Charles Darwin has long been the primary scientist that conservatives love to hate. Evolution just grates at the core of their souls. But now some of them have a new scientist to hate; none other than Albert Einstein. Even though, as New Scientist has pointed out, his comments about God not playing dice with the universe have very conveniently been used to support their views – despite the fact that Einstein himself said, “I do not believe in a personal God.”
The website Conservapedia views Einstein’s theory of general relativity as a far-reaching liberal conspiracy. The website TPMMuckracker’s discussion of Conservapedia’s position says, “The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.”
Somehow, in spite of the fact that general relativity has passed every experimental test to which it has been put, Conservapedia feels that censorship of dissention about general relativity and suppression of evidence being discussed outside of liberal universities is ongoing.
I have to admit a little self censorship. I could not stop laughing and could not keep reading when they started discussing how Barack Obama somehow used curvature of space to promote a broad legal right to abortion.
If it were not for the comments I have heard from people agreeing with some of the insane claims being made on the current US primary election political ads, I would be convinced that I had accidentally stumbled across a page on The Onion website. But no, this is for real. There are people out there that believe this shit.
Is Still Here
This communication gap is enormous. How can we raise the next generation of scientists if mathematics is subject to a political litmus test? We need a common starting point. Do liberals and conservatives agree about any aspect of science?