SCIENCE V. SENSE

Conflict between conservative leaders and science is not new.  History reveals that in 1633 in Italy the conservatives jailed the leading scientist of the time, Galileo, for expressing his view that the earth rotated around the sun.  Almost 400 years later, it seems conservatives are still at odds with science.


Sadly, however, in actuality, today's battle is over money and greed. 

Conservative Republicans continue to deny scientific findings in order to help their wealthy benefactors, even when history has proven the denial of scientific facts is not in the interest of a majority of us.  The standard bearer for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, has been quoted calling climate change a "hoax," "mythical" and a "con job" and stating that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make manufacturing non-competitive."

Do you recall when the cigarette industry continued to publish article after article by "bought" scientists saying smoking was not harmful to the human body and was not really the cause of lung cancer? Similarly, hundreds if not thousands of working men and women died from asbestos exposure while corporations not only denied the connection, but actually concealed it from their workers.

Locally, in Jefferson County, how long did it take for refinery workers to force their employers to admit that benzene was a cause of leukemia and benzene emissions a contributor to leukemia among our children? 

One only needs to read a recent publication entitled “Dark Money” to discover how many billions are being spent by the Koch brothers to preserve their multi-billion dollar activities through the bogus denial of climate change caused by their refining plants’ emissions.  

The most recent example of conservative conflict with science deals with the oil and gas industry in Texas, but the handmaiden for Texas oil and gas is our elected Railroad Commission.  A new study by University of Texas scientists has revealed a large number of recent earthquakes are in fact caused by drilling activities.  This fact is hotly disputed by our elected Railroad Commission, and even worse, our Republican controlled Legislature—which espouses the primacy of local government—has passed a law prohibiting cities from regulating drilling activities which affect local citizens by creating tremors.

It seems some things never change.