Scientists, politics, and global warming, Pt. 1

While picking through old Robyn Blumner columns to bash, I ran across a real doozy: "Why scientists are seldom Republicans."

I had my doubts at the outset as to whether the column would seriously address the question. Taking the premise that scientists are seldom Republicans as true, I would attribute it to the socially liberal views of scientists along with their dependence on government for their livelihood.

But maybe it's just because the scientists who aren't Republicans are especially smart?

But let's get to Blumner's take on the issue:

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without scientists? Ask the Republican Party. It lives in such a world.

Uh, what? How will we develop advanced weapons systems with which to dominate the lower classes without scientists? Hopefully Blumner can do better than baseless and absurd assertions.

Republicans have been so successful in driving out of their party anyone who endeavors in scientific inquiry that pretty soon there won't be anyone left who can distinguish a periodic table from a kitchen table.

I guess we have to clear the "clever writing" stage before we get beyond the fluff.

It is no wonder the Republican throngs showing up to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are so gullible, willing to believe absurd claims like the coming of "death panels." Their party is nearly devoid of neuroscientists, astrophysicists, marine biologists or any other scientific professional who would insist on intellectual rigor, objective evidence and sound reasoning as the basis for public policy development. The people left don't have that kind of discipline and don't expect it from their leaders. They are willing to believe anything some right-wing demagogue with a cable show or pulpit tells them, no matter how outlandish.

This is just too rich. Absurd claims of "death panels"?

Blumner had this to say about Robert Reich not so long ago (2007):

Robert Reich, former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, is a very smart man with a very good heart - my favorite combination. He's one of those people to whom I pay special attention, on a par with thinkers like Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute, David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown, and psychology professor Steven Pinker at Harvard.

And Robert Reich has this to say, also not so long ago (2007):

Reich: Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that's true, and what I'm going to do, is, I am going to try to reorganize it to make it more amenable to treating sick people, but that means you, particularly you young people--particularly you young healthy people--you're going to have to pay more.

(very light applause)

Thank you. And by the way, we're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive. So we're going to let you die.

(light applause)

Uh, also, uh, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid--we already have a lot of bargaining leverage--to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs, but that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market and that means that you are not going to live that much longer than your parents.

(light applause)

Thank you.
(Transcript mine)

Reich was taking on the role of a presidential candidate telling the truth about what he would and should do, which accounts for his declarations that he would be doing these things personally. Now, obviously Reich was not talking specifically about the health care reform proposals that were developed since Barack Obama assumed the office of president. But his sense of the economics of health care is on target. And Sarah Palin's use of hyperbole to highlight the increased role of the government toward the type of arrangement that Reich envisions is both fair and on target.

Given Reich's presentation, how can it be absurd to think that a large government role in health care will place the government in charge of determining when a person will die? Perhaps Blumner never heard Reich say anything of the kind. Her "special attention" may have waned a bit. Maybe she's not a bold-faced liar.

But let's not overlook the rest of Blumner's mindless paragraph. She actually wrote "(t)heir party is nearly devoid of neuroscientists, astrophysicists, marine biologists or any other scientific professional who would insist on intellectual rigor, objective evidence and sound reasoning as the basis for public policy development." By that type of math, the United States is nearly devoid of lesbians. The Pew Research data do not support her statement except maybe as hyperbole on a par with Palin's.

And let us not be misled into thinking that scientists have any sort of monopoly on intellectual rigor. Blumner's underlying argument is a slap at intellectuals who do not enter the field of science, and also a fallacious appeal to authority. After all, what basis have we to think that a biologist would insist on intellectual rigor, etc. as a basis for public policy development? In the pursuit of the scientific discipline, sure. But public policy ought to require morality--a thing that eludes rigorous scientific study. Too bad Pew Research didn't ask the scientists whether they subscribe to moral realism.

No serious attempt to answer the question through Blumner's first two paragraphs. But we'll keep hunting in part 2.