Climate change. Science deniers. The loss of big money. And fascism. Sounds like a few good topics for a game of Jeopardy. Here’s how they’re connected.
The Republican candidate for Senate, Christine O’Donnell, said this over a decade ago:
“American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”
Mice with Human Brains
Christine was lying about a study to see if we could regrow brain cells for regenerative purposes like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, paralysis, brain cells, not a brain.
The video clip above is from a Fox News show, and we know they are an entertainment news source that spews right-wing propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation regularly to help shape a specific segment of society’s thinking. And unfortunately, for tens of millions of Americans, it works. But that’s for another day.
Conservative Evangelicals And Billionaires
In 2008, a group of conservative evangelicals said this:
“For those who want to destroy the conservative agenda that the evangelicals have, is to somehow get them steered away from their core agenda and put them into this idea of global warming.”
In 2015, oil companies and the Koch brothers paid billions of dollars to get an entire voting block not to trust science. The Koch brothers, in particular, were among other groups that paid $1.25 million to spread misinformation about climate change. The point was not to trust science.
They wanted to create a voting block that would never trust science. So at any given time, when new information came out that threatened their power or their bottom line, their voting base would be primed never to believe it.
All it would take was one Republican leader, one evangelical leader like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson to come out and say, don’t trust it. Call it a lie. FYI, the Koch brothers funded the Tea Party.
Who’s Most Likely To Trust Science?
Here’s a video clip of The Young Turks answering that question:
“That’s the percent that are saying that they trust environmental science. Scientists talking about climate change in this case. You see the Democrats are incredibly likely to say they trust those scientists, 83%.
Independence depressingly down there near the Republican number and there’s a gap there between Democrats and Republicans. But look at the gap between Republicans and self-professed Tea Partiers. Tea Partiers are less than half as likely to say that they trust scientists when it comes to environmental issues.
That is not just sort of shocking, but it’s also depressing and it’s pretty sad.”
The Young Turks: Can Scientists Be Trusted? Not According To The Tea Party
Science And Fascism
Here’s a video clip from Big Think on Fascism:
“As Hitler says in Mein Kampf, science is only useful in so far as it strengthens the nation. Fascism is a cult of the leader. It involves the leader setting the rules about what’s true and false. So any kind of expertise, reality, all of that is a challenge to the authority of the leader.
If science would help him, then he can say, okay, I’ll use it. Institutions that teach multiple perspectives on history and all its complexity are always a threat, to the fascist leader.”
Big Think: The 10 Tactics of Facism
For nearly 50 years, Republicans and multi-trillion dollar companies have convinced you that you can’t trust science.