I would argue that science and critical thinking don't mix very well with ideology in general. I see no reason to single out "conservativism" per se. The American Republican Party certainly appears to be taken over by loons these days, but Republicans don't represent all "conservatives" on the planet. I think there is some legitimacy to the idea that if you have a political system which, for all its flaws, works better than anything else that has ever been tried, there are probably going to be more ways to make it worse than better, which should make us rather slow to throw it overboard for the very next untested idea that looks good on paper. And let's not forget that many of the retorical weapons employed by creationists and climate change deniers (i.e. dismissing any inconvenient scientific result as reflecting the self-interests and ideological biases of your opponents) were handed to them on a silver plate by the accademic left.