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1. 

   Clark Kent said, 7 months ago

   By whom was he chosen? cheney/shrub? Brothers koch?
2. 

   dtroutma said, 7 months ago

   ^Boehner. And the House Natural Resources committee is worse, need I mention “intelligence”. Of course the real kicker was Broun saying embryology is the “devil’s work”, and this guy has an M.D.????
3. 

   braindead08 said, 7 months ago

   Yeah, Boehner is the Speaker, but I think all roads in the Republican world lead to Grover Norquist.
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   And Bachmann is on the intelligence committee.
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   You know, doctors tell us that when it comes to legitimate science, the Republican mind has ways of shutting that down.
4. 

   lames said, 7 months ago

   @braindead08

   excellent response!
5. 

   mikefive said, 7 months ago

   If this is about who I think it’s about, he’s neither a Republican nor a Democrat but a Nuttycrat. (or Nuttycan if you prefer.)
6. 

   lonecat said, 7 months ago

   @mikefive

   Well, he’s nutty for sure, but he is a Republican congressman, and he does sit on the science committee. I’m sure there are nutty Democrats, too, but this one unquestionably belongs to the Republicans. How can it be that someone so totally unqualified to make decisions in the public interest can be elected to congress? What does it mean about the American public? I’m not opposed to religion, but religion does not have to equal idiocy.
7. 

   ossiningaling said, 7 months ago

   @

   All I know is the answer. Which is “42.”
8. 

   hippogriff said, 7 months ago

   “Let us unite the two so long divided, knowledge and vital piety.” John Wesley
9. 

   The Wolf In Your Midst said, 7 months ago

   It’s kind of funny that, despite everything I see on the international news, the religious kooks who scare me the most are the ones who sit in my government and wave around Bibles.
10. 

    runar said, 7 months ago

    @ScottPM

    And here is one account of how that was discovered.
11. 

    Lynne B said, 7 months ago

    There are a few other quite disturbing things here that I wasn’t aware of.

    
    As per the details outlined here:
    
    
    The House Science Committee has forty members, and eleven of them (including Broun) are members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, a not just pro-fundamentalist-Christianity but also pro-make-American-gov’t-explicitly-Christian group.

    
    Worse, however – The House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, which has general oversight and policy roles on “all matters relating to science policy and science education including: the Office of Science and Technology Policy; all scientific research, and scientific and engineering resources (including human resources), science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education; intergovernmental mechanisms for research, development, and demonstration and cross-cutting programs; international scientific cooperation; National Science Foundation, including earthquake programs; university research policy, including infrastructure and overhead; university research partnerships, including those with industry; science scholarships …” etc., has twelve members. And of these twelve, specifically, 5 are members of the Prayer Caucus, this organization which values fundamentalist Christianity as policy.

    
    On the one hand, this potentially spells a great deal of long-term damage to research and education in the US, especially on matters of climate and biomedical sciences, since these are areas where fundamentalist Christianity often declares itself to be completely in opposition to scientific positions.

    
    On the other hand, I can only note that much about American politics becomes understandable in light of the fact that too many people are reluctant to vote for anyone who might be smarter than they are – but that this can end up driving a downward spiral in general competence if these people are then put in charge of education.
12. 

    ARodney said, 7 months ago

    There are crazy people in both parties, but in only one party do the crazy people get elected to congress. Lies from the pit of hell. He’s perfectly welcome to believe that, but by God, why put him in a place where he’s making decisions that matter? I’m happy with an Amish person not driving a car, but would I make him CEO of General Motors? The Amish person, unlike the tea party idiot, would have the decency to know that he’s not qualified for that job.
13. 

    Dredpiraterobt$ said, 7 months ago

    . Runar and Lynne B,
    .
    Thank you for your links and for using links!
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    I didn’t need to follow Lynne B’s because they were used as supporting evidence. Nicely done.
    .
    I did follow Runar’s because it was easy to do so.
    .
    The number 42 has particular significance to me in that I can still see myself reciting the “times tables” in 5th grade and when I got to 6×7 I hesitated and the teacher stopped me right there! from that moment forward, in her eyes I was not the “A” student that I had been, but a “B” or perhaps below!
    .
    And while I share the feeling of having started memes, I also believe in the collective consciousness. Molly Ivins once noted that “some wit” had termed it “W’s WW” and I don’t know if she read my NYT posting when I had or if some cultural Robin Hood had seen it and used it and she heard him, or if it was just a joke waiting to happen and once it hit the collective consciousness, everybody tuned into the CC thought of it too.
14. 

    spyderred said, 7 months ago

    With good ole’ Todd on the same committee, how can intelligence stand a chance?
15. 

    ansonia said, 7 months ago

    I’m not defending nor attacking anyone, but the Big Bang theory is just a theory that can’t be proven, and evolution from a single cell does not bear out either. I don’t believe in hell, butagain, I can’t prove it doesn’t exist.

    Some day someone may look back us and laugh at us for believing in what we believe.

    Some scientists do not believe in the big bang.

    Just because YOU believe in some theory doesn’t make it true and just because you DON’T believe in a theory doesn’t make it not true.
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