Marco Rubio, potential 2016 Republican President contender, gave an interview recently on a myriad of topics. A lot has been said about his response to how old the earth is. Also, a representative from Georgia who is also a medical doctor had some rather harsh things to say about evolution.
Rubio and Broun are not stupid or uninformed. Both of fully aware of evolutionary theory and the concepts behind it. And both seem to have rejected it on some level. I assume they believe in some variation on the Christian creation story. They are fully entitled to this belief. However, given that they clearly use logic and the scienific method in other aspects of their lives, it is disturbing they appear to discount the evidence on this point.
The problem with this is that when they encounter some evidence which contradicts some belief of theirs, they tend to look the other way. This is not a trait I would expect from any leader in the public or private sector. We elect people and pay CEOs the big bucks to solve problems. We expect them to use rational and systematic thinking. Or at least I do.
In short, I can't trust someone who ignores evidence of the existence of some particular trend, theory, or fact for any reason. Let me give you a hypothetical question - A CEO of a company has to make a decision how to invest some money. You are a shareholder of this company. Presumbably, you would want the CEO to make a decision which will in most likliehood increase the value of your shares. Would you prefer the CEO to justify his decision based on what the Bible says or would you prefer the CEO base his decision on research, logic, and the like? I think I know the answer to that.
I am not wedded to any particular answer to any problem. I am serious. The primary reason I vote democratic is because I see too many conservatives deny science, be it evolution, global warming, and the like. Another set of examples, to illustrate my point -
Example 1) Health Care in the United States. This is a complicated problem. Thankfully, to assist ourselves in addressing it, we have numerous other industrialized nations that have a variety of health care systems. I believe this would be the starting point for any analysis. However, it seems on the right, we start from this assumption that government run health care is inherently bad and inferior to our current system. So I ask conservatives why is our system superior? What evidence suggests this? What metrics should be used in the analysis?
Example 2) Budgets, Taxes, and the like. Liberals say raise taxes on the rich, conservatives say cut taxes on all. Sometimes defecits matter, sometimes they don't. Sometimes government spending is bad, sometimes it is good - see Defense spending. Again, there is a lot of data to help us in making the correct decision. We as a nation have had a long history of various tax rates. Other nations have had challenges with defecits and taxes. Both of these items should be the starting point for the discussion. Both liberals and conservatives fail to really use any evidence to support their views.
Example 3) Crime and Punishment. I perceive that most of America is of the "tough on crime" mentality such as long prison sentences, death penalty, "victims rights", no parole and a general attitude that more jails equal less crime. This topic is a little different than the previous two, as there is some hard to define moral concept i.e. a criminal must be punished, not to deter others or make society safer, but to "punish" the offender. The concept of punishment in my opinion is beyond anything that can be rationalized and everyone believes in punishment on some level.
Therefore if you strongly believe in punishing criminals the analysis really stops there. The debate then is about the severity of the punishment not about what creates the greatest benefit to society or any other putative objective of the criminal justice system.
I am in the definite minority in that I do not believe in punishment for punishments sake. I believe the primary if not sole objective of the criminal justice system is to reduce crime. Obviously, a big part of this is incarerating criminals for various periods of time. In my opinion, I think an individuals sentence should be of sufficient length to dissuade him from commiting future crimes and dissaude others from commiting crimes. If that has the side effect of punishing him, then so be it. However, these are just my opinions. I'd like to see the stats from various states and countries - which systems really reduce crime? Given my objective I am open to all options.
Ok, I kind of rambled at the end, but perhaps my crime and punishment stuff should be for another post. However, evolution matters because the scientific method matters and following logic only when you agree with it, is in fact illogical.
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