Yesterday, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas (where else?) spoke at a hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline and revealed his divine justification for denying the science behind climate change. Barton’s source for his reasoning was the biblical story of Noah and the great flood:
Barton: “I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”
That’s correct. There is no evidence that the flood was caused by hydrocarbon energy exploitation. However, that does not mean that it wasn’t caused by mankind in some other manner. Barton may be listening to too much of Glenn Beck.
Let’s take a look at the factual basis for the argument that Barton is propounding. The bible’s account of Noah asserts that sometime after he was 600 hundred years old he was singled out by God as the only righteous man of his generation and was instructed to build an ark that would preserve the continued existence of every species of life on the planet. So Barton’s opposition to the findings of 1,000’s of atmospheric scientific studies begins with an angry deity, a 600 year-old man, and a magical boat.
More to the point, according to the bible, God was motivated to destroy the vast majority of Earth’s lifeforms due to the prevailing “wickedness of man.” Therefore, it was indeed the behavior of humans that resulted in the climate change that occurred in Noah’s day. That would set the precedent for faithful Christians to concede that humans are responsible for climate change in the present, just as they were in the past. And it could even be the result of the same divine umbrage at our species, because it would be difficult to argue that there isn’t an abundance of wickedness here on Earth today. And for all we know, that wickedness, from God’s perspective, might be related to our defiling of the planet for which he commanded us to be “good stewards.”
In addition to Barton’s rejection of science, his ideological compatriot, Rush Limbaugh, also entered the fray in defense of his science adviser, a thirteen year old kid who called his radio program. Limbaugh proclaimed that “much of science today” is “just a branch of the Democrat Party.”
Rush: “The global warming scientists are just Democrats, folks. They all have a political preference. They’re all part of an agenda … at the end of the story they have to put in this snarky comment that basically implies this kid Alex doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Science responded by noting that Limbaugh is a yet unproven hypothesis who, if he exists, also has an agenda and a political preference. Science further states that they will put up their rigorous, peer-reviewed studies against any ill-informed opinions from children and drug-abusing talk radio hosts.
Regardless of your position on climate change, using the bible for anything scientific is dumb and I wish these guys would stop it. Holy crap, they give conservatives a bad name. Leave the bible out of it – and keep political influence out of it too if truth is to be determined. I don’t remember the bible being used as reference material in engineering school.
We barely acknowledge that Glenn Beck is real…
I guess Einstein’s theory of relativity was just a plot for democrats to take over the world! I would have never guessed!
I never did understand why God would choose to wipe out all the non-human lifeforms (except for the handful taken aboard the Ark) because of HUMAN “wickedness.” Additionally, you really have to wonder about the kind of God who would tell Noah to keep the flies and mosquitoes and snakes (especially, the snakes–God punished the whole of snakekind for the misdeeds of a single individual so why keep the things around if you’re going to exterminate all other life?). I mean, okay–keeping some “pests” around would help other critters (birds and a number of small mammals feed on any number of vermin but they also feed on “helpful” insects; a swallow doesn’t really check to make sure the beetle going in its beak is a good one (that feeds on pests like aphids) or a bad one (that feeds on crop plants like corn and legumes). But the whole story tends to fall apart when viewed with any sort of impartiality. (The fact that so many people ignore the “second half” of the story–where God actually commands Noah to take on two of the “unclean” animals and seven of each of the “clean” animals–is evidence of the tale’s stupidity. The idea of “clean” vs “unclean” animals doesn’t exist until the time of Moses and the Exodus yet Genesis 7–which presumably was “written” centuries before Moses–brings it up; of course, most Bible scholars believe it, like Genesis 2, was a later addition to the original stories, that “clarified” or “explained” the narrative to bring it line with the later teachings that developed AFTER the stories were finally written down. After all, there had to be some young thoughtful Hebrew children who asked what kind of meat Noah and his family ate on the Ark if only “two of each animal” was brought aboard.)
I don’t think these people understand what science is! Aren’t they teaching the scientific method in schools anymore?