QOTD: Cruz
by digby
Think Progress
“Global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.
This whole line of attack is very clever because it's so headache inducing. It shouldn't be, but it is. The reality is clear on this:
“Modern scientists follow the evidence-based scientific method that Galileo pioneered. Skeptics who oppose scientific findings that threaten their world view are far closer to Galileo’s belief-based critics in the Catholic Church"
Cruz goes on to say that he knows he's correct because "he follows the science." This is just a lie but it confuses matters just enough to leave you scratching your head and saying "wait a minute, the science says ..." And that's when he brings up the heretic example as if the small handful of scientists who disagree with the consensus are the the brave Galileos bucking the Church. Except the scientific consensus isn 't the Council of Trent, it's science, the very thing he says he follows. (Here comes the headache ...)
And anyway, Galileo was branded a heretic not because he refused to "listen to the science" but because the theologians were committed to believing this:
[T]o check unbridled spirits, [the Holy Council] decrees that no one relying on his own judgement shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which the holy mother Church... has held or holds...
They believed the earth was the center of the universe and that was that.
And the flat earthers had nothing to do with anything. He just wants to pretend that his people are the scientists and .... the scientists are the priests and it fits nicely with their overall anti-science wingnut worldview that says science is superstition and superstition is science.
We know that the deniers are acting like the Inquisition and that Galileo would be on the side of the climate change scientists. But Cruz knows that by framing this ridiculous argument as if the denialists are Galileo and the scientists are the Church, his confused right wing followers can not only feel they are martyrs to the cause but that they are the ones bucking the superstitious hierarchy. They like that.
And yes, I know you have a full-blown migraine by now, so go take an aspirin. Just wait until some partisan talking heads try to "debate" this on cable news. You'll need a fistfull of aspirin --- and very large scotch to wash it down.
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