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The Earth is Flat! Evolutionary Theory Contradicts the Bible’s Teaching. Man-Made Global Warming is Bunk?

towashington 089.gif By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

In the 1920’s, a Tennessee law that forbade teaching from textbooks that treated Darwin’s theory of evolution as fact was broken by a teacher named Scopes. The subsequent trial – the first nationally broadcast over the nascent radio network – pitted science against the literal interpretation of the bible.

Film dramatizations have drawn the contest as redneck dummies vs. the modern world, but it was more complex than that. The blue laws of Tennessee which forbad various activities on the Sabbath would fall to Constitutional challenge (the “establishment” clause) if not based on fact. If a literal reading of the Bible can be accepted as truth, then laws based on that truth are not sectarian

A “science” that undercuts the legitimacy of law must be wrong.

Fast forward 82 years to today and we see two leading Republican ideologues making the same argument: “The notion of man-made global warming threatening the entire world is little more than selective evidence used to advance once cause: increased regulation and control of free market economies”. Nobel Peace Prize Tarnished by Politics.

If “science” says that global warming is both real and man-made, then we must reject that “science” because we reject its implications.

G.O.P. Senators Roy Ashburn and Tom McClintock – by any analysis the leading policy minds of the California Republican Party – would clearly outlaw textbooks that taught that man-made global warming is threatening the entire world. Because if that were to be accepted as fact, then “increased control of free market economies” would be necessary to combat that threat. So the science must be rejected – or the Republicans must be labeled wrong.

McClintock concedes that global warming may be real, balking at the argument it is “man made”. Rather it is a natural recurrence of climate change. Lamentable, but not amenable to change by man. So we should endure it as best we can and not monkey with the free marketplace. Science and scientists that say otherwise are wrong. Ashburn seems to question global warming itself.

Both men are right about the consequences. If global warning is a real threat caused by the actions of men, and can be alleviated by new actions, then the political pressure to take those actions will prevail. Those actions will justify “increased control of free market economies”. Republicans will have to abandon their principles and join the argument (within the Democratic Party) about how much regulation will be needed.

If that’s unacceptable, then join the good folk of Tennessee circa 1925.

Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.

He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.

Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.

Posted on October 26, 2007

Comments

Whether Global warming is natural or not, is 'man-made' or not, should not be the issue.

There's no reason for us not to find ways to live in a world free of pollution, free of waste, and one that uses renewable resources.

An “increased control of free market economies” as you say, is just fine to some extent though I would prefer a free market approach to one that is governement directed, and possibly product limiting.

So long as whatever approach is taken is not just another excuse to raise taxes, or the price of goods deemed un-politically correct.

Posted by: AngelDecoys at October 27, 2007 05:05 PM

McClintock is proving himself to be at least gullible if not culpable in the swiftboat style attack on NASA Scientist, James Hansen. In a speech to a the Western Conservative Political Action Conference in Newport Beach, McClintock ridiculed Hansen as once having predicted an ice age, now predicting global warming.

McClintock should have checked the facts before opening his mouth. Hansen's contribution to the study was the scientific equivalent allowing someone to use a pretty new font to print their report. Trivial and not at all related to the essence of the report.

I once thought McClintock to be an honest spokesperson for the conservative view. It was not a view I shared, but at least I did not think of him as a political hack. I have changed my mind.

Posted by: Wes Rolley at October 28, 2007 09:35 AM

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