Sarah Palin's Denial of Science: Anti-Intellectualism at its Finest

Christopher Hitchens has an interesting piece in Slate this week called “Sarah Palin’s War on Science.” His monumental first sentence touches on something that was mentioned in class today that in the few hours between class and now has started to really bother me – the anti-intellectualism of this election.

Hitchens writes, “In an election that has been fought on an astoundingly low cultural and intellectual level, with both candidates pretending that tax cuts can go like peaches and cream with the staggering new levels of federal deficit, and paltry charges being traded in petty ways, and with Joe the Plumber becoming the emblematic stupidity of the campaign, it didn't seem possible that things could go any lower or get any dumber.”

He goes on to cite Sarah Palin’s denouncement of expenditure on fruit fly research, research that has been dedicated to, among other things, studying disabilities and mutations. Hitchens also includes John McCain’s comments on the futility of funding grizzly bear research. Both comments are undeniably troublesome and coupled with Palin’s comments on other scientifically secure facts (Read: humans and dinosaurs did not live together. Ever. Ever.) they seem completely extreme and whacky.

Besides opposing funding for scientific pursuits, McCain/Palin have attempted to gain anti-intellectualism cred by incorporating folksy speech and constantly mentioning hunting and hockey. This has, of course, led to the some of the public’s perception of Palin to be someone “we” can relate to. This is placed in constant opposition to the “elitism” of Senator Barack Obama.

Anti-intellectualism, in my opinion, has no place in politics. While I do believe politicians should make an attempt to relate to their audience, dumbing down their speech, points and thoughts is plain annoying. Glossing over issues, desperately attempting to create a “personality” and lashing out at Obama seem to be McCain and Palin’s main campaign strategies. Not to say, of course, that Obama hasn’t done the same thing: He, too, has played into this whole “Joe the Plumber” election theme.

This façade of down-to-earth-ness that elite politicians constantly attempt to employ made me think of the article I posted a few weeks ago on politicians’ constant need to reference sports and how ridiculous it seems that John Kerry’s predilection for wind-surfing may have swayed some voters.