Dont Know Much About Science Books

The liberal British philosopher John Stuart Mill once famously dismissed conservatives as the stupid party. Intellectual arrogance is something we have come to expect from liberals, but great conservative minds like Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and William F. Buckley dispelled the notion that conservatives are somehow cerebrally inferior.

Those gentlemen put conservatism on the road to intellectual respectability and kept on driving. Today, I’m afraid that road has developed a few potholes.

Nowhere has this problem been more evident than in the recent discussion of climate legislation.

At a House Energy and Commerce hearing last week on climate change, ranking Republican Joe Barton expressed concern that erecting more wind turbines would slow the wind down and make the earth hotter. Barton said:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up?

Say again, Joe? If turbines slow the wind down, then following his idea to its logical conclusion means that we’d have to outlaw tall trees, buildings, and mountain ranges.

Barton also asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu:

How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and into the Arctic Ocean? Isn’t it obvious that at one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole? It wasn’t a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up?

Chu, a scientist who has won a Nobel Prize in physics, patiently explained that tectonic plates have moved around throughout earth history. Later, the GOP liveblog called Chu’s answer “perplexing.” What’s perplexing is why the blog writers find one of the basics of geology to be so difficult to grasp.

At a previous hearing a few weeks earlier, Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) postulated that reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would starve the earth’s plant life. He said:

It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.

Shimkus did not make clear how plants got along before coal-burning power plants were invented. Perhaps he should enlighten us.

Then, there was the emphatic statement from House Minority Leader John Boehner appearing on ABC’s This Week:

…the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.

True enough, but no one has ever claimed that carbon dioxide is carcinogenic. Boehner’s might be an understandable mistake, since the news is filled with confusing advice about preventing cancer. Drink coffee. Don’t drink coffee. Drink wine. Don’t drink wine.

There is nothing in the Constitution that says congressmen must be scientific whizzes, but it is probably safe to say that these remarks do little to increase public confidence in the GOP.

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman was correct when he said earlier this year, “We cannot become the anti-science party and succeed.”

The Economist offered a similar warning after last year’s election debacle:

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn.

In a 2007 climate hearing, Conservative Republican Congressman — and scientist — Roscoe Bartlett made much the same point when he drily said:

I think it is probably possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.

The comment drew an annoyed grin from Barton.