Who's More Anti-Science: Republicans or Democrats? Comparing the applied ignorance of our two major political parties.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Column

IN SEPTEMBER, a pundit fight broke out over whetherTeam Blue or Team Red is more "anti-science." Microbiologist Alex Berezow, editor of RealClearScience, struck the first blow in the pages of USA Today. "For every anti-science Republican that exists" he wrote, "there is at least one anti-science Democrat. Neither party has a monopoly on scientific illiteracy."

Then Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, denounced Berezow's column as "classic false equivalence on political abuse of science" over at the Center for American Progress's Climate Progress blog. Mooney accused Berezow of trying "to show that liberals do the same thing" by "finding a few relatively fringe things that some progressives cling to that might be labeled anti-scientific."

Berezow acknowledged that many prominent Republican politicians, including several presidential candidates, deny biological evolution, are skeptical of the scientific consensus on man-made global warming, and oppose research using human embryonic stem cells. Democrats, Berezow argued, tend to be more anti-vaccine, anti-nuclear power, anti-biotechnology, and anti-biomedical research involving tests on animals.

In support of these claims Berezow cited polling data from a 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which identified a number of partisan divides on scientific questions. On biological evolution, the survey reported that 97 percent of scientists agree that living things, including human beings, evolved over time, compared to 58 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans.

On climate change, the Pew survey reported that 84 percent of scientists believe that recent warming is the result of human activity, compared to 64 percent of Democrats and only 30 percent of Republicans. That's a truly deep divide on a scientific issue.

The Pew survey next asked about federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, which Democrats favored by 71 percent compared to only 38 percent for Republicans. But the GOP response is likely tied to two issues: (z) the belief that embryos have the same moral status as adult people; and (2) the general belief that spending taxpayer dollars on research is suboptimal. These are policy differences rather than scientific differences.

But what about Berezow's examples of left-wing bias? Mooney's basic assertion is that Democratic anti-science is a fringe with no power, unlike the know-nothing Tea Party activists...