Suddenly, Conservatives Can’t Get Enough of Science
On the right’s strange new respect for the sciences. Well, some of them anyway.
To wield science (or “science”) is to wield the highest cultural authority in our society of secular knowledge. And we have become used to conservatives running afoul of scientific claims, whether on climate change, evolution, or the age of Earth. But increasingly, a stream of right-wing, often libertarian-leaning thinkers and pop intellectuals have embraced a certain type of science. They have promulgated a science-based critique of left-wing politics and pieties.
The right tends to favor scientific claims that reinforce their convictions that humans have a set nature and that left-wing politics run counter to our basic instincts.
The “scientistic” right includes the classical liberal website Quillette and the “new neocons” of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web. More standard conservatives have also drawn on scientific backing for their politics. Both Jonah Goldberg’s and Noah Rothman’s recent books owe much to…
