political hay, and obstructing positive change, by actively denying scientific truth on a wide range of issues.
His essay calls for a renewed Age of Reason. I sincerely join him in that call. Somehow, I doubt he realizes that a new Age of Reason would turn today’s Republican Party into a relic of a darker and more ignorant time.
I notice that he presents an argument, but no actual evidence to support it– just his opinions.
To present GMOs as safe without sufficient testing of their effects on the environment is fundamentally anti-science.
Denying a scientific truth such as evolution( a theory?) or climate change(alleged man made ?)doesn’t strike me as equivalent to arguing about smart meters.
Even though there are frustratingly fact-free people of every political stripe, Hayward’s arguments would have been much stronger had he mentioned even a single instance of classic right-wing stupidity. I’d guess he was too afraid of a flame attack to mention one.
At this point in history, the Republican party has no useful policy recommendations, and a recent history of catastrophic failure in governing. All they’ve got is fear and hypocrisy. Some years that works, others, not so much. Let’s make sure this year is a “not so much” year.