American Conservatives And Science: A Memoir

Gordon Gauchat, a Health Services researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, publishes in The Sociological Review (77:2, 167–187) an article entitled “Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A Study of Public Trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010.”

Briefly, his article demonstrates (or rather reinforces previous studies demonstrating) that North American conservatives have become less trustful of science since 1974, in contrast to the rest of the population, whose trust in science has remained more or less stable.

Trust in science of course requires faith that somebody knows what he or she is talking about in some area of specialization.  It’s common for religious and political conservatives these days to talk about science as a form of faith, but I think that it’s worth examining the causes of this belief in science as seen from within the conservative mindset to emphasize the ways in which it is and isn’t like religious faith….

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...Unto Caesar the Caesar-Stuff: Christianity and Conservatism's Weird Alliance

September 11, 2001 raised a million issues: it shone in our face the nature of fundamentalism, unwilling to discuss, to compromise, to redeem. It also confronted us with fear of death, the refusal of martyrdom, a need for human-wrought justice, and the passion of vengeance. It rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesars. And it asked the question, "Are we not Caesar?" It might be so. But Christians should pause over these things. They should wonder.

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