Let’s hear some clueless raving about how conservatives are more pro-science than liberals.
Joshua Jacobs, the smug libertarian being interviewed, believes in using the unbridled force of the free market to bring America back to unrivaled prosperity
. The interviewer, Nick Gillespie, thinks that sounds good
. It took a real effort to control my gag reflex so I could listen further.
Jacobs consistently confuses the application of technology with science throughout the interview — it was agonizing. Nothing he discusses is about science at all. His solution to everything is deregulation, tax cuts, and entitlement reform
, the standard conservative position, which is all destructive to the institution of science (if he were actually pro-science, he’d be talking about education, opportunity, and investment…like all the major science organizations, such as NIH and NSF, consider major concerns). When pressed for examples, he gives a few.
The first one was unbelievable: he points out that 90% of the biotech development budget is consumed in the phase III clinical trial
, and he wants to reduce the burden on drug companies. By cutting phase III trials. In case you don’t know the standard terminology, here’s what Phase III trials do.
Phase III: The drug or treatment is given to large groups of people to confirm its effectiveness, monitor side effects, compare it to commonly used treatments, and collect information that will allow the drug or treatment to be used safely.
Think how much more money the pharmaceutical companies could make if we reduced the need that they actually demonstrate that their drugs are effective and safe! Yeah, that helps science.
He’s asked about stem cell research. He’s all for it, although he talks about the fact that abortion is going to be legal with some regret, and using aborted fetuses as sources of stem cells is just salvaging some good out of the bad. I suppose we could get along with that attitude, but it ignores the fact that it is the conservative political parties that oppose stem cell research, and the liberal parties that support it. That a few conservatives find utilitarian excuses to allow it does not mean that it is a conservative goal to support science.
He’s also asked about power generation, and concern about global warming and pollution. He’s not one of the old school denialists: instead, he says that we’re locked in now, the world is going to warm up anyway, so we ought to just go full steam ahead and build that coal plant, build that natural gas power plant
and power our way through to some solution, somewhere, sometime.
You need a healthy economy that accelerates the development of new technologies,
he says. So how come conservative principles seem to lead us to consistently sick economies, with greater economic disparities that advantage wealthy exploiters at the expense of those trivialities, like a safe environment, effective solutions, and benefits to everyone in addition to the plutocrats?
The real pro-science side is empirical and pragmatic and looks at what works. It is fundamentally anti-scientific to use the criterion of what profits the few in the short run the most, which is all conservative principles offer us. When an ideologue offers nothing but free-market platitudes to justify rapacious and unproductive strategies that don’t work and have led to the current serious problems, you’re listening to someone who is fundamentally anti-science.
My main problem was his premise. The great economic drivers that alleviated poverty and promoted prosperity were all government sponsored. The highway and rail systems, the aerospace and telecommunications industries, national agricultural stability, water management and conservation, etc etc etc. The free market results have flourished *on top* of the government infrastructure. You don’t pay $1 for a loaf of bread because of the free market and competition, tight margins would destroy farmers. You do so because of the various farm bills that reduce risk.
Well, at least it’s always nice when libertarians admit they are conservatives.
One quibble: I’d say that the real pro-science side supports basic research. These folks are technological fantasists.
Entitlement reform: The swindlers are entitled to keep their loot and the rest of us are entitled to go fuck ourselves.
The confusion between “technology” (or “application”) and “(pure) science” pushes most of my buttons, perhaps including a few I’m not really aware of, and besides making me sputter with rage and scaring off the mildly deranged penguin, allegedly also defers peas for a few seconds. That last claim has not been verified, since all attempts to gather confirming evidence have, as I understand it, seem to lead to to various catastrophes, such as assorted supernovas and thugs being “elected” president. Whilst this alleged correlation has not been confirmed, it has acquired a name — “HeseinBOOM!” — a reference to Ye Rough Heisenberg Uncertainty (“if you can see it, that ain’t where it / what it is”) and the general reaction of people such as myself.
I’ve made the point somewhere recently, that libertarianism can be demonstrated nonsensical by cognizance of one simple truth.
Money is a real, bang on it and hear it ring, bite it and taste it, stub your toe and trip over it “social construct”.
The money and value the libertarians claim the individual/entrepreneur/corporation (yet another falsifying reality) makes/earns/trades and the libber claims is a natural entitlement only has value because others in that society treat it has having value. (Note that that which is “money” is the denotation of value, not the value asserted)
“Conservatives are more pro-science than liberals. Let me prove it by showing how little I know about the complexity of economics!”
So real pro-science is accepting our doom, insisting on using the same old power sources we have been using and continuing to contribute to the problem, and to not use science and/or technology to try to develop an actual solution when it can still matter? Okay then.
A quibble:
That’s old-school denial. It’s the fifth stage: http://skepticalscience.com/5-stages-climate-denial-on-display.html
Many people display all five stages simultaneously despite their being mutually contradictory.
colonelzen@5: libertarians are completely refractory to your point. For them, money is a real physical thing — a shiny metal. Thinking of money as a social contract is a radical left-wing idea from the likes of ideologues like Adam Smith or Milton Friedman.
I’m curious if they address at all the role that public institutions like the NIH and universities play in science. Because, as blf said, there are the people who take knowledge and make it do neat things for us and the people who set up the framework of knowledge. (These people need not be mutually exclusive, and this is not a sharp line.)
Most corporations are more interested in developing something they can sell so they can get more money to R&D the next thing. That’s fine, but if we want to open up a new branch on the Tree of Knowledge (or even a modest twig), we’re probably going to need to understand new things about how, say, cells work, rather than figure out better ways to hit receptor A or interrupt process B.
Even non-profits might have trouble funding ‘basic research’ because they usually have a goal (though they might be able to get broader things that sound like they could benefit the goal.)
anteprepro
Exactly! When I was reading the OP, there was one thought running through my head “for all his blustering about knowing more about sciences, he apparently is forgetting the science called ‘economics'”. O wait, I forgot, he is a libertarian, which means he has read a book on econ 101 and thinks he knows everything there is to know bout economics. Sigh.
No, as a libertarian, he reads an Econ 101 textbook and goes, “Nope. That’s all wrong. I know how it really works!”
Is there any other kind?
Wow, no wonder most conservatives just put their head in the sand and deny AGW. This doofus is basically admitting “Solutions? Yeah, we got nothing. Let’s just do what we always did and hope it all works out in the end.” If humanity is going to survive the next couple of decades, these nutbars should be as far away from actual power as possible.
This also shows, that you could completely remove the religious right from the GOP and they would still be anti-science to the core.
Thank you @Artor.
Folks like Paul Krugman have been pointing out for years now that “econ 101” outlines how to tackle the 2008 financial crisis. However, people who think they know better than “ivory tower professors” have more or less succeeded in doing the exactly wrong things and have perpetuated the problems.
What always drives me crazy about people like this is that they seem to think their libertarian no-government paradise has never been tried before in the history of humanity. It’s as if the entire 19th century never happened. Read Engels, read Sinclair Lewis, heck, if you prefer fiction read Dickens to find out what the unregulated world was like.
Unfortunately, luxury for the few and miserable poverty for the many never seems to bother Randians — they always assume they’ll be among the few, for some reason.
foshka@1: You left off the biggest driver of postwar prosperity: the GI Bill, the biggest government handout ever.
Artor @11 and Sunday Afternoon@13
I slightly disagree, I can very well imagine how people sometimes read entry-level econ handbooks and come away with a wrong interpretation: entry level economics talks about a fairly theoretical framework in which the invisible hand guides the market to an equilibrium. You need to read or study on to come to those parts which basically give all the reasons why the theoretical framework has limited applicability, and why those prerequisites fail in real-life (for example, no, there almost never is ‘total and equal information’ by all actors in the market).
Combine this with an unwillingness to see a distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ (the fact that the specific equilibrium is the end result of the market doesn’t mean it is the best one from the viewpoint of the society, just like evo bio talking about a survival of the fittest doesn’t mean that modus operandi should be followed by society; economics is a science describing the real world, and doesn’t give a moral value judgement) and you get your average slightly educated but totally ignorant libertarian.
As an aside, it is hilarious (or sad, probably both) how right wingers see themselves as ‘rebels’ (see the name of the site of the OP). Because upholding the status quo, being a cheerleader for the elite, and trampling down on the oppressed masses is sooo rebellious, amiright?
@#14
My thoughts exactly. It’s as if they prefer to read A Christmas Carol from back to front.
– Oscar Wilde
Speaking of libertarians and global warming, this gem is taken from a piece on Putin, the Russian media, and global warming:
So the libertarian Cato Institute is in bed with a Putin apologist.
Republicans like to talk tough about Russia, but the truth of the matter is that Putin would fit in very comfortably in the modern GOP, somewhere between Cruz and Huckabee.
“Damn the icebergs, full speed ahead! At least we may take some of them with us!”
But sure, go right ahead. Fusion will bail us out. Eventually. Everyone knows the hero arrives just in the nick of time. Or maybe it could be nuclear. By the time the oceans start to boil even solar might look like a good idea.* So then all you need to do is put cities, people, crops and any farm animals (if applicable) in refrigerated domes and it’s all good. That certainly seems like the most economical route to go.
And let’s just ignore that a lot of fusion research is supported by government funds and that government subsidies have contributed hugely to the proliferation of new energy sources like solar power. Let’s also ignore that a lot of new ideas came out of universities, things like improved photovoltaics and, yes, more efficient and greener coal plants. Once the researchers have starved I’m sure the free market will rush to fill the gap, developing new concepts and technologies for green energy and climate change mitigation regardless of the financial risks attached to such projects.
*Except that solar cells get worse the hotter it gets. Drat!
Apologies for not closing the link in @18. (And I even previewed it.)
The fellow isn’t pro-science, he’s pro-technocracy.
Like a lot of technocrat fanboys, he does not understand that science and technology are interlinked but not the same thing, and he also fails to perceive that technology-based industries can be heavily anti-science where the science does not support their corporate goals.
My beef with this is the way he, and other conservatives/libertarians/fundamentalists/idiots, frame the issue in the first place: “bring America back to unrivaled prosperity.” What is he talking about? Where did America go? America continues to have unrivaled prosperity compared to most of the world. This “take America back” meme is a dog whistle, in part for give big business everything they want, and for how bad it is now that women, blacks, browns, LGBT, and other non-white male people have some small influence on and receive some small benefit from our society.
“It is fundamentally anti-scientific to use the criterion of what profits the few in….”
Well, PZ, I hope you’ll remove the probe from the back of your neck to escape from the Matrix and face the real world. All American scientific research including “government funded” is in bed with the private sector that profits the few. Take for example the cognitive neuroscientist Christoff Koch who is doing cutting edge research on the neural basis of consciousness. Who funds him? Why, former Microsoft co-founder multi-billionaire Paul Allen. I’m currently a co-investigator on a study evaluating a specific algorithm being used on BiPAP machines for patients with central sleep apnea. There is only limited federal funding for this project. The bulk of the funding comes from the company who manufactures the devices and are owners of the algorithms. Our study accounts for controls, proper study design and strict adherence to mandates put forth by our IRB. If the study yields positive results after stats are completed, who will ultimately reap rewards? Of course the study will look great on my resume and charter my path towards associate professor. But we all know that the big winner will be the company whose handful of profiteering CEOs will make millions selling these devices. And I don’t say that with any ounce of pride. I wished that our “non-profit ” federal granting agencies (yeah right!) paid for the whole dang study but they keep tightening the purse strings. But I can hold my head up high by acknowledging that there was no anti-science at play.
Not just ignorant of science, but of history and economics too. Where on this planet and at which juncture in history, recent or distant, has any nation (by which I mean all the people who live in it and its ecology) prospered by enriching the already obscenely-rich at the expense of ordinary people and the environment?
“Go ahead and dig that mine because we’re all fucked and can literally do nothing to mitigate the impending heat death of much of the planet” is perhaps the most glaringly stupid, anti-scientific attitude I’ve ever heard expressed. It’s anti-technology as well, considering the role new tech is already playing in reducing dependence on “dig and burn” power generation (and therefore reducing carbon emissions) across the planet. By extension it’s also ignorant of economics: you’d think people with such focus on The Holy Market would see that coal is declining (economically, certainly and in terms of public image it’s going the same direction tobacco did in the 80s/90s) and renewables are accelerating, so to remain invested in coal is a fool’s errand (unless you have a government willing to subsidise the industry at taxpayers’ expense). The attitude also consigns millions of ecologically-vulnerable people to the shit-pile, or at least to the mercies of neighbouring nations – but hey, they’re just the unproductive poor anyway, right? If they didn’t want to be rendered homeless and jobless and starving by droughts and rising sea levels they should’ve moved away from their cushy little crab shacks and got better jobs, amirite?
“the smug libertarian”
One little question – does that include open borders for every Latin-American who wishes to try his/her luck in the USA? No? Then that libertarianism is worth nothing.
@mnb0
Oh, gosh no. Libertarianism is for people who are already in the club, not people who merely want to be. If you deserved to be in the club you already would be, and the fact that you’re not means you don’t deserve to be. After all, literally everyone has exactly the same opportunities and potential and access and there are no barriers except those ones in the fevered imaginations of statists, Marxists and SJWs, so if you fail, you’re a failure, and you deserve to be – otherwise you wouldn’t be, QED, hashtag pure unbridled meritocracy, hashtag equality means no handouts etc
I don’t think these people will be happy until they are allowed to send their kids off to the coal mines again.
treefrogdundee — “…send their kids off to the coal mines…” Not their kids. Maybe your kids. Their kids will go to the nice schools, maybe even boarding schools, where they can get a proper education.
So, murdering to end murder as applied to climate politics. Amazing.
Also, I’ve been mulling over the distinction that this guy willingly confuses, the one between science vs. technological development. It’s obviously a bit glib to condense the distinction down to a sinlgle line, but I would describe the difference as: science is the process of uncovering new information, engineering is the process of putting it to use.
It also leads to the amusing oxymoron “conservative future”.
Ahem: http://www.occupy.com/article/noam-chomsky-how-ruin-economy-three-simple-steps
And the first step is to cut back on state-sponsored research and development, which is the opposite of what a pro-science policy would be.