Exclusive: Far-Right Creationists Are Setting Trump’s Virus Response

“…evidence suggests that the administration’s [coronavirus] policies have also been inspired by people pushing the original “alternative fact,” the false belief that organic evolution is a myth.

[White House chief of staff] … Meadows has multiple direct links to far-right “creationist” activists who promote a belief that most of the Earth’s fossils were actually created during the flood story recounted in the Bible—and who want public policies to reflect that belief.

Vice President Mike Pence, chair of the White House coronavirus task force, has claimed on the floor of Congress that the fossil record does not prove evolution, that science is too changeable to be trusted, and that schools should also teach that humans were “created” by God in their current form.

Scott Atlas, the Stanford University radiologist and mask skeptic who has fast become Trump’s top coronavirus adviser, heartily endorsed the COVID-19 mitigation proposals of George Gilder, co-founder of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that specializes in promoting supply-side economics, climate science denial, and “intelligent design,” a spit-polished version of creationism which focuses more on attacking “Darwinism” than promoting biblical fundamentalism. According to Atlas, Gilder’s recommendation to “defer as much as possible to the principles of freedom” was “right on target.”

Discovery… recommend[ed] that Trump hire Atlas as part of a “red team” to “challenge lockdown-manic governors.”

“Creationists working with climate deniers to say that lockdowns are ineffective is a perfect example of what I call ‘crank magnetism,’” Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education told me in an interview. “People who promote pseudo-science in one area are very likely to promote it in another.” [emphasis mine]

Crank magnetism, indeed. It wasn't a total surprise to me that anti-vaxxers and new age crystal enthusiasts are flocking to Q-Anon, the alt-right's new cocoon of madness. When multiple threats make life scary, anyone not grounded in science is an easy mark.

image source for crank magnetism