Science and religion are about what is, while politics is about what ought to happen. There's no reason why your views about whether Jesus rode a dinosaur or w

Science and religion are about what is, while politics is about what ought to happen. There's no reason why your views about whether Jesus rode a dinosaur or whether global warming will kill us all should be correlated with your views on issues like "Should taxes be lowered?" and "Should the Government subsidize health care?" and "Should [whatever random complicated policy issue you like]?" And yet, they so often are. In a two-party system, people who don't spend all that much time thinking about politics often seem to wind up buying their political opinions in job lots. Part of this is due to the success which the Democrats have been having with their "If you don't believe that Jesus rode a dinosaur then you need to support all our left-wing economic policies" line, but this is a serious problem both for Republicans and for Science. (And as a Republican scientist, it's a doubly important issue for me.)