Paranoid Science

March 13, 2017
Since the 1970s, according to sociologist Alumkal (Asian American Evangelical Churches), there have been four frontal assaults on science by hard-right theocrats: intelligent design over evolution, ex-gay therapy over acceptance of human sexuality, bioethics based on human exceptionalism, and climate change denial. Alumkal calls these the “paranoid science” movements. Drawing on historian Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 lecture on “the paranoid style in American politics,” Alumkal maps key features in the contemporary Christian Right, including a tendency toward conspiracies, apocalyptic parameters, dualistic thinking, an inability to compromise, and feeling “dispossessed.” This dispossession, as Hofstadter described it, is one where “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion.” Through extensive research, Alumkal provides a rich, nuanced, and detailed view of mid-20th-century American evangelicalism’s right-wing political expression and its often dangerous impact on science in the service of the common good. His conclusions indicate that when such a powerful paranoia cannot be deescalated, it must be contained. Education and persuasion are the tools for change, and Alumkal’s book succeeds in both respects.