The Republican Brain: Interview with Science Writer Chris Mooney | Left Eye On Books

Christine Shearer: Your next book Storm World (Harvest Books, 2008) looked at a group of scientists trying to determine whether global warming could be impacting the intensity and number of hurricanes. And there were a few scientists who were just adamant against making such a correlation, even as the supporting evidence mounted. Was it people like that who, in part, got you thinking that there might be more at work than money and religion in causing some to reject scientific evidence?

Chris Mooney: Huh. Actually I’d read that issue a little differently. This was a classic emerging science conflict under high uncertainty. It seems to me that skepticism about a climate-hurricane connection wasn’t necessarily beyond the pale at that time.

Certainly, though, the main character in the book, William Gray, does push the Republican War on Science analysis. Because the guy is a global warming denier, but no conservative. He wasn’t being driven by religion and he wasn’t being driven by corporate greed. Something else was going on there, having to do with a kind of turf battle between old-school meteorologists and computer-modeling climate scientists.

...Christine Shearer: How about conservative think tanks like the Heartland Institute – do you think they believe in what they are doing, or are consciously trying to shape public opinion, even if that means promoting false or misleading studies?

Chris Mooney: Well, I think these are libertarian ideologues, often white and male. Their beliefs are very strong and they are very sure they are competent and in the right, and that global warming is hokum. I don’t think they’re conscious liars at all. They actually believe that they are rational — critical thinkers, even. Of course, this is a pretty inflated self-image....

Chris Mooney: Oh I think it is largely a threat to their self image as people who are rational and reasonable and, in fact, more reasonable and rational than their political opponents. I’m completely taking that away from them. I’m showing that their reasoning is emotionally driven, and moreover, that their way of responding to the world isn’t so conducive to the kinds of reasoning that we see in the scientific community. That’s threatening on a personal level. I don’t know that it has much to do with money or power.