The Other McCain

by Smitty

Over at Ars Technica, John Timmer gives us a variation on argument from authority for why we are supposed to respect that one guy who was the ambassador to Bulungi or someplace:

“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” With that tweet, Jon Huntsman set himself apart from every other candidate in the Republican primary field. Despite his phrasing, Huntsman, who is barely registering in most polls, was clearly hoping that the public would believe most other candidates to be a bit loopy by contrast.

Agreeing with the scientific community has become a key issue in recent presidential campaigns. Evolution came up at a debate during the previous Republican primary season, and Rick Perry, the current front runner, was put on the spot about it at a recent campaign event (he flubbed his answer on several levels). And, as Huntsman’s tweet suggests, the reality of climate change has been a hot topic.

Evolution is utterly irrelevant to the election for at least three reasons:

• Whatever is occuring happens at a frequency that is orders of magnitude slower than anything were handling in the current economic crisis.
• Until there is a repeatable experiment that goes from the periodic table of elements to reproducing life, it’s really all so much speuculation. Not that I think reality was trotted out in 144 hours either, mind you. Just that I’m not even betting a cup of coffee that the theory du jour is accurate.
• The last several presidents have conclusively demonstrated that you just don’t require much detailed knowledge at all to sit in the Oval Office. Caring about evolution, one way or another, is a difference that makes no difference. If the genesis of life is an election issue, then we should as well rate candidates based upon their knowledge of eschatology. The thumping sounds you heard at the mention of the subject were the heads of half the readers of this post hitting desks around the world.

This is not an anti-science post. We need to fund research, both to improve society, and keep scientists off the street. We wouldn’t want them getting together, cooking data, and creating a large scare, for example. . .Global Unobtainium Contamination. GUC could, you know, throw the climate under the bus. Affect your complexion. Inflate the currency. Horrible stuff. We must regulate Unobtanium! Credits for Unobtanium markets are the only way we can manage this foul scourge, lest it trigger a spate of Michael Moore documentaries.

It’s a reasonable concern. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for a candidate who rejects science and expertise, and as a voter, I’d like to have a viable choice between two qualified candidates. At the moment, it’s looking like I won’t.

My biggest concern is that, ultimately, Huntsman may be wrong. We’re in an environment where economic concerns will almost certainly dominate the election. And the campaigns will be covered by a press that cares more about the strategy of what a candidate said than its accuracy, a press that thinks it achieves balance by pretending there are two sides on every issue that merit serious consideration. In that environment, it’s entirely possible that the US electorate may not recognize or care much about the implications of a few scientific questions.

Besides, a candidate who rejects science can apparently use that position to attract the support of somewhere above a quarter of the electorate. That’s not a bad start for a presidential campaign.

What candidate in the last decade or two has said: “I reject science.”? Who gets to pick the experts? Doesn’t the crashed economy sort of argue that most of the experts need to turn in their pigskins? “. . .economic concerns will almost certainly dominate the election.” You make it sound like being concerned about the economy is a bad thing. We’ve had a system that says running peacetime federal deficits is a good thing. Also good, Quantitative Easing. It’s theft, John, against which lack of integrity your mewling about taking science seriously seems at least ironic, if not laughable.
Have you ever noticed that, with the glaring exception of quantum chemist Angela Merkel, scientists just don’t get into politics? Pols are predominantly lawyers, with a minority of doctors, and the occasional Allen West that our system cannot suppress (yay!).

Are scientists in general just too smart for politics, or simply not suitable? Or have research scientists become just another constituency that kicks back a certain percentage of grant money to the ‘proper’ candidates?

Why does society appear to suck so much, with so many rooms of purportedly smart people? Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. . .