The following is an editorial from today's NY Times by Paul Krugman, a
left-leaning, right-thinking economist. The subject is an immediate adjunct to Tom
Friedman's article that I just posted, although Friedman doesn't specifically
talk about evolution or science in general.

I believe Chuck Ryan asked about a year ago what does it matter if a textile
mill worker in South Carolina understands evolution? I consider that question
so fundamental to American competitiveness that it's hard to answer without
sounding like a rant. What we have instead is a entire area of the country that
has come to pride itself on its ignorance, its stupidity and its
superstitions. It was recently reported that IMAX theatres in the south have stopped
showing certain science-themed movies because of protests. An undersea IMAX movie
tour produced by James Cameron, the producer of "Titanic," was banned because he
mentions the 4 billion year history of the Earth and some of the patrons
found that upsetting. To further this descent into prideful ignorance, creationist
theme parks and museums are now being built in Kentucky and Florida. And, if
that weren't enough, we elect an uneducated, incurious president who
misunderstands and misrepresents fundamental knowledge as a matter of course.

Evolution is only a stalking horse, but superstition and ignorance won't stop
there. Geology and cosmology are becoming equal targets of late. But medicine
is next, where medical directives will be guided by Leviticus rather than
understanding (as they already are in some fundamentalist sects).

If you don't think that this impacts American competitiveness, you simply
don't understand the nature of what constitutes a well-educated and
intellectually aggressive work force, all of which directly affects your future prospects.

Wirt Atmar

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April 5, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
An Academic Question
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's a fact, documented by two recent studies, that registered Republicans
and self-proclaimed conservatives make up only a small minority of professors at
elite universities. But what should we conclude from that?

Conservatives see it as compelling evidence of liberal bias in university
hiring and promotion. And they say that new "academic freedom" laws will simply
mitigate the effects of that bias, promoting a diversity of views. But a closer
look both at the universities and at the motives of those who would police
them suggests a quite different story.

Claims that liberal bias keeps conservatives off college faculties almost
always focus on the humanities and social sciences, where judgments about what
constitutes good scholarship can seem subjective to an outsider. But studies
that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that
Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in
engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?

One answer is self-selection - the same sort of self-selection that leads
Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of
person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be
somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.

But there's also, crucially, a values issue. In the 1970's, even Democrats
like Daniel Patrick Moynihan conceded that the Republican Party was the "party
of ideas." Today, even Republicans like Representative Chris Shays concede that
it has become the "party of theocracy."

Consider the statements of Dennis Baxley, a Florida legislator who has
sponsored a bill that - like similar bills introduced in almost a dozen states -
would give students who think that their conservative views aren't respected the
right to sue their professors. Mr. Baxley says that he is taking on "leftists"
struggling against "mainstream society," professors who act as "dictators"
and turn the classroom into a "totalitarian niche." His prime example of
academic totalitarianism? When professors say that evolution is a fact.

In its April Fools' Day issue, Scientific American published a spoof
editorial in which it apologized for endorsing the theory of evolution just because
it's "the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific
ideas of all time," saying that "as editors, we had no business being
persuaded by mountains of evidence." And it conceded that it had succumbed "to the
easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than,
say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do."

The editorial was titled "O.K., We Give Up." But it could just as well have
been called "Why So Few Scientists Are Republicans These Days." Thirty years
ago, attacks on science came mostly from the left; these days, they come
overwhelmingly from the right, and have the backing of leading Republicans.

Scientific American may think that evolution is supported by mountains of
evidence, but President Bush declares that "the jury is still out." Senator James
Inhofe dismisses the vast body of research supporting the scientific
consensus on climate change as a "gigantic hoax." And conservative pundits like George
Will write approvingly about Michael Crichton's anti-environmentalist
fantasies.

Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly
dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not
research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be
surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the
Republican Party.

Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they
should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in
themselves. Instead, they're seeking a Lysenkoist solution that would have
politics determine courses' content.

And it wouldn't just be a matter of demanding that historians play down the
role of slavery in early America, or that economists give the macroeconomic
theories of Friedrich Hayek as much respect as those of John Maynard Keynes.
Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and
geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old
might face lawsuits.

If it got that far, universities would probably find ways to cope - by, say,
requiring that all entering students sign waivers. But political pressure will
nonetheless have a chilling effect on scholarship. And that, of course, is
its purpose.

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