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<DIV class=timestamp>August 28, 2011</DIV>
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<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">Republicans Against
Science</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE>
<H6 class=byline>By <A class=meta-per title="More Articles by Paul Krugman"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per"
rel=author>PAUL KRUGMAN</A></H6></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody><NYT_CORRECTION_TOP></NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>
<P>Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a
serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too
bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P.
— namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously
important development. And it should terrify us. </P>
<P>To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who
actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt
Romney. </P>
<P>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.” </P>
<P>That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.” </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>But never mind that, Mr. Perry suggests; those scientists are just in it for
the money, “manipulating data” to create a fake threat. In his book “Fed Up,” he
dismissed climate science as a “contrived phony mess that is falling apart.”
</P>
<P>I could point out that Mr. Perry is buying into a truly crazy conspiracy
theory, which asserts that thousands of scientists all around the world are on
the take, with not one willing to break the code of silence. I could also point
out that multiple investigations into charges of intellectual malpractice on the
part of climate scientists have ended up exonerating the accused researchers of
all accusations. But never mind: Mr. Perry and those who think like him know
what they want to believe, and their response to anyone who contradicts them is
to start a witch hunt. </P>
<P>So how has Mr. Romney, the other leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination,
responded to Mr. Perry’s challenge? In trademark fashion: By running away. In
the past, Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has strongly endorsed
the notion that man-made climate change is a real concern. But, last week, he
softened that to a statement that he thinks the world is getting hotter, but “I
don’t know that” and “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.” Moral
courage! </P>
<P>Of course, we know what’s motivating Mr. Romney’s sudden lack of conviction.
According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa
believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the
G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr.
Romney is determined to pass at all costs. </P>
<P>So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two
major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to
believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to
believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe. </P>
<P>And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within
and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change. </P>
<P>Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has gone beyond
its long-term preference for the economic ideas of “charlatans and cranks” — as
one of former President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisers famously put it
— to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no
attention to “fancy theories” that conflict with “common sense,” the Journal
tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings
to analyze things like financial crises and recessions? </P>
<P>Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the
odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself
ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And,
in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a
terrifying prospect. </P><NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM>
<DIV
class=articleCorrection>________________________</DIV></NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM><NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></DIV></NYT_TEXT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
title="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>