As Republican primary season schizophrenia continues, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is now in the spotlight, having very nearly beaten Mitt Romney in Iowa. So what do we people who care about science, and global warming in particular, know aboutย Santorum?
None of the Republican candidates, with the possible exception of pro-science Tweeter Jon Huntsman, have distinguished themselves as science allies. Even sometime moderate Mitt Romney famously flip-flopped and cast doubt on human caused global warming; Rick Perry, meanwhile, thinks climate researchers are making it all up.
But Santorum? Arguably, his attacks on science surpass all ofย theirs.
Santorum, let us not forget, not only denies evolution, but has been an active anti-evolutionist in the past. In other words, he has made attacking fundamental scientific knowledge a keyย priority.
In 2002, Santorumย wrote an op-ed calling the doctrine of โintelligent designโ (ID) โa legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes.โ He even pushed an amendment to the 2001 education bill to support ID. For more on Santorumโs anti-evolution advocacy, see here.
On global warming, meanwhile, Santorum isnโt just a science denier. He goes far beyond many climate โskepticsโ and actually argued, in a 2008 op-ed, that โglobal temperatures have actually cooled over the last 10 years and are predicted to continue cooling over the nextย 10โ!
Needless to say, Santorum is also a big opponent of embryonic stem cellย research.
Perhaps even more disturbing than these stances however, is a broader way of thinking on Santorumโs part. Consider this passage from the Washington Postโs Dana Milbank, reporting on some completely fact-free remarks by Santorum inย Iowa:
In Perry, Santorum gave his opinion that President Obama was more of a divisive figure than Richard Nixon, keeper of the enemies list: โI suspect President Nixon, although I donโt know, would talk and work with people and wouldnโt go out and demonize them as this president has done.โย Santorum doesnโt know it, but that doesnโt stop him from assertingย it.
At the same stop, he played loose with the facts when contrasting Ronald Reaganโs vacation schedule withย Obamaโs.
โI donโt know if itโs true, but somebody told me this,โ he began, โthat Ronald Reagan never left the White House at Christmas, and the reason was he wanted all the staff to be able to spend that time atย home.โ
Aย check of the recordย would have revealed to Santorum that in 1988, Reagan was in Los Angeles during Christmas, and that he spent the week after nearly every Christmas (and more than a year of his presidency) in Santa Barbara,ย Calif.
Reading this, I would say at minimum that Santorum would appear to lackย accuracy motives.
Pundits are saying that the GOP race may now be down to Santorum and Romney, and speculating that social conservatives may, at last, have found theirย candidate.
If so, we should probably prepare for regular bursts of unreality, at least up through the New Hampshireย primary.
