One last thought about the stakes for science (and society) in this election. I am going to be spending essentially all my waking hours between now and 8 p.m. tomorrow electioneering, so I’m not going to come up with a long supporting argument for this statement, but beyond all the specifics of policy claims and budget promises, there is a fundamental difference between a McCain/Palin led GOP and the Obama/Biden approach that I and a fusion physicist buddy of mine were just talking about this morning.
For McCain or at least the GOP base, science is instrumental, and divisible. It is conceivable within the science-world view of much, though not all of the GOP electorate to say that molecular medicine is fine, but evolution is not — so we’ll have the one and not the other, thank you very much.
I have been planning for a long time to write a much more considered essay about why this is false — drawing in part on wonderful parallels from Chinese history that I can draw out of filial respect for my Chinese historian father.
But for now, I’ll simply state the obvious: evolutionary ideas are not merely the context of modern biology, they are essential to process of reasoning that runs through that field. The same is true across discipline after discipline; the geology that locates oil is the geology that creates the climatological and evolutionary history of the planet through deep time, and vice versa…and so on.
All of which to say is that a political movement that owes any debt of power to those who want the technology, the goodies, without the intellectual machinery needed to advance the inquiry wants something for nothing.
Science is the cultural value that we all think it is, I believe; it is part of the reward of being human that we get to ask and answer great questions. But it is also, and historically speaking, first, the means by which we advance human wealth and well being. One side in this election lacks the commitment to fundamental science that the other retains.
That’s an assertion more than an evidence-defended argument in this post, I know. I’m assuming a certain amount of shared knowledge of, for example, the Palin wing of the GOP and its blithe disdain for the way science actually works. John McCain may not agree — but he has harnessed his hopes to the energy and ambition of that wing of the GOP. So forgive me here if I just assert my conclusions here. I’ll write a more reasoned argument in their defense the next time this kind of thing flares up. Whoever wins, America being America, I’m sure there won’t be long to wait.
In the meantime, please forgive the pure, “this is what I thought on my summer vacation” nature of this post, and vote. Vote early, and in case you had any residual doubt about this blog’s stance: Vote for Obama/Biden.
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