Round 5 — Scientific Reason

Well folks, this is an election year.  This guarantees we will disagree on many things but please heed this bit of advice – wear boots!  The Republican Party likes to claim that they are “originalist” and that they know the intentions that the Founding Fathers had when they penned the US Constitution. This is frequently their justification for doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE from what the documents actually say.  They like to try to scare us into believing that the country is on the verge of destruction and that we are straying from the Founders’ intentions but lets really look at some of these claims.

I really should not have to write this one.  After all Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, David Rittenhouse, Thomas Jefferson were world renown for their scientific accomplishments but what would the Founding Fathers have thought of the GOP’s war on Scientific Reason?

Former Governor of Texas and former presidential candidate Rick Perry has stated that evolution is “a theory that is out there – and it’s got some gaps in it.” Perry is not the only Republican to dismiss evolution or climate change or any number of scientific realities that challenge their political agenda. When Chris Matthews (Fox News talk show host) asked former VP Mike Pence about global warming, Pence said, “I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming, Chris. In the mainstream media, Chris, there is a denial of the growing skepticism in the scientific community about global warming.”  If you’re wondering what Pence thinks about evolution, he said “I believe with all my heart that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them… How he did that, I’ll ask him about some day.”  To say that the GOP favors religious dogma over reasoned understanding is an understatement.  Both evolution and climate change are theories with a huge body of supporting evidence.  These ideas are generally accepted by all the leading scientific minds of our era but the GOP has no problem sweeping aside scientific consensus.

So, what would our Founding Fathers think of this?  Well Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” Benjamin Franklin stated “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” The Founding Fathers were men of the Enlightenment and would have struggled to rationalize their religion with clear scientific evidence but they would not have dismissed it as false.  I think the Founding Fathers would be ashamed of the positions that the GOP has embraced.

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