I wish you were a golfer - you'd see things differently if you were. I'm guessing you have a trauma memory on a golf course, which goads you to never risk that sensation ever again. But I testify in all sincerity: become a golfer, I mean, Golfer, and your life will never be the same. It will be better.
"...and so on, many times over. So yes, contrary to your ignorant presumption, I *do* "spend a bit of time indicating how folks become more conservative and vote Republican more often as a function of being exposed to the overwhelming evidence of evolution". Happy now? "
Ahh. Now who's looking dogmatic. Post after post which, fairly I'll grant, indicates that folks are turned off by over zealous bible thumpers. Ok ...I'll grant these folks do not accelerate the winsomness of being in the GOP.
But that is not what I asked you. I asked you for EVIDENCE that EXPOSURE to the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE of EVOLUTION brings out the 'conservative voter' latent in some hapless Public School educated fellow.
You see, we bible types are pretty convinced of something: exposure to GOD creates GOP voters. Exposure to Darwin creates selfish survivalists who love all messages from Today's Democrats.
This is evidence by experience, and articles like the one I posted here ... where DEMOCRATS are attempting to enshrine Darwin by legal fiat ... a survivalist tactic if there ever was one.
But for the sake of arguement, I'm just hoping in that vast library of links you have, you have just 2 links to studies which show how effective the teaching of evolution is in bringing about GOP voting patterns.
I appreciate the suggestion, but really, I doubt I'd find great philosophical revelations in knocking a ball around with a stick.
Post after post which, fairly I'll grant, indicates that folks are turned off by over zealous bible thumpers. Ok ...I'll grant these folks do not accelerate the winsomness of being in the GOP.
Well that's a start. ;-)
But that is not what I asked you. I asked you for EVIDENCE that EXPOSURE to the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE of EVOLUTION brings out the 'conservative voter' latent in some hapless Public School educated fellow.
Well, in this case I'd say it does -- if presenting the evidence that the radical anti-evolutionists are wrong gets them to tone down their public rants, it *will* bring out the "latent conservative voter", at least in a lot of *other* folks, who otherwise would have been scared off by the rants of the radicals. That's a large part of my primary reason for participating in these threads -- to try to get the anti-science folks to pipe down a bit so they'll stop scaring off a lot of conservative votes. If they weren't mouthing off so loudly and so publicly, I really wouldn't be concerned about what they chose to believe or not, nor would I be bringing up the subject myself except at rare times when it was relevant to something else being discussed. I'm not here to "preach" biology. It's just that with the anti-evolutionists being so loud and so numerous -- and so off-putting to folks who know better -- it's important for the sake of conservatism to a) try to get them to tone down a bit, and b) if that can't be done, at least show lurkers that it's possible to be science-literate *and* a conservative, come on in, there's room for all kinds, it's not all just folks itching to restart the Scopes trial.
But to address your more specific question, yes, I *do* believe that a good knowledge, appreciation, and respect for science can and does lead people to conservatism. As many have noted, in broad terms liberalism is about feelings, conservatism is about thinking/pragmatism. In my experience a good grounding in hard-nosed science or engineering produces conservatives more often than liberals -- it instills an ability to tell sense from nonsense, workable solutions from wishful thinking, and that there are right answers and wrong answers when dealing with reality. Joining hands and singing "kumbayah" doesn't get the rocket off the ground, and the parts and labor have to be paid for somehow. The more that people understand science and its methods of finding and testing knowledge, the more they become practical conservatives and the less they become starry-eyed liberals.
You see, we bible types are pretty convinced of something: exposure to GOD creates GOP voters.
I'm not sure that's true. There are plenty of liberal Christians. They may not be *your* kind of Christians, but they were exposed to God and still ended up liberals.
Exposure to Darwin creates selfish survivalists who love all messages from Today's Democrats.
Frankly, this is nonsense. There's some correlation between political outlook and acceptance of evolutionary biology, but not as high a correlation as you seem to assume, and the causation probably runs in the reverse direction -- instead of "Darwin" creating liberals, it's just that liberals are more open to the idea when they hear it, whereas not as many conservatives are (due to more traditional religious views, etc.) I've never heard of anyone who actually switched their political affiliation after "finding" evolution. And contrary to common belief, evolutionary biology really doesn't have any direct applications to politics or political philosophy. About the only non-biological parallel that's an apt one is the dynamics of laissez-faire capitalism, and as I'm sure you realize that's much more popular among *conservatives* than liberals.
This is evidence by experience, and articles like the one I posted here ... where DEMOCRATS are attempting to enshrine Darwin by legal fiat ... a survivalist tactic if there ever was one.
You're really misconstruing that article. No one's trying to "enshrine Darwin by legal fiat". As I mentioned earlier, the motive is just to keep unscientific stuff out of science classrooms. If there was a big sustained movement to shoehorn astrology into science classrooms, they'd eventually get around to putting a foot down on that too, but it wouldn't be about "enshrining" anything else, it'd be about saying, "come *on* folks, this doesn't belong in a science class, we're trying to maintain some standards." And yes, I'd be here posting about why astrology was bunk in response to folks trying to extoll it.
But for the sake of arguement, I'm just hoping in that vast library of links you have, you have just 2 links to studies which show how effective the teaching of evolution is in bringing about GOP voting patterns.
Well, I've got my personal experiences, described here, in the excerpts I posted in a prior post, and have talked abotu elsewhere.
But be honest -- if it turned out that the truth did happen to result in more liberal votes than conservative ones, would you find that a good reason to suppress it, or fail to stand up for it in the face of falsehoods? Really? Because if so, wouldn't that make us as bad as the worst of the liberals and the Islamists? Don't they care more about political power than about truth? Don't they care more about expediency than about being right?
I'm not willing to sacrifice reality, or honesty, or being correct, for the sake of increased political muscle. I hope you aren't either.