Washington Post Hires Author of “Republican War on Science” its Own Book Reviewer Called a Conspiracy Theorist

He also took 4th place in the most punchable face in America contest

He also took 4th place in the most punchable face in America contest

Yes Chris Mooney is being slotted into Wonkblog, but it’s one thing to have partisan voices and another thing to have a guy covering a supposedly apolitical topic whose big selling point is blaming everything in that topic on Republicans.

It’s like bringing in Michael Moore to cover the automobile industry.

Chris Mooney is a Mother Jones hack who wrote “The Republican War on Science”. And yes it is exactly what it sounds like. His whole career thesis is that conservatives are anti-Science and liberals are pro-Science.

So the Washington Post decided to give him a forum for his conspiracy theories.

Chris is one of the most distinctive, provocative voices writing about environmental issues today, arguing that people’s preconceptions — political, religious, cultural — color the way they view science.

That’s just a whole roster of empty noise.

Mooney’s writing is summed up by “Republicans bad”. So hiring him means a lot of clickbait involving Republicans and Global Warming and Imminent Destruction of the Planet.

That’s what the new Bezos Washington Post seems to want. Now it’s what it has.

You can see the contrast from a decade ago in the Washington Post’s own review of Mooney’s hackery. (This will be going down the rabbit hole, I’m sure)

The resulting book is ill-formulated, overwrought and surprisingly unconvincing. (Trust me: As a resident of tree-hugging, gay-marrying, marijuana-scented, Bush-bashing San Francisco, I was prepared to be convinced.)…

I know that publishers must “move” books, but The Republican War on Science — really, now! Could Ann Coulter be any more glib? …

Judging by the book, Mooney isn’t interested in scientific research per se. He says almost nothing about the technical details of debates over computer models, observational anomalies, instrumental glitches, data-collection methodologies and the like…

By ignoring such philosophical complexities, Mooney has produced a book without much intellectual gravity. Instead, he offers a kind of conspiracy theory, which might be summarized thus: “If Republicans support a certain science policy, it’s bad. If they oppose it, it’s good.”…

But now the hack is in at The Bezos Post.

 

  • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

    Here’s an epistemological and metaphysics issue: People’s “preconceptions” of political, religious, cultural, and scientific issues, reflect the health of their epistemology, depending on whether or not their preconceptions are anchored to reality. Clearly, Chris Mooney’s epistemology isn’t healthy, it suffers from an early brush with sense data rickets and an impaired mental metabolism, from which he never recovered, because, to him, today, and in his book, reality is malleable and can be anything he wishes.

  • De Doc

    Mooney started out as a commentator and interviewer for The Center for Inquiry and then moved on to Mother Jones. Even his former boss at CFI, Ronald A. Lindsay, offered a skeptical view of the book mentioned in this article. Political opinion must necessarily flavor your writings, when you are out to ‘prove’ that the other side is a baddie.

    • Dan Knight

      Mooney’s next book could be: “Why Leftists Evolved: Phrenology and Lysenkoism – Rediscovering Science Suppressed by RWNJ’s” … it’ll be a bestseller!

  • Bellerophons_Revenge

    There’s a long history of taking leftist idiots and having them spout their idiocy long after their ideas have been shown to be completely wrong. John Holdren coauthored a book with Paul Erlich which prophesied that there would be food riots in the US in 1975. He became the science adviser for both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

    Mooney is even worse since he has no scientific accomplishments of his own, he’s simply a jerk who panders to the dumber kind of progressives.

  • fmobler

    Chris [argues] that people’s preconceptions — political, religious, cultural — color the way they view science.

    To quote the King of Pop (another big fan of the science of pharmacology): “I’m talkin’ ’bout the man in the mirror”

  • windy2

    It’s a nice move for Mooney going from writing for low class communists to writing for high class communists.

  • https://twitter.com/thedreadofpenny Penny Dreadful

    Herpa-derp, a Lefty said something.