[Previous entry: "Appreciating God’s Handiwork"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "SherWright.com Burns the Candle at Both Ends for Science"]

08/27/2003: "Why Big-Cs Distrust Science"

How can anyone in this country dispute that science has made an enormous difference in our lives? Even when we restrict ourselves to the areas of the economy most of interest to Big-C Conservatives, it’s clear that science and the technology science enables have had an enormous positive impact. Agriculture has fertilizers and powerful tractors and combines. Children are safer from disease from their standard inoculations. American business is most competitive in the industries at the forefront of science and technology. American military superiority flows in no small part from America’s superiority in these areas. In medicine and pharmaceuticals, science has vastly improved our life expectancies and quality of life. Yet when a Big-C Conservative has anything to say about science, it’s invariably something negative. They consistently rail against drugs that afford new reproductive options, drugs like birth control and RU-486. They are suspicious of medical research to take advantage of new understanding of human genetics, even when such research is clearly the next logical step in continuing the great strides medicine has taken over the last century. They try to gut the teachings of sciences like geology and biology when these disciplines generate insights at odds with narrow readings of ancient texts. They deny the results of scientific research that raises issues they don’t want to consider, issues like global warming. So why do Big-C Conservatives so dislike science? It’s because science has been so successful in changing our lives. Most people would agree that our lives have been changed for the better, but those with a large stake in the status quo will always be suspicious of change. If anything unites the diverse constituencies of Big-C Conservatism, it’s a large stake in the status quo. Industrialists don’t want to make the investments needed to transition to new technologies that are less polluting. Religious traditionalists want women to remain subject to biological constraints that served to funnel them into traditional roles. Gun owners want to avoid technologies that make gun users more accountable for their actions. Elitists don’t want to see newly affluent minority technologists in their neighborhoods. It is just because Big-C Conservatives understand how powerful science is as an engine for change that they would sabotage this engine, if that’s what it takes to preserve their particular privilege or advantage.