The official logo of the House Science Committee
We talked yesterday about Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who believes that cosmology, biology, and geology are, quite literally, "lies straight from the pit of Hell." The kicker, of course, is that Broun is a member of the House Science Committee. As several commenters reminded me, he's joined on the panel by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who has his own unique insights on biology.
But this led Jillian Rayfield to ask a good question: who else is on the House Science Committee?
Let's start with the chairman himself, Ralph Hall of Texas. Though he was once a Democrat, Hall was behind a 2010 effort by Republicans to cut off billions in funding for scientific research and math and science education. He did this by rather cannily tacking onto a bill a provision that would have forced Democrats to vote in favor of letting federal employees view pornography while on the job. Hall also once said of climate change: “I’m really more fearful of freezing. And I don’t have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they’re not basing it on real scientific facts.”
It's quite a panel. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), who drafted a resolution for Americans to "join together in prayer to humbly seek fair weather conditions" after a series of destructive tornados and droughts, is also on the House Science Committee, as is Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who suggested "dinosaur flatulence" may have caused climate change 55 million years ago.
They're joined by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who has characterized climate science as an "international conspiracy," as well as Rep. Sandy Adams (R-Fla.), who supports having public-school science teachers offer lessons on "theories that contradict the theory of evolution."
Remember, the House Republican leadership makes committee assignments, and felt these lawmakers are the best qualified members to serve on the committee related to science.
When we talk about a "Republican War on Science," there's no reason to consider that hyperbole.
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As a person who grew up attending church, these "ideas" about science do not surprise me. It was a whole new world for me to attend a liberal arts college and hear new theories, ones that made me think for myself. What amazes me is how the church/state line has gotten so blurred. It frankly scares me. I hope it scares enough people and encourages them to vote!
What? No Flat Earth believers on the committee?? I think we'll read this verbaitum on our next Fool-on-the-Hill segment, maybe for the Halloween Show 'cuz it's so f'ing scary. Thanks, you guys!
Remember in the Good Old Days, when we use to elect people to government who had some smarts. People who knew more than us, that is why we elected them. And they where smart enough to know they did not know everything and called in experts, who they believed, because, HEY, they knew more!!!!! Now we have Republicans who think they know everything!
We don't need them anti-god atheist science guys....it's a conspiracy for them to get all those billions of dollars for their fake science experiments.
We need to go back to the trial by water - throw a woman in water and if she sinks, she's innocent. If she floats, she's a witch!!!
Breaking from Newsmax.com
Pew: Protestants No Longer US Majority
For the first time ever, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study — and a major reason is that the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation is on the rise.
The percentage of Protestant adults in the country has reached a low of 48 percent, according to the study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reported by The Associated Press.
The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees. Mitt Romney is Mormon and Paul Ryan is Roman Catholic. On the Democratic ticket, Barack Obama has worshipped as a Protestant but running mate Joe Biden is Catholic.
The trend has political implications. Voters who describe themselves as having no religious affiliation overwhelmingly for Democrats. Pew found Americans with no religious affiliation support abortion rights and gay marriage at a much higher rate than the American public at large.
These "nones" are an increasing segment of voters who are registered as Democrats or lean toward the party, growing to 24 percent from 17 percent over the last five years.
The religiously unaffiliated are becoming as important a constituency to Democrats as evangelicals are to Republicans, Pew said.
The Pew study, released Tuesday, found that about 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15 percent in the last five years. Pew also cites the growth in nondenominational Christians.
Scholars have debated whether people who say they no longer belong to a religious group should be considered secular. The category as defined by Pew researchers includes atheists, but it also includes majorities of people who say they believe in God, and a notable minority who pray daily or consider themselves "spiritual" but not "religious."
Still, Pew found overall that most of the unaffiliated aren't actively seeking another religious home, indicating that their ties with organized religion are broken.
The Pew analysis, conducted with PBS's "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," is based on several surveys, including a poll of nearly 3,000 adults conducted June 28 to July 9, 2012.
© 2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
So the religious right wing nut jobs are worried, then....and noisy.
We are becoming a country of ignorant backward thinking religious fanatics! What happened to America! This is not the same country I came to, very disturbing!
Rachel--Thank you for this eye-opener. Having been so busy keeping up with all the other nonsense and garbage emanating from individual right-wing Cro-Magnons in Congress, school districts, religions and otherwise, actual promotion of this committee's scientific agenda is a sobering reminder of the dangers of such folks actually sitting down together and conspiring, with our tax dollars, to set the scientific clock back a thousand years. This is hard to comprehend in this day and age.
Is this not a good enough reason to vote as many GOP out of office as possible??? They lack intelligence and their views are the for true knuckle draggers. Im embarrassed that these people represent our country. We should all be very afraid if the GOP wins the presidency and the house and senate this year. We will be doomed.
OK.. say its real.. Can you promise me that sending more tax dollars to Washington will fix this?
Where do the Republicans find these people: Broun, Akin, Bachman and their ilk? Do they keep them in some secret asylum strictly for the purpose of providing comic relief during election years?
It's shocking. The Taliban has taken control of our Science and Technology Committee. How can we move forward when we have fanatical kooks like this running our congress?
If what this double-digit buffoon says is true, ALL science MUST be throw out ..... and - because physics is involved in powered FLIGHT - Mr Broun must not fly anywhere .... because airplanes cannot get airborne.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that some men are created equal but that the 1% are endowed by their Creators with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are wealth, Power and the pursuit of Conquest and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 1%. That whenever any Form of resistance becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of 1% to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to support the State of the 1%. The 1%, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which the 1% have permitted. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Terrorism, it is their right, it is their duty, to submit to such Government lobbyists, who will provide new Guards for their future security.
All of this anti-science nonsense comes from those that are ignorant of the Scriptures, that is they don't realize that Scripture scholars know the Bible cannot be taken historically or literally. It is not a science book, or a history book. Even the Catholic Church sees no problem with evolution, and realize much said is metaphorical Jesus himself used metaphors. Adam and Eve are metaphors. Pope John Paul ll watched TV only when there was a soccer game or something on aliens. The CC has no problem with us earthlings sharing the universe with other beings. If my Church who is conservative believes these things then the science deniers ought to pay attention. The CC learned its lesson with Galileo.