The “conservative” spokesperson here demonstrates perfectly Chris’ thesis that the Foxis of Evil provides an “alternative facts” echo chamber, even quoting Rick Santorum as an authority. Amazing, revealing, pathetic, and sad.
We all know that many American conservatives have issues with Charles Darwin, and the theory of evolution. But Albert Einstein, and the theory of relativity?
If you’re surprised, allow me to introduceConservapedia, the right-wing answer toWikipedia and ground zero for all that is scientifically and factually inaccurate, for political reasons, on the Internet.
Claiming over 285 million page views since its 2006 inception, Conservapedia is the creation of Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer, engineer, homeschooler, and one of six children of Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist and anti-abortion rights activist who successfully battled the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. In his mother’s heyday, conservative activists were establishing vast mailing lists and newsletters, and rallying the troops. Her son learned that they also had to marshal “truth” to their side, now achieved not through the mail but the Web.
So when Schafly realized that Wikipedia was using BCE (“Before Common Era”) rather than BC (“Before Christ”) to date historical events, he’d had enough. He decided to create his own contrary fact repository, declaring, “It’s impossible for an encyclopedia to be neutral.” Conservapedia definitely isn’t neutral about science. Its 37,000 plus pages of content include items attacking evolution and global warming, wrongly claiming (contrary to psychological consensus) that homosexuality is a choice and tied to mental disorders, and incorrectly asserting (contrary to medical consensus) that abortion causes breast cancer.
The whopper, though, has to be Conservapedia‘s nearly 6,000 word, equation-filled entry on the theory of relativity. It’s accompanied by a long webpage of “counterexamples” to Einstein’s great scientific edifice, which merges insights like E=mc2 (part of the special theory of relativity) with his later account of gravitation (the general theory of relativity).
“Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world,” declaresConservapedia. “To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity.” The site goes on to catalogue the “political aspects of relativity,” charging that some liberals have “extrapolated the theory” to favor their agendas. That includes President Barack Obama, who (it is claimed) helped published an article applying relativity in the legal sphere while attending Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
“Virtually no one who is taught and believes Relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold,” Conservapedia continues. But even that’s not the site’s most staggering claim. In its list of “counterexamples” to relativity, Conservapedia provides 36 alleged cases, including: “The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46–54, Matthew 15:28, and Matthew 27:51.”
More at that link.
Yeah, that explains a lot.
Chris Mooney could have floored that lady asking her to name one faculty or journal or academic specializing in “eugenics and population control”.
I think she honestly believes that there are thousands of whitecoats gathering in secret, underground laboratories to discuss eugenics and how to eradicate the Republican demographic.
I fear she’s not alone. Have you read anything by Ann Coulter?
SE Cupp probably doesn’t know she wasn’t there to present an alternate viewpoint, the ‘balance:’ she was the example.
the earth is flat..its a known fact…and gravity doesnt exist thats why jesus didnt sink when he walked on the water..honest..lol!
Wow, there is nothing I can add because the video says it all.
Just read the “Conclusion” of Mooney’s book on Amazon. He has obviously gone way out of his competency and freely speaks of things he can’t possibly understand. As far as I am concerned, anybody who believes it possible to measure Liberals and Conservatives has an infantilistic view of “measure” and of “politics”.
Think about it, there are decades of studies about the meaning of “political spectrum” and everybody agrees even the usage of two axes isn’t really good enough. There comes Mooney though, and we’re back to a single axis, left and right, and we should throw all that previous work away? Unlikely.
The pages about “conservatism and the amygdala” will surely be read in the future, in comedy sketches though, like we read today about the scientist who couldn’t believe the flight abilities of the bumblebee.
Anyway, the icing on the cake is the fact that the Conclusions aren’t that idiotic really, and Mooney says he now admires “conservatives”, and goes as far as to recommend “conservatives” and “liberals” “need be operating together”. Well, Brainy Boy, that’s not achieved really by calling your book “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science–and Reality”, is it??
THAT EINSTEN WAS A COMMIE, OBVIOUSLY…THE JESUS RODE A DINOSAUR BRIGADE SPOKE THE TRUTH….OBVIOUS EH?