Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for science and learning. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just 'people of faith' but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

This is a pretty good op-ed about the GOP's antipathy toward science, research, learning, and understanding. We face such enormous challenges these days (I'm thinking of the need to shift from a coal-based "dumb" electricity patchwork to a diversified, "smart" energy grid utilizing solar, wind, etc., dealing with disease, getting potable drinking water to people to prevent civil war, etc.) that it's absolutely astounding that the GOP would nominate someone like Sarah Palin (whose views are apparently shared, or at least not mediated, by the purported top of the ticket). It's offensive that they have such little respect for us that they'd nominate someone like this. It's also offensive that Palin is so deeply popular among such a wide swath of the country. What in the world are they thinking?

The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for science and learning. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine:

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