Conservatives Struggle with Science

When conservatives talk about "the elites," and they talk about them a lot, it isn't always clear who they are talking about. They certainly aren't referring to the rich, who many of us think of as the elites, because conservatives are the party of the rich, the party of privilege. One group they generally include are experts, people who really know what they are talking about, particularly scientists. University of Toronto philosopher Joseph Heath once wrote that, “Hostility to expertise in all of its forms is the closest thing that Canadian conservatives have to a unifying ideology.”

We certainly saw that with the Harper government. Harper's “war on science,” as it was not unfairly called, included such measures as the cancellation of the long-form census, widespread butchery of environmental law, the reconfiguration of government-funded research away from pure research toward commercial, and in effect making the National Research Council a “concierge” to industry.

Jason Kenney brought much of that anti-expert agenda to Alberta, particularly as it pertains to the environment. Environmental groups are demonized as foreign-funded pawns of a “radical ideological agenda” and subjected to assault by the infamous “war room.”

Nationally, on energy and the environment at least, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer seems little more than a Kenney puppet. Like their provincial counterparts, the federal Conservatives apparently see government's first priority as enabling the rapid extraction of natural resources. We see conservatives elsewhere in the world reflecting that attitude, including the Trump administration in the United States and the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil where the Amazon is now under increasing commercial assault. Both Trump and Bolsonaro reject climate science utterly. Bolsonaro rejects also the seriousness of COVID-19. Both see such concerns as arising from the insidious influence of "the elites."

The reason for the hostility isn't hard to adduce. Experts, particularly scientists, often undo conservative dogma. Experts insist “tough on crime” legislation generally fails to make people safer. Experts point to increasing evidence that unequal societies are unhealthy societies. Experts warn that use of fossil fuels has brought a climate crisis upon us. Experts tell us that meat, particularly beef, is a terribly inefficient and environmentally destructive way to provide ourselves with protein. Messages unwelcome to conservative ears simply won't stop.

One way to make them stop, of course, is to cut off the source of information that enables them. Consider, for example, Stephen Harper's disdain of sociology and the way its conclusions frequently conflict with neo-liberal dogma, including the idea that unequal societies are unhealthy societies. If you don't want to see the results of sociological studies on issues such as inequality, starve them of the necessary data, i.e. the long-form census.

Science is the only method we have of properly understanding the physical world. Without that understanding, faced with global warming, species extinction and resource exhaustion, humanity is in grave danger. We are disarmed in the face of our gravest threats. Politicians who struggle with science are not only unfit to govern in this modern age, but are outright dangerous.