Flat-Earthers’ Revenge
Interview With Chris Mooney, author of
The Republican War on Science
by C.W. Cannon

Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science.

There have been lots of tomes focusing on the various different fronts of the conservative backlash against modernity and democracy. In the 1990s, the Republican war on art took center-stage in the “culture wars” over NEA funding, PBS funding, unclothed allegorical statues at the Department of Justice, and other tentacles of the despised “counter culture.” Thomas Frank seemed to hit the nail on the head in 2004’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? by tracing the transformation of economic populism into the quasi-fascist (my term) cultural populism that has become the cornerstone of our era’s Republican electioneering. As Frank makes clear, ignoring economic reality is a prerequisite for advancing Republican Party electoral majorities.

Chris Mooney covers a different, equally essential beat in the Republican attack on reality, that is, The Republican War on Science. Science attempts to apprehend reality, describe it, predict its future, in objective and careful terms. More problematic for Republicans has been the level of respect and good faith the public invests in the scientific community. A pogrom against scientists, a la the sci-fi TV series, V, simply isn’t practical. Unlike artists, scientists are less susceptible to cultural-populist smear campaigns (they might be geeky, but they’re not long-haired drug-addled sex fiends who want to sit around and make art instead of having a “real job”).

So what is a political party whose every policy is embarrassingly challenged by hard scientific research to do? Throw the Bible at the microscope? Been done. The better method is to turn certain scientific principles (such as skepticism) against science itself and to borrow from postmodern rhetoric about the contingency of all knowledge and use those blunt instruments to bludgeon certainty into uncertainty. In the process, the most radical postmodern theorist’s notion of the tenuous line between fact and opinion is corroborated. Everything’s a “theory” anyway, so no science is sound, no scientific fact reliable. Everything is just politics (and we know who plays politics best). Mooney looks closely, meticulously, at several fronts in the abuse of science—“abuse” meaning not so much disregard of scientific findings as willful distortion and obfuscation—by the leading lights of the conservative movement, culminating in its apotheosis (end?): the Dubya administration. He agreed to answer a few questions for us.

One of the key leitmotifs in your book is the idea of the “manufacture of uncertainty” by policy-makers and interested parties like corporations or ideologically driven think-tanks when it comes to scientific ideas which actually enjoy overwhelming consensus among scientists. In your epilogue, however, you carve out some blame for the mainstream media. You suggest that, in their misguided attempt to provide a (politically) “balanced” assessment, they’re too willing to go again and again to the same fringe sources of supposedly scientific dissent. How would you advise editors to encourage science reporting that is more scientifically accurate, even when it might appear less “fair” politically?

The number one thing for editors is to let their reporters report. In other words, if a science reporter files a story that doesn't fit the traditional canons of "balance," that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it may be the only appropriate way of covering that particular story. Editors shouldn't reflexively demand an equal treatment of "both sides" no matter the issue.

That said, cases will certainly arise in which editors are right to demand more balance. It really depends upon the subject that's being covered.
Editors also need to make sure that their science reporters aren't stretched too thin. The best way to get good science journalism is to let a reporter really internalize a beat over a period of time, developing familiarity with sources and tracking a field of research as it evolves. By contrast, if a reporter is forced to cover a subject that he or she doesn't know very well on a tight deadline, that reporter will be more prone to fall back on of a number of journalistic crutches, "balance" being just one of them.

Your book covers a few case studies which all demonstrate the abuse of scientific findings and basic principles. You devote chapters to global warming, nutrition, tobacco, endangered species, evolution, stem cell research, and human sexuality. Does any one of these issues strike you as the most flagrant arena of distortion?

Opinions will differ about which of the "fronts" of the war on science is the most critical. I tend to think about it this way: If you're worried about an attack that goes to the very heart of what science actually is, then worry about evolution. The assault there threatens the very essence of science as an enterprise that seeks to explain the world by invoking natural causes--indeed, redefining the nature of science is one of the key objectives of the "intelligent design" movement.

If you're worried about the immediate consequences of science abuse to this country or to the world, though, worry about global warming. On this issue, repeated attempts to distort and undermine the basic science have contributed to a situation in which we're taking essentially no action as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise and the planet continues to warm. And that's scary.

A slightly different question: in which of these areas is the debunking of the debunkers most urgent?

I would say global warming. I generally tend to make global warming and evolution my top two issues, although as you note, the book discusses many others.

I recall an interview back in the old Bush days when then Drug Czar William Bennett responded to a question about the harmfulness of marijuana with “It fries your brain, everybody knows that.” Have you found in your research that, in a pinch, or with the right crowd, vulgar expressions of anti-intellectualism still play a key role in the GOP’s ideological arsenal?

I used the word "veneer": It's often a very thin one. When American conservatives speak to their base, science itself is often disparaged as a "religion" of its own, and scientists are depicted as leftists in bed with the Democrats and Al Gore. Indeed, many conservatives willfully disregard entire bodies of published scientific research--essentially, all of evolutionary science, or all of climate science.

So never fear, the anti-intellectual strain in American politics remains alive and well. And if attacking science these days feel compelled to cite some type of "science" of their own, that merely reflects the fact that it's not acceptable in American discourse today to just say, "science sucks." That's too uncouth, too 1925. You have to be slicker these days, so the right has accordingly adopted a more technocratic discourse. But don't let it fool you--no one who really had any respect for scientific information would treat it the way that they do.

Speaking of drugs, illegal drug policy is surely one area where scientific research and principles are routinely abused by policymakers. Yet you opted to leave that chapter out. What was your reasoning behind that decision?

Well, there were any number of topics that could have deserved a chapter or section in a book like mine. The Republican War on Science is not an encyclopedic treatment of every single issue where science has been misused or abused. However, the book does cover some of the most prominent issues and issue areas where there have been repeated science scandals during the Bush administration and under Republican political rule. So for example, the book lingers on the three biggies: evolution, stem cell research, climate change. And then it branches into slightly less high-profile areas where there have also been repeated scandals: endangered species protections, reproductive health, and the government regulatory process in general. I probably could have found a place to discuss the "war on drugs" within the context of this narrative, but one can only do so much.

More on The Republican War on Science The Republican War on Science @ waronscience.com Chris Mooney on NPR Mother Jones interview, 10.05 Articles by Chris Mooney on seedmagazine.com

One of the great contributions of your study is to trace the history of the Republican War on Science and to remind us repeatedly that, though current President Bush may be particularly flagrant in this regard, the antecedents stretch way back, basically to the usual conservative movement suspects (Gingrich, Reagan, Goldwater). Do you see a danger in the “Anyone But Bush” movement’s tendency to place too much credit for the New Right’s program in this one guy?

Sure. I tried to show that there's something inherent to today's Republican Party that leads to this sort of misbehavior with respect to science. It's probably worse under Bush than it would be under a Republican president who's more intellectually flexible and less dogmatic. But unless you had a real old-school Republican moderate, an Eisenhower type, for president, I suspect many of the same problems would exist. It's simple political arithmetic. The Republicans took a fateful turn in the 1960s and 1970s, and became the party of Ronald Reagan. They welcomed religious conservatives into their base; and they became apologists for private industry. Now, to remain in power, they have to continue to carry water for these interest groups--interest groups that are constantly coming into conflict with scientific information in key areas. And thus arises the "war on science."

I’m sure you could write a whole other book devoted entirely to the debate over the future of your own hometown. New Orleanians have become amateur engineers and geologists since the events of late 2005 What abuses of scientific research on the geography of Louisiana, as it pertains to policy decisions like funding coastal restoration, have you observed?

This is a tricky question. When it comes to the future of New Orleans, I have not seen much outright misuse of science, in the sense of deliberately twisting or misrepresenting information. But then, perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough. For example, did anyone seriously argue that New Orleans wasn't vulnerable? Did anyone attack the science demonstrating its vulnerability? It may have happened, although I haven't seen it. In any event, I am being cautious because I draw a distinction between ignoring or disregarding science on the one hand, and attacking it on the other. Not that either is excusable.

Considered more broadly, I do consider New Orleans the number one case study of what happens when good science fails to make its way into the decision-making process. We had forty years, after Betsy, to use the best available science to protect ourselves from another calamity. We failed miserably, because we didn't adequately plan for worst case scenarios (despite the landfall of Cat 5 Hurricane Camille scarily close to New Orleans in 1969). Rather than erring strongly on the side of caution, corners were cut. You'd think any sane cost-benefit analysis would have shown the value of protecting a city from destruction.

What goes for the Army Corps of Engineers also goes for FEMA but on a much shorter time scale. That agency also failed to use the science at its fingertips--science coming from the National Hurricane Center, which put out highly reliable information as the storm approached--to do its job promptly and effectively.

For some reason we have a horrible problem in this country when it comes to translating scientific knowledge effectively into action. It's hard to think of a better figurehead for that failure than George W. Bush, who so embarrassingly declared: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

C.W. Cannon is the author of Soul Resin, a novel, and is a regular correspondent for NOLAFugees.com.