Republican Party shows it is unfit to govern

The biased, deceptive science teaching standards proposed by New Mexico’s Martinez administration are the latest evidence that today’s Republican Party is unfit to govern (“State provides no specifics on origins of science plans,” Oct. 4).

Science is the systematic investigation of the physical world in which we live. It seeks to accurately describe and quantify physical phenomena and to propose models and theories that will allow us to make future predictions. It is a continuing endeavor in which theories and models are tested, modified or abandoned to reflect new observations and experimental results. Although no human undertaking is infallible, science is inherently self-correcting.

When we reject science, we reject reality, and we lose the ability to make rational, information-based decisions for ourselves, our families, our nation and the future of humanity.

Unfortunately, due to religious and regional cultures, our ineffectual educational system, special interest groups, and ignorant and corrupt politicians, the U.S. is one of the most science-illiterate societies in the developed world. Whereas many take pride in proclaiming that the U.S. is an “exceptional nation,” a nation that makes decisions-based illusion or disinformation, rather than reality, cannot survive.

Today’s Republican Party is notorious for suppressing science and evidence that is inconsistent with its political philosophy.

Since 1996, it has successfully fought to prevent the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research pertaining to gun violence in America; it proclaims that climate change science is a hoax; it rejects Congressional Budget Office analyses that contradict its political claims; it seeks to teach only pseudoscience and history that reinforce its political and cultural whims — as exemplified by the Martinez administration.

Not only have President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress rejected climate science, but they are suppressing climate change information, and their policy changes will only accelerate and exacerbate the untoward effects of climate change.

As a retired scientist and a lifelong learner, I urge all scientists and reality-based individuals, especially Republicans, to speak out and renounce the current Republican Party’s irresponsible rejection of science and analyses. We cannot evaluate problems and develop effective solutions if — based on ignorance or an absence of integrity — we pretend that the problems do not exist. The future of our progeny and all of humanity is too important.