Evolution, Climate Change, Coronavirus, and the Political Discourse of Biological Fact

    Today we are in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in American history. Over one-hundred-thousand Americans have died from the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) and many more have contracted the disease. To put that into perspective, about two and a half times the population of Montclair has died already, with much more death expected. This pandemic has highlighted the very tense relationship between science and public policy. Political leaders, such as President Trump have shown a clear disdain of science during the pandemic, telling Americans, for example, to inject themselves with disinfectant as protection against the novel coronavirus instead of following proven methods, such as adhering to social distancing. This is not the first time that politics and science have had an extremely tense relationship.  In American history, many politicians have tried to dispute scientific fact for their own political gain, most notably in the political debates over evolution, climate change, and, of course, the novel coronavirus. 

A Political Cartoon Highlighting the Relationship Between Science and Politics (Source)

    The theory of evolution by natural selection is the backbone of the entire study of biology. The famed Russian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosis Dobzhansky once said, "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Dobzhansky is clearly correct in this regard, but American politicians have tried to dispute the objective truth of evolution ever since Darwin first published On the Origin of Species in 1859. In lieu of traditionalism and Judeo-Christian religious beliefs, many states outlawed and criminalized the teaching of evolution in public schools in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This debate over whether evolution, the backbone of biology, should be taught has become enshrined in the infamous Scopes-Monkey trial in 1925. The state of Tennessee had criminalized the teaching of evolution in public schools through the Butler Act, and high school biology teacher John Scopes wanted to bring the law to court, so he taught evolution to his students. William Jennings Bryan, the former United States Secretary of State and three-time Presidential candidate served as the prosecution, bringing the case to national attention as a focal point in the long-standing American dispute of traditionalism versus modernity. Bryan won the case, but Scopes won the war as in the decades that followed evolution became more broadly accepted to be taught in public education.

Anti-Evolutionists Outside the Scopes-Monkey Trial, 1925 (source)

    It is extremely important to note that the state of Tennessee did not repeal the Butler Act and legalize the teaching of evolution until the 1960s and the political discourse over whether to teach evolution by natural selection continues to this day, although the anti-evolutionists have much less sway. In the 1990s, the doctrine of intelligent design took hold among anti-evolutionists. Among its greatest supporters were former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum who sought to dilute the public's view of a scientific consensus of evolution through forcing intelligent design to be taught in public schools. In all, the contentious political discourse over evolution in American history highlights the often pronounced anti-intellectualism sentiment among rural, traditional, and religious communities. Political discourse over scientific fact has unfortunately continued into the twenty-first century and has kept its urban-rural divide with the modern discussion of climate change.

    Climate change is the biggest threat to humankind in the twenty-first century. That statement should not be controversial, it is rooted in an extremely large amount of scientific study and research, but if an American politician went on the news and gave that opinion, there would be an intense objection by other politicians and many Americans. Scientists first suspected that humans were influencing the mean rise in Earth's temperature in 1896. By the mid-twentieth century, scientists agreed that human-influenced climate change, through greenhouse gas emissions, would have detrimental effects for humanity including an increased frequency of hurricanes and tornadoes, longer droughts, and rising sea levels, which could render the homes of billions of people inhospitable. Climate change, however, was not predominately featured by an American politician until the 1990s when President Clinton signed the Kyoto Accords, agreeing to lower American carbon emissions. President George W. Bush refused to send the Kyoto treaty to the Senate for ratification. The same pattern emerged with another international agreement to lower carbon emissions this decade with the Paris Accords. President Obama passionately pursued the agreement while President Trump withdrew the United States from the accords at the beginning of his presidency, noting that he was representing the citizens of Pittsburgh and not Paris. President Trump has also removed hundreds of federal carbon regulations, designed to limit the threat of climate change by the Obama Administration, and has featured oil company executives and other climate deniers prominently in his administration. This is the same President that claimed that the climate crisis is a hoax created by China when the International Panel on Climate Change found in 2018 in a landmark study that the world must slash its carbon emissions in half to avoid catastrophic levels of warming of the Earth's temperature. 

President Trump at a Campaign Rally in Pennsylvania (source)

    There is currently no political consensus over the threat of climate change. Urban and coastal Americans, who are among the most affected by climate change due to increased pollution in cities, rising sea levels, and a higher frequency of hurricanes, are predominately represented by politicians who have introduced broad policies to lower carbon emissions such as the Green New Deal. Rural Americans, who supported President Trump in 2016 with sixty-two percent of the vote, predominately deny the existence of the threat of climate change or claim that it is "natural" and "harmless." If the United States government does not accept scientific truth and put its entire weight behind lowering its carbon emissions and defeating climate change, the lives of millions of Americans, and billions of humans across the globe, will be put at risk.

    The United States has again put the lives of millions of people at risk, due to the political discourse of biological fact, during the current novel coronavirus pandemic. As with the political debates over evolution and climate change, urban Americans have been much more accepting of scientific principles to counter Covid-19 than rural Americans. President Trump, as the representative of rural America, has shown a clear disdain for scientific principles in the federal government's response. For weeks he refused to admit that the pandemic was a threat, letting the virus spread to millions of Americans. In fact, a recent study by Columbia University estimates that if President Trump started social distancing orders one week earlier, about forty-thousand lives would have been saved. Instead, President Trump responded to this study by refusing to admit the truth, calling Columbia "a liberal, disgraceful institution." He has also shown a disdain for social distancing, as he has tweeted support for individuals who have protested their states' stay at home orders, again going contrary to the epidemiological fact that social distancing mitigates the spread of a virus. American politicians, at the federal level, have run contrary to scientific fact and have done practically nothing to help alleviate the novel coronavirus pandemic. One-hundred thousand Americans and counting have already paid the price.

Political Cartoon by Ed Hall, Artizans (source)

    Politicians have a long history of disputing basic facts and theories of biology. American history, with its lengthy fights over evolution, climate change, coronavirus, and stem cell research among other topics demonstrates that what is certain to scientists, is not necessarily certain to the leaders of our government.  A study of American history, especially in regards to the political discourse over climate change and the novel coronavirus, highlights another key principle:

Listening to and using science to determine public policy saves lives.