That Marco Rubio interview in GQ was just another sign of how the
Republican Party prefers to suppress scientific evidence if it
contradicts faith.
Earlier this week, GQ magazine published an interview with
Senator Marco Rubio, whom many consider a contender for the 2016
Republican presidential nomination, in which Mr. Rubio was asked how
old the earth is. After declaring "I'm not a scientist, man," the
senator went into desperate evasive action, ending with the
declaration that "it's one of the great mysteries."
It's funny stuff, and conservatives would like us to forget about
it as soon as possible. Hey, they say, he was just pandering to
likely voters in the 2016 Republican primaries -- a claim that for
some reason is supposed to comfort us.
But we shouldn't let go that easily. Reading Mr. Rubio's
interview is like driving through a deeply eroded canyon; all at
once, you can clearly see what lies below the superficial landscape.
Like striated rock beds that speak of deep time, his inability to
acknowledge scientific evidence speaks of the anti-rational mind-
set that has taken over his political party.
By the way, that question didn't come out of the blue. As speaker
of the Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful
aid to creationists trying to water down science education. In one
interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to communist
indoctrination tactics -- although he graciously added that "I'm not
equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro." Gee, thanks.
What was Mr. Rubio's complaint about science teaching? That it
might undermine children's faith in what their parents told them to
believe. And right there you have the modern G.O.P.'s attitude, not
just toward biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to
contradict faith, suppress the evidence.
The most obvious example other than evolution is man-made climate
change. As the evidence for a warming planet becomes ever stronger -
- and ever scarier -- the G.O.P. has buried deeper into denial, into
assertions that the whole thing is a hoax concocted by a vast
conspiracy of scientists. And this denial has been accompanied by
frantic efforts to silence and punish anyone reporting the
inconvenient facts.
But the same phenomenon is visible in many other fields. The most
recent demonstration came in the matter of election polls. Coming
into the recent election, state-level polling clearly pointed to an
Obama victory -- yet more or less the whole Republican Party refused
to acknowledge this reality. Instead, pundits and politicians alike
fiercely denied the numbers and personally attacked anyone pointing
out the obvious; the demonizing of The New York Times's Nate Silver,
in particular, was remarkable to behold.
What accounts for this pattern of denial? Earlier this year, the
science writer Chris Mooney published "The Republican Brain," which
was not, as you might think, a partisan screed. It was, instead, a
survey of the now-extensive research linking political views to
personality types. As Mr. Mooney showed, modern American
conservatism is highly correlated with authoritarian inclinations --
and authoritarians are strongly inclined to reject any evidence
contradicting their prior beliefs. Today's Republicans cocoon
themselves in an alternate reality defined by Fox News, Rush
Limbaugh and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, and only on
rare occasions -- like on election night -- encounter any hint that
what they believe might not be true.
And, no, it's not symmetric. Liberals, being human, often give in
to wishful thinking -- but not in the same systematic, all-
encompassing way.
Coming back to the age of the earth: Does it matter? No, says Mr.
Rubio, pronouncing it "a dispute amongst theologians" -- what about
the geologists? -- that "has nothing to do with the gross domestic
product or economic growth of the United States." But he couldn't be
more wrong.
We are, after all, living in an era when science plays a crucial
economic role. How are we going to search effectively for natural
resources if schools trying to teach modern geology must give equal
time to claims that the world is only 6,000 years old? How are we
going to stay competitive in biotechnology if biology classes avoid
any material that might offend creationists?
And then there's the matter of using evidence to shape economic
policy. You may have read about the recent study from the
Congressional Research Service finding no empirical support for the
dogma that cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to higher economic
growth. How did Republicans respond? By suppressing the report. On
economics, as in hard science, modern conservatives don't want to
hear anything challenging their preconceptions -- and they don't
want anyone else to hear about it, either.
So don't shrug off Mr. Rubio's awkward moment. His inability to
deal with geological evidence was symptomatic of a much broader
problem -- one that may, in the end, set America on a path of
inexorable decline.
