establishment have the slightest influence over this guy. he s won in spite of that. he beat them once, and he ll beat them again. joy to the world. we ll see. thank you, dee dee myers and mark mckin nen. reality bites. the modern republican party, global warming is not happening they say. evolution is a liberal theory, rape can t cause pregnancy. how they re the party of science deniers. why is mitt romney running another ad that states quite falsely that president obama has ended welfare work requirements? here s a hint. he s not doing well enough among white voters as he d like to so he s pulling out the old code word. a number of new state polls in the presidential race. there maybe some movement in swing states. let me finish with the wonders of science from ben franklin to thomas edison and the moon shot and why this latest rejection of human knowledge is so, well, un-american. this is hardball, the place for politics.
whether there s real global warming has not been determined. has not been determined. burckle is in good company by the way. mitt romney agrees. let s listen. my view is that we don t know what s causing climate change on this planet, and the idea of spending trillions of dollars to try and reduce co2 emissions is not the right course for us. at least he admits there s climate change. that s progress in that crowd. exhibit b, evolution. who could forget rick perry on the campaign trail explaining how they sort of teach evolution down in texas. you know, it s a theory that is out there. it s got some gaps in, but in texas we teach both creationism and evolution, in our public schools. because i figure you re smart enough to figure out which one is right. unbelievable. michele bachmann isn t sure about evolution either and she says she has science on her side.
i believe in evolution, but i also believe when i hike the grand canyon and see it at sunset that the hand of god is there also. that sounds right to me. brown back, huck key and tancredo don t believe in evolution. there s a couple things going on here. obviously business types think if they accept the fact there s a man kind influence on climate changes and they have to change laws and deal with that. it will hurt their freedom in the marketplace, right? there s the other thing about the religious front, and you and i were trained in the bible. we learned it was part of the moral lesson as children so powerful in our lives, but the scientific nature. we always said, yes, but there s important stories in the bible, but there s also science and archaeological fact to deal with and the history of the dinosaurs. that all occurred as well. these new people politically are saying no, no, no. all the answers are in the bible. we politicians have to say so. we have to deny the history of
man kind and the history of this planet. it s frightening. i m not making a value judgment when i say this, okay? the republican party has become a faith-based party. starting with ronald reagan, there was a marriage between the bible belt of the south, the fundamentalist bible belt of the south, literal interpretation and catholics elsewhere in the country who are becoming more conservative socially. they joined hands, and there are many good things that came from that, especially if you believe in the republican party and its success. but these people start from a fundamentally different point of view on questions such as abortions, on questions such as evolution and climate change. they see as john mccain belatedly said the hand of god in everything that happens, and they look to god first. they re legitimate concerns, for example, about genetic manipulation of the human species. should we leave that to god, or
there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact. what is the aversion on the republican side to science? what s it doing to the republican party, to politics and mitt romney s chance of becoming president. bill nye is the science guy and howard fineman another kind of science guy, editorial director of the huffington post and an msnbc analyst. bill, thanks so much for coming on. it s an unusual question, but, you know i have a little commentary at the end of the show. i talk about how the wonderful american tradition of young kids growing up loving ben franklin and thomas edison, loving the moon shot, the days of walt disney and watching our attempts to cash the russians and beating them finally and love it. every time we win a handful of nobel prizes for chemistry or physics we love to root for na in this country. what s going against that in the republican party? what s caused this rejectionism