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In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist are generally used to describe support for preserving traditional social orders and hierarchies. The terms Right and Left were coined during the French Revolution, referring to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported preserving the institutions of the Ancien Régime (the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established church).

Use of the term "Right" became more prominent after the second restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 with the Ultra-royalists. Historically it has been primarily used to refer to conservatives, reactionaries, monarchists, aristocrats, and theocrats. In the modern day the term is predominantly used to describe those who support free market capitalism and some forms of nationalism in addition to conservatism.

History of the term

The political term right-wing originates from the French Revolution when liberal deputies from the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the president's chair, a habit which began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Ancien Régime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side. One major figure on the right was Joseph de Maistre who argued for an authoritarian and less liberal form of conservatism. Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right in France was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy.

On the right, the Legitimists and Ultra-royalists held counter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while the Orleanists hoped to create a constitutional monarchy, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830 July Revolution. The Bonapartists advocated the idea of a strong and centralized state, based on popular support. Since then the term right-wing has come to be associated with preserving the status quo in the form of institutions and traditions.

In Europe, with a strong traditional class-structure, historians and social scientists identified the political spectrum on the basis of class, with left, right, and center representing the working, upper, and middle classes. While these cleavages developed at the time of the French revolution, they deepened in the 19th century and both right and left accepted the class nature of their positions. While universal suffrage, the acceptance of democracy, and regional and religious division blurred the distinction between the groups, the analysis continued to be applied. The most usual ideologies of left, right, and center were socialism, conservatism, and liberalism. Seymour Martin Lipset saw modern political parties as continuing the "Democratic Class Struggle" that led to their creation.

In the US, with its economic system less codified as a rigid structure of hereditary social classes, the political spectrum has been analyzed with a more ideological emphasis. For example, Louis Hartz identified the mainstream political ideology of America as Lockean liberalism, not lying in a feudal past, and saw the two main opposing forces in American history as Whig and Democrat, representing the industrialists and the agriculturalists, but both accepting liberal principles and therefore essentially centrist. Russell Kirk however argued that the American Revolution had been a conservative reaction and therefore the term conservative could apply to American politics.

Although Kirk's theory gained very little academic acceptance, it popularized the term conservative in the United States and it was adopted by the New Right and later by the majority of the Republican Party and blue dog Democrats. Lipset coined the term radical right in 1955 to describe radical groups opposed to social reforms and foreign interventionism and the term right later came to be applied to American conservatism.

Friedrich Hayek wrote that it was incorrect to represent the political spectrum as a line with socialists on the left, conservatives on the right and liberals in the middle. Instead he suggested seeing each group as pulling at the corner of a triangle. The socialists had by mid-twentieth century pulled harder, so that the entire political spectrum had shifted to the left and socialist ideas had become respectable. In the United States however the difference between conservatives and liberals was obscured by the fact that it was possible to defend individual liberty by defending established institutions, as the American tradition was liberal. He thought that the attempt to transplant the European type of conservatism to America had created confusion in viewing the political spectrum as had the tendency of American radicals and socialists to call themselves liberals.

Other libertarians reject being described as "left" or "right." Leonard Read rejected these terms as "authoritarian." Harry Browne wrote: "We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives– nor as some variant of their positions." Walter Block also has rejected the labels.

In the Europe, after World War II, traditional rightist parties and movements such as monarchists, aristocrats and authoritarian conservatives have diminshed in power on the mainstream Right and were replaced with conservative liberals and Christian democrats.

Varieties

The spectrum of right-wing politics ranges from centre-right to far right. By the late 19th century, the French political spectrum classified the center-right as Constitutional Monarchists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists, and the far right as Ultra-Royalists and Legitimists. The centre-right Gaullists in post-World War II France advocated considerable social spending on education and infrastructure development, as well as extensive economic regulation but a limited amount of the wealth redistribution measures more characteristic of social democracy.

A definition of the term "centre-right" is necessarily broad and approximate because political terms have varying meanings in different countries. Parties of the centre-right generally support liberal democracy, capitalism, the market economy (albeit with some limited government regulation), private property rights, the existence of the welfare state in some limited form, and opposition to socialism and communism. Such definitions generally include political parties that base their ideology and policies upon conservatism and economic liberalism.

The terms far right and radical right have been used by different people in conflicting ways. The term far right is most often used to describe extreme nationalism, religious fundamentalism and sociopolitically "reactionary" groups, as well as the less readily categorized ideologies of fascism and Nazism. The BBC has called politician Pim Fortuyn's politics (Fortuynism) far right because of his policies on immigration and Muslims. The term far right has been used by some, such as National Public Radio, to describe the rule of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The US Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism as hate groups who target racial, ethnic or religious minorities and may be dedicated to a single issue, such as eradicating homosexuals or barring the immigration of Hispanics.

Some associate ethnic nationalism with the right.

Positions

Social stratification and social order

Right-wing politics involves in varying degrees the rejection of egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming either that equality is artificial or that the imposition of social equality is detrimental to society. Right-wing ideologies and movements support social order. The original French right-wing was called "the party of order" and said that France needed a strong political leader to keep order. Latin Conservatism, founded by Joseph de Maistre, is uncompromising in its belief in the need for order. Maistre, like Thomas Hobbes before him, supported absolutism as the only means of avoiding violent disorder. Maistre, who fled the French Revolution, became convinced that ultra-liberal ideas, particularly Rousseau's theory of a "general will", had led to the horrors of the French Revolution and the bloodshed of the Napoleonic Wars.

Maistre also objected to the quasi-secularism and self-indulgence of some late 18th and early 19th century monarchies, and believed that state and church must remain inseparable. The principles of Maistre's Latin Conservatism were fully instituted in Spain under Francisco Franco. Religious fundamentalists have often supported the use of political power to enforce their religious beliefs. While traditional right-wing politics supports legal and moral authority over those who would challenge such authority, the "Libertarian Right," in contrast with the religious Right and the nationalist Right, is anti-authoritarian.

Tradition

A common way to sum up the beliefs of the right is to focus on a support for tradition, at least rhetorically. How far back traditionalists should look, however, is not always clear. Critics sometimes argue that the historical tradition to which right wingers refer never existed. From the European Renaissance until the Enlightenment, references to Greek and Roman traditions were frequently cited as arguments for political change from monarchy to more democratic ideals, which would now be described as left-wing. Similarly, the early Islamic Empire was in many respects more liberal than the ideal advanced by contemporary conservative Islamists.

Traditionalism emphasizes the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition and custom, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and patriotism, localism, and regionalism. It has affinities with reactionary and counterrevolutionary thought, and some adherents of this movement perhaps embrace that label, defying the stigma that has attached to it in Western culture since the Enlightenment. Many traditionalist conservatives believe in monarchism.

Traditionalism has existed in various forms in the West since its beginning, however it was in the 18th century that modern traditionalist conservatism emerged and even then it was not until the mid-twentieth century in the United States that it was an organized intellectual force. Traditionalism was found in the writings of a group of U.S. university professors (labeled the "New Conservatives" by the popular press) who rejected the notions of individualism, liberalism, modernity, and social progress, promoted cultural and educational renewal, and revived interest in what T. S. Eliot referred to as "the permanent things" (those perennial truths which endure from age to age and those basic institutions that ground society such as the church, the family, the state, and community life.)

The term "family values" has had different meanings in different cultures. In the late 20th- and early 21st Centuries, the term has been frequently used in political debate, especially by social and religious conservatives, who believe that the world has seen a decline in family values since the end of the Second World War. The term has been used as a buzzword by right-wing parties such as the Republican Party in the United States, the Family First Party in Australia, the Conservative party in the United Kingdom and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. Right-wing supporters of "family values" generally oppose abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and adultery. Leftists and feminists often accuse the right of supporting patriarchy and traditional, hierarchical gender roles.

Nationalism

In France, Nationalism was originally a left-wing and Republican ideology. Nationalism became a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right after the Dreyfus Affair. These right-wing nationalists endorsed ethnic nationalism and believed in defining a "true" national identity and defending it from elements deemed not part of the identity and corrupt. They also promoted Social Darwinism, applying the concept of "survival of the fittest" to nations and races. Right-wing nationalism was influenced by Romantic nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes, depending on the particular manner of practice, the language, race, culture, religion and customs of the "nation" in its primal sense of those who were "born" within its culture.

Linked with right-wing nationalism is cultural conservatism. Cultural conservatism supports the preservation of the heritage of a nation or culture.

Economics

Historically, the Right has advocated preserving the wealth and power of aristocrats and nobles. Reactionary right-wing politics involves the creation or promotion of a social hierarchy. Right-wing politics views social and economic hierarchies as either natural or normal and rejects attempts to remove such hierarchies. For example, right-wing politicians in France during the French Revolution opposed the removal of the monarchy and aristocratic privilege. Traditional rightists were uncomfortable with liberal capitalism. Particularly in continental Europe, many conservatives have been uncomfortable with the impact of capitalism upon culture and traditions. The conservative opposition to the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the development of individualistic liberalism as a political theory and as institutionalized social practices sought to retain traditional social hierarchies, practices and institutions. There has also been a conservative protectionist opposition to certain types of international capitalism. There are still right-wing movements, notably American paleoconservatives, that are often in opposition to capitalist ethics and the effects they have on society as a whole, which they see as infringing upon or decaying social traditions or hierarchies that are essential for social order. Conservative authoritarians and those on the far right have supported corporatism.

In modern times, most right-wing ideologies and movements support capitalism. In Europe, capitalists formed alliances with the Right during their conflict with workers after 1848. In France, the right's support of capitialism can be traced to the late 19th century. Right-wing libertarianism (sometimes known as libertarian conservatism or conservative libertarianism) supports a decentralized economy based on economic freedom, and advocates policies such as property rights, free markets and free trade. Russell Kirk believed that freedom and property rights were interlinked. Anthony Gregory has written that right-wing, or conservative libertarianism, "can refer to any number of varying and at times mutually exclusive political orientations." He listed some as: being "interested mainly in 'economic freedoms'"; following the "conservative lifestyle of right-libertarians"; seeking "others to embrace their own conservative lifestyle"; considering big business "as a great victim of the state"; favoring a "strong national defense"; having "an Old Right opposition to empire." He holds that the issue is not right or left but "whether a person sees the state as a major hazard or just another institution to be reformed and directed toward a political goal."

The Right often advocates equality of opportunities as an alternative to equality of outcome. Russell Kirk, a major figure of American conservatism included "civilized society requires orders and classes" as one of the "canons" of conservatism. Western-style corporate capitalism but not full-fledged laissez-faire economics or individual autonomy was adopted by reformist governments in Singapore and Taiwan during a period of authoritarian rule and economic reform. These countries continue to venerate tradition in what has been described an "Asian model" of capitalism.

Populism

Right-wing populism is a combination of ethno-nationalism with anti-elitist populist rhetoric and a radical critique of existing political institutions. According to Margaret Canovan, a right-wing populist is "...a charismatic leader, using the tactics of politicians’ populism to go past the politicians and intellectual elite and appeal to the reactionary sentiments of the populace, often buttressing his claim to speak for the people by the use of referendums."

There are elements of populism in traditionalist conservatism. While many traditionalist conservatives live in urban centers, the countryside and the values of rural life are prized highly (sometimes even being romanticized, as in pastoral poetry). The principles of agrarianism (i.e., preserving the small family farm, open land, the conservation of natural resource, and stewardship of the land) are central to a traditionalist's understanding of rural life.

One example of right-wing populists were the Southern Agrarians of the United States. They bemoaned the increasing loss of Southern identity and culture to industrialization. They believed that the traditional agrarian roots of the United States, which dated back to the nation's founding in the 18th century, were important to its nature. Their manifesto was a critique of the rapid industrialization and urbanization during the first few decades of the 20th century in the southern United States. It posited an alternative based on a return to the more traditionally rural and local culture, and agrarian American values. The group opposed the changes in the US that were leading it to become more urban, national/international, and industrial. Because the book was published at the opening (1930) of what would eventually become the Great Depression, some viewed it as particularly prescient. The book's stance was anti-communist.

Religion

Government support for the majority religion has from the beginning of the movement been a major part of right-wing politics. The original French right-wing supported the power of the Roman Catholic Church and opposed the secularization proposed by the anti-clerical forces of the Left. Religious figures with right-wing views, as in the Roman Catholic Church after the French Revolution, typically called for the creation or restoration of the authority of religious institutions and the social hierarchy that was associated with religion. Joseph de Maistre argued for the indirect authority of the Pope over temporal matters. According to Maistre, only governments founded upon a Christian constitution, implicit in the customs and institutions of all European societies but especially in Catholic European monarchies, could avoid the disorder and bloodshed that followed the implementation of rationalist political programs, as in the French Revolution.

The Christian right is a major political force in the West, supported by the Republican Party in the United States and by Christian Democratic parties in Europe. They generally support laws upholding religious values, and laws against illegal immigration. Hindu nationalism has been a part of right-wing politics in India. A form of conservative populism, the movement has attracted not only privileged groups fearing encroachment on their dominant positions, but also "plebeian" and impoverished groups seeking recognition around a majoritarian rhetoric of cultural pride, order, and national strength. Many Islamist groups have been associated with the right, such as the Great Union Party, the Felicity Party of Turkey and the Combatant Clergy Association/Association of Militant Clergy ('Jame'e-ye Rowhaniyat-e Mobarez) and the Islamic Society of Engineers of Iran.

Today many social and religious conservatives find themselves in opposition to scientific organizations over such topics as evolution and the global warming debate.

Anti-communism

Early communist movements were at odds with the traditional monarchies that ruled over much of the European continent at the time. Many European monarchies outlawed the public expression of communist views, and the Communist Manifesto began "A spectre is haunting Europe," suggesting that monarchs feared for their thrones. Advocacy of communism was illegal in the Russian Empire, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the three most powerful monarchies in continental Europe prior to World War I. Many Monarchists (except Constitutional Monarchists) viewed inequality in wealth and political power as resulting from a divine natural order. By World War I however, in most European monarchies, the Divine Right of Kings had become discredited and replaced by liberal and nationalist movements. Most European monarchs became figureheads; elected governments held the real power. The most conservative European monarchy, the Russian Empire, was replaced by the communist Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution inspired a series of other communist revolutions across Europe in the years 1917–1922. Many of these, such as the German Revolution, were defeated by monarchist military units.

The 1920s and 1930s saw the fading of traditional right-wing politics. The mantle of conservative anti-communism was taken up by the rising fascist movements on the one hand, and by American-inspired liberal conservatives on the other. When communist groups and political parties began appearing around the world, as in the Republic of China in the late 1920s, their opponents were usually colonial authorities or local nationalist movements.

After World War II, communism became a global phenomenon, and anti-communism became an integral part of the domestic and foreign policies of the United States and its NATO allies. Conservatism in the post-war era abandoned its monarchist and aristocratic roots, focusing instead on patriotism, religion, and nationalism. Communists were also enemies of capitalism, portraying Wall Street as the oppressor of the masses. The United States made anti-communism the top priority of its foreign policy, and many American conservatives sought to combat what they saw as communist influence at home. This led to the adoption of a number of domestic policies that are collectively known under the term "McCarthyism".Throughout the Cold War, conservative governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America turned to the United States for political and economic support.

During the 1980s, the conservative governments of Ronald Reagan in the United States, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, and Brian Mulroney in Canada followed a clearly anti-Soviet foreign policy that is credited by their supporters as a major factor in the fall of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Cold War, communism is no longer seen as a major force in world politics, and therefore most conservatives are far less concerned with anti-communism. However, conservative anti-communism resurfaces anywhere that communist political groups make significant advances, such as in Nepal in recent years.

See also

• Ideology
• Status quo
• Status quo ante
• Structural functionalism

Notes

1. T. Alexander Smith, Raymond Tatalovich. Cultures at war: moral conflicts in western democracies. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, Ltd, 2003. Pp 30. "That viewpoint is held by contemporary sociologists, for whom 'right-wing movements' are conceptualized as 'social movements whose stated goals are to maintain structures of order, status, honor, or traditional social differences or values' as compared to left-wing movements which seek 'greater equality or political participation.' In other words, the sociological perspective sees preservationist politics as a right-wing attempt to defend privilege within the social hierarchy.
2. Left and right: the significance of a political distinction, Norberto Bobbio and Allan Cameron, pg. 37, University of Chicago Press, 1997.
3. Seymour Martin Lipset, cited in Fuchs, D., and Klingemann, H. 1990. The left-right schema. Pp.203–34 in Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies, ed.M.Jennings et al. Berlin:de Gruyter
4. Lukes, Steven. 'Epilogue: The Grand Dichotomy of the Twentieth Century': concluding chapter to T. Ball and R. Bellamy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought. Pp.610–612
5. Clark, William. Capitalism, not Globalism. University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN 0-472-11293-7, 9780472112937
6. ^ The Architecture of Parliaments: Legislative Houses and Political Culture Charles T. Goodsell British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 287–302
7. Gerhard Linski, Current Issues and Research in Macrosociology, Brill Archive, 1984, pg; 59
8. Barry Clark, Political Economy: A Comparative Approach, Praeger Paperback, 1998, pgs; 33–34.
9. ^ Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright (2006). The Government and Politics of France. Routledge. ISBN 9780415357326.
10. Realms of memory: conflicts and divisions (1996), ed. Pierre Nora, "Right and Left" by Marcel Gauchet, p. 247-8
11. A Dictionary of Political Thought Roger Scruton Macmillan Pp.481-2.
12. Political Man (1960) by Seymour Martin Lipset, pp. 131–133
13. Political Man (1960) by Seymour Martin Lipset, p. 220
14. The Liberal Tradition in America (1955).
15. The Conservative Mind (1953) by Russell Kirk
16. "The Radical Right", British Journal of Sociology I (June 1955) by S. M. Lipset
17. "Why I Am Not a Conservative", F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
18. Leonard E. Read, Neither Left Nor Right, The Freeman, February 1998, Vol. 48 No. 2.
19. Harry Browne, The Libertarian stand on abortion, Harry Browne web site, December 21, 1998.
20. Walter Block, Libertarianism is unique; it belongs neither to the right nor the left, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 22 (2010): 127–70.
21. Hloušek, Vít & Kopeček, Lubomír. Orgin, Ideology and Transformation of Political Parties: East-Central and Western Europe Compared, pp. 157-159 Farnham, Surrey UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2010. ISBN 0754678407
22. Betz & Immerfall 1998; Betz 1994; Durham 2000; Durham 2002; Hainsworth 2000; Mudde 2000; Berlet & Lyons, 2000.
23. "The Routledge companion to fascism ... - Google Books". Books.google.ca. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
24. "The Christian right: the far right ... - Google Books". Books.google.ca. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
25. "Right-wing extremism in the twenty ... - Google Books". Books.google.ca. 2000-06-30. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
26. "Western democracies and the new ... - Google Books". Books.google.ca. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
27. Pim Fortuyn: The far-right Dutch maverick, BBC
28. "A Dictator's Legacy of Economic Growth". 2006-09-14. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
29. Who funds and runs the Politico? - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
30. Rightwing Extremism: current economic and political climate fueling resurgence in radicalization and recruitment
31. Canovan, Margaret. 1981. Populism.
32. Betz, Hans-Georg (1994). Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0312083908.
33. Left and right: the significance of a political distinction, Norberto Bobbio and Allan Cameron, pg. 68, University of Chicago Press, 1997.
34. Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Fundamentalisms observed. University of Chicago Press, 1994. P. 91. ISBN 0-226-50878-1, ISBN 978-0-226-50878-8.
35. Frohnen, Bruce, Jeremy Beer, and Jeffrey O. Nelson, ed. (2006) American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, pp. 870-875.
36. Frohnen, Bruce, Jeremy Beer, and Jeffrey O. Nelson, ed. (2006) American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, p. 870.
37. "Traditional families hit by declining morals, say mothers", Daily Mail
38. William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-925298-5, "An exuberant, uncompromising nationalism lay behind France's revolutionary expansion in the 1790s...", "The message of the French Revolution was that the people are sovereign; and in the two centuries since it was first proclaimed it has conquered the world."
39. Winock, Michel (dir.), Histoire de l'extrême droite en France (1993)
40. Adams, Ian Political Ideology Today (2nd edition), Manchester University Press, 2002, pg. 68
41. Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Fundamentalisms observed, "Reactionary right-wing themes emphasizing authority, social hierarchy, and obedience, as well as condemnations of liberalism, the democratic ethos, the "rights of man" associated with the legacy of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the political and cultural ethos of modern liberal democracy are especially prominent in the writings and public statements of Archbishop Lefebere", p. 91, University of Chicago Press, 1994. P. 91. ISBN 0-226-50878-1, ISBN 978-0-226-50878-8.
42. Fascism, Comparison and Definition, Stanley Payne, University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 0-299-08064-1, 9780299080648, pg 19: "Right radicals and conservative authoritarians almost without exception became corporatists in formal doctrines of political economy, but the fascists were less explicit and in general less schematic."
43. ^ John, David C. "The Origins of the Modern American Conservative Movement | The Heritage Foundation". Heritage.org. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
44. Anthony Gregory, Left, Right, Moderate and Radical, LewRockwell.com, December 21, 2006.
45. Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Fundamentalisms observed. University of Chicago Press, 1994. P. 91. ISBNISBN 0-226-50878-1, ISBN9780226508788.
46. "Conservative parties across Europe are cheering their victory, following four days of voting for the E.U. Parliament that resulted in heavy losses for the left."
47. Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India, Princeton University Press, 2001, ISBN 1-4008-0342-X, 9781400803422
48. "Rescue Teams Could Not Reach Turkish Party Leader, Muhsin Yazicioglu after Helicopter Crash".
50. Elections Summaries for POLS 168 -- Middle East Politics (Fall 2007)
51. Poll test for Iran reformists
52. "Middle East Report Online: Iran's Conservatives Face the Electorate, by Arang Keshavarzian". Merip.org. 1997-05-23. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
53. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri, Iran and the rise of its neoconservatives: the politics of Tehran's silent revolution, I.B.Tauris, 2007.
54. https://www.irr.org.uk/cgi-bin/news/open.pl?id=4447, "Christian school teaches right-wing creationist theories, by Liz Fekete, 1 August 2002, 'The government policy of funding for faith schools has been criticised after it was revealed that the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead is teaching creationism - that human origins are (relatively) recent and divine - as opposed to scientific evolution, to explain our origins.'
55. "Biological evolution is one of the most important ideas of modern science. Evolution is supported by abundant evidence from many different fields of scientific investigation. It underlies the modern biological sciences, including the biomedical sciences, and has applications in many other scientific and engineering disciplines."
56. Muslim creationism makes inroads in Turkey, by Tom Heneghan, Reuters, Nov. 22, 2006, "Creationism is so widely accepted here that Turkey placed last in a recent survey of public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries — just behind the United States." "Darwinism did become an issue during the left-vs.-right political turmoil before a 1980 military coup because Communist bookshops touted Darwin’s works as a complement to Karl Marx. 'It looked like Marx and Darwin were together, two long-bearded guys spreading ideas that make people lose their faith,' said Istanbul journalist Mustafa Akyol.
57. Diana DeGette, Sex, Science, and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason, The Lyons Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59921-431-3.
58. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, National Academy of Sciences, National Academies Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-309-04386-1
59. Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science: Revised and Updated, ASIN: B001OQOIPM

• Articles with minor POV problems from October 2009
• Right-wing politics
• Political spectrum
• Political theories
• Political terms