Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a shot at the current field of GOP candidates for president Thursday, denouncing their stances on evolution and climate change as anti-science.
He made the remarks during a speech at an international economic forum at Columbia University.
"We have presidential candidates who don't believe in science," Bloomberg said, without singling out dubious Republican candidates directly.
"I mean, just think about it, can you imagine a company of any size in the world where the CEO said 'oh I don't believe in science' and that person surviving to the end of that day? Are you kidding me? It's mind-boggling!"
Bloomberg grew coy when asked which candidate he was talking about.
"I don't know," he said. "You can check the presidential candidates' speeches… I don't have time to go do it but all their speeches, everything they said."
John Huntsman, who is polling near the bottom of the GOP candidates, is the only one in the group to come out in support of evolution and climate change. At a debate in September Bloomberg warned, "When you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call to question evolution, all I'm saying is that in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science."
As for the rest, Michele Bachman has doubted that carbon dioxide is a threat to humans, Herman Cain has said that he doesn't believe global warming is real , Rick Perry has dismissed evolution as "just a theory", Mitt Romney has said he's not sure if climate change is "caused by humans", and Ron Paul has called climate change "the greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years, if not hundreds of years."
Bloomberg, it should be noted, is a big fan of science. He studied physics and electrical engineering while in college and has recently been championing a competition for the country's elite colleges to build a new tech campus in New York.
And this isn't the first time Bloomberg's criticized politicians for belittling science. In a 2006 speech at John Hopkins University he said, "Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don't happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science.'"