Denial –in more ways than one
One of the most consistent features of the modern rightwinger, is denial. To be able to maintain their worldview, they have to keep denying certain things: the disastrous occupation of Iraq, the mendacity of their leaders, etc. etc.
This carries over into a lot of areas, including science. While your average conservative, rightwinger and/or libertarian is keen to use science and reason as their banner, when you press them on it, their science, their reason turns to mere pseudoscience and shibbolets, not unlike the Scientific People in Alfred Bester’s classic science fiction novel, Tiger! Tiger!. The modern rightwinger
has to deny vast areas of science, because they conflict with his ideology and worldview.
Tim Lambert is somebody who is at the frontlines in the fight against this denial, through his weblog Deltoid. He does a fantastic job in correcting rightwing delusions, as the following list of links, either found through him or by him, will attest:
-
As the World Burns
A Mother Jones special about the science and politics of Global Warming. -
Put a Tiger In Your Think Tank
Again from Mother Jones, a chart depicting the money pumped by Exxon into global warming denying think tanks. -
Think tanks vs Open Source
Tim Lambert’s chart of think tanks sponsored by Microsoft. -
Tim’s posts on the Lancet’s Iraq study
a one stop guide to demolishing the arguments used by rightwingers to deny the validity of the research. -
John Lott’s unethical conduct
Tim’s guide to the misbehavings of the godfather of “more guns, less crime”, whose studies supposedly proved that “more guns, less crime” but as this archive shows, many doubts can be raised about Lott’s research and conclusions.
Enjoy