Krugman points out that Rick Perry recently said that evolution is “just a theory,” and it has “got some gaps in it.”  Flabbergasted, Krugman claims that a “vast majority of biologists” would disagree.  Really?  Perry was talking about one particular area of evolution, the theory that man evolved from apes.  There are other theories.  Creationism is one.  Douglas Adams’s theory that we descended from an alien race of telephone cleaners is my favorite.  Maybe Krugman’s, too.  Like any theory, human evolutionary theory has its gaps.

I have a BS in Physics and an MS in Atmospheric Physics, so I’m not a biologist, but I’m certainly closer to one than an economist is.  I’m not going to defend creationism, nor do I think evolution is wrong–I believe it to be true.  But it is only a theory.  And there are major gaps.  In fact, almost four years ago, Krugman’s own paper did a story about the missing fossil evidence of the “dark age” of evolution.  Oops.  Maybe the Times actual science reporters are closet Republicans.  Krugman dismisses these missing pieces of information because, apparently, being a Times columnist means never have to check your facts.

Anthropogenic Global Warming should barely qualify as a theory.  It is a hoax.  It’s not a super secret decoder ring, dark cloaks, blood oath conspiracy.  Not is it run by a cabal that meets in secret.  It is just the predictable product of rational people operating independently under an irrational system.

In the late 1990′s, liberal politicians began to embrace anthropogenic global warming as club with which to beat businesses and individuals over the head.  If carbon fuels–the cheapest and simplest form of fuel we have–were really killing the planet, businesses and individuals would have to submit to regulation.  Carbon fuels and other “greenhouse gases” touch everything.  Power generation, leisure and business travel, soaps, beef, rice–everything that moves, breaths or farts produces carbon emissions.

If you can get people to agree to carbon regulation, a central planned economy would be inevitable.  So liberals, starting with Al Gore, began a quest to promote a silly, inane little theory into gospel. That meant that any science funding that tied to or tended to prove AGW was given priority.  That’s not science, it’s propaganda.  And it leads otherwise well meaning scientists into compromising positions, where their scientific integrity is pitted against their ability to make a living.  Guess which side wins?

Krugman’s assertion that there is a code of silence over global warming is more laughable than his assertion that evolution is somehow a proven fact.  There is a petition, signed by over 31,000 scientists stating that global warming is not proven, and that Kyoto is a really, really bad idea.  31,000.  You would think the Times would cover something like that.  Unless, of course, it disagrees with their agenda.

As a scientific theory, Global Warming is childish.  It holds that the absorption spectrum of CO2, which disproportionately traps infrared radiation emitted from the Earth as it is warmed by the sun, traps heat like a greenhouse.  The theory has been around since the 1880′s, but like many childish theories of the Left, it ignores reality to reach a preferred conclusion.  The climate models used to predict global warming effects have to ignore realistic cloud formation, macro-weather effects, volcanic activity and scores of other real world events in order to get fractions of a degree of warming.  In fact, just this weekend, CERN physicists announced new discoveries in cloud nucleation, which will require massive rewrites of climatology models.  This may be in the weeds for Krugman, but that’s where real science is done.

There’s a tremendous amount of hubris involved in thinking that a simple numerical model that ignores whole swaths of reality can accurately predict a fraction of a degree change in tempereature over 100 years.  Especially when the same type of numerical models cannot accurately predict the difference between a Category 3 hurricane and a tropical storm over the span of less than a week.

As a trained scientist, and a Republican, I don’t fear facts or science.  I am not afraid that new information might change my perception of the world–if my perception was wrong, I welcome it.  It is Messrs. Gore and Krugman who fear the free competition of ideas.  Their ad hominem tantrums underscore their fear of being proven wrong.  But no amount of fist banging, name calling, bullying or childishness will turn a wish into a fact.  Anthropogenic global warming is not a fact; it is the pipe dream of anti-business, pro regulation liberals like Paul Krugman.  Republicans don’t hate science, we hate the politicization of science.