Posted on 04/11/2018 8:32:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
We've been told conservatives don't believe in science and that there's a "Republican war on science."
But John Tierney, who's written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, told me in my latest online video, "The real war on science is the one from the left."
Really? Conservatives are more likely to be creationists -- denying evolution.
"Right," says Tierney. "But creationism doesn't affect the way science is done."
What about President George W. Bush banning government funding of stem cell research?
"He didn't stop stem cell research," Tierney reminds me. "The government wouldn't fund it. It turned out that it really didn't matter much." Private funding continued and, so far, has not discovered much.
"People talk about this Republican war on science, but if you look around, my question is, where are the casualties? What scientists lost their jobs?" asks Tierney. "I can't find examples where the right wing stopped the progress of science, whereas you can look on the left and you see so many areas that are taboo to research."
Some research on genetically modified foods became taboo because of protests from the left. That may have prevented a second Green Revolution to feed Africa.
Scientists can't even talk about whether genes affect intelligence without being threatened by the left. Political scientists who continued to investigate the topic are screamed at on college campuses, the way Charles Murray, author of "The Bell Curve," has been.
Tierney adds, "The federal government stopped funding IQ research decades ago."
Likewise, researching gender differences is dangerous to your career.
"You can't talk about sexual differences between men and women, (although) it's OK if they favor women," laughs Tierney. "You can say men are more likely to commit crimes, but you can't suggest that there might be some sexual difference that might predispose men to be more interested in a topic."
Google fired engineer James Damore merely for suggesting that sex differences might explain why more men choose to work in tech.
"Damore just pointed out very basic scientific research about differences between the sexes," argues Tierney. "The experts in this, as soon as he published that memo, said, yes, he basically got the science right."
It's not as if women aren't doing well in life, says Tierney.
In universities, "women dominate virtually every extracurricular activity, but all the focus has been: 'Why aren't there more women physicists and mathematicians, and of course in the sports area, too?'" says Tierney. "There's this idea that they're being discriminated against, (but) there have been enormous studies of who gets grants, who gets tenure, who gets interviews for jobs, and women get preference."
However, one group does get discriminated against in colleges: conservatives.
"In the social sciences, Democrats outnumber Republicans by at least eight to one. In fields like sociology it's 44 to one. Students are more likely to be taught in sociology by a Marxist than by a Republican," says Tierney. "It's gotten worse and worse."
Why does this happen at colleges that claim they "treasure diversity"? Because people on the left believe diversity just means race and gender, not thought. And even schools that want some diverse thought reach a sort of political tipping point.
"Once an academic department gets a majority of people who are on the left, they start hiring people like themselves, and soon the whole department is that way," says Tierney. "They start to think that their opinions and that their interests are not only the norm, but the truth."
That's how we get "scientific" studies that "prove" conservatives are stupid.
One such study asked people if they agree with the statement "Earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them." The researcher called a "yes" answer an "irrational denial of science." But anyone who's studied economics knows the statement has repeatedly been proven true.
Finally, millions of people die of malaria today partly because many countries believed leftist junk science and needlessly banned DDT. Many were influenced by Rachel Carson's scientifically challenged book "Silent Spring."
There is a war on science. But most of it doesn't come from the right.
John Tierney, who's written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, told me in my latest online video, "The real war on science is the one from the left." ... "People talk about this Republican war on science, but if you look around, my question is, where are the casualties? What scientists lost their jobs?" asks Tierney. "I can't find examples where the right wing stopped the progress of science, whereas you can look on the left and you see so many areas that are taboo to research."...Google fired engineer James Damore merely for suggesting that sex differences might explain why more men choose to work in tech... "The experts in this, as soon as he published that memo, said, yes, he basically got the science right." It's not as if women aren't doing well in life, says Tierney... However, one group does get discriminated against in colleges: conservatives... That's how we get "scientific" studies that "prove" conservatives are stupid.
Ping to all lists. Just pinging, not adding. Thanks Kaslin.
Trofim Lysenko
Good essay.
It really comes down to A) Those who don’t agree with MANMADE global warming and/or B) Those who believe the Bible, where it disagrees with science theory.
I think one can still be a Christian without believing God literally made the Earth 6000 years ago. In fact, there is a lot of debate even among Christians who interpret Scripture literally or figuratively.
However, the Atheist Left makes no distinction between them and tries to impose the “Flat Earth”, “Earth-centric” believing view on ALL Christians, which is simply not true.
He rose high because Stalin gave him full-throated support for years on end.
Science has and is prostituting itself. Scientific results are determined before the research begins by whoever is financing it.
I don’t understand how one can warp mathematics and physics. All of science must tie to these or they aren’t science.
In its timely fashion, Torah meshes with its these fundamentals.
bkmk
There is one glaring exception to Stossel’s thesis: declaring marijuana to have no possible medical value, and prohibiting the investigation of its medicinal qualities. The discovery of the benefits of CBD oil was much delayed.
So “John Tierney, who’s written about science for The New York Times for 25 years” sounds so “smart” and “rational” and “enlightened” in this piece.
He must have had to hide that side from his editors and from so many millions of ‘comfortable inside their ignorant leftist bubble’ NYT readers.
I have never seen any claim in my bible that the earth was made 6000 years ago.
Probably the greatest example is James Ussher, Bishop in the Church of Ireland, from 1625 to 1656, who calculated all the ages of Jesus's human ancestry, all the begats, and "Proved" that since Adam, the age of the Earth.
So subsequently, a large amount of Christians in diverse places have believed it is biblically-based.
The debate is explained well here.
Thank you for that informative link.
I’m a creationist and a scientist. I did know about the probable incomplete geneologies and the use of the term day also meaning an “age” - or a period of time of unknown length. But lots of other good stuff in there. Thanks!
p
“Science has and is prostituting itself. Scientific results are determined before the research begins by whoever is financing it.”
Yes it has. Years ago I was doing research on clay chemistry mineralogy relative to lattice distances in different saline concentrations of KCl. This may seem esoteric but it has real world applications in bore hole stability when drilling an oil well. Many many weeks in the lab and with an X-Ray diffraction machine was entailed. The whole premise of my original research was wrong. I did not fudge the numbers to make it right. It was just plain damn wrong. I did discover something new and unique that was worthy of publication. I was in my last year of Geology and just wanted to get out and back to the oilfield and make money again. I did not publish as that is not an easy task and would have probably meant one more semester in school.
Some years later this same research was published by another geologist that duplicated what I had done. He did it all on his own and deserves full credit for it.
That is the way real science is done. YOU DO NOT LIE AND IF WRONG SAY IT SO OTHERS DO NOT MAKE THE SAME ERROR!
’ Physics has its accepted dogma too. Try challenging the current dogma that holds the Universe is driven by gravity that the vast majority of physicists hold as proved science, yet every new discovery we see shown to us by the Hubble Space Telescope surprises these physicists and Cosmologists and leaves them scratching their collective heads because their theories did not predict what is being discovered and cannot explain what is being seen at all!
In fact, onedoug, to retain their beautiful math at all, they’ve resorted to magic. That’s the best way to describe what they are doing. To keep their formulas working with the observed facts, they’ve invented invisible fairy dust which they can toss in where ever they need it when the observed phenomena refuses to match the math. Simply add enough fairy dust until the math matches what you see. . . I.e. FUDGE your figures to FIT the facts!
Of course, they don’t let you in on the fact they are fudging or invoking magic. . . They couch it in Oh, so very Faux scientific terms. They’re scientific because a befuddled scientist coined them when she needed them to get her math to match what everyone was seeing. She called it "Dark Matter" and then someone else came up with "Dark Energy" when they found they needed more magic to make their math work. . . If gravity is king. Dark matter and Dark Energy are so dark they’re invisible and can’t be seen. . . Or found. . . Nor do they obscure anything they may be in front of. . . They’re there, because the physicists’ math just doesn’t work without them to explain how a gravity driven Universe ever could exist, or even came to be.
They never stop to think that maybe, just maybe, they should re-examine their basic gravity premise? There is another force in the universe that like gravity is infinite in reach. . . One whose laws are fully understood, and one which, unlike gravity, we can replicate artificially in laboratories, and one that is infinitely scalable, and it is one that is thirty-seven orders of magnitude STRONGER than gravity! That’s 1037 stronger, onedoug. . . And everything that surprised the gravity Cosmologists and physicists is and was predicted by Cosmologists and physicists who follow this alternative model for what drives the Universe which the orthodoxy REFUSES to consider, and actively denies the right to publish in their journals!
The test of any scientific theory is its ability to predict future discoveries or to be falsified in those discoveries. So far the surprise of the Gravity Cosmology physicists demonstrates their predictions are being routinely falsified. On the other hand, the Electric/plasma Universe Cosmology physicists are findings their laboratory microcosm experiments and computer plasma models demonstrated everywhere they look, writ large scale in the microcosmic Universe, duplicating what they can demonstrate in the laboratory with plasma physics. . . and which cannot be explained at all with gravity physics.
Then it was useful. Edison tried over 10,000 different filament for his lightbulb before he hit on the one that lasted long enough to be economically viable. Some worked better than others. . . Some flashed out instantly and became the basis for flashbulbs for later flash photography. . . But Edison famously said "I now know thousands of ways how not to do it!"
Incidentally, Edison really did not invent the Electric light bulb; that was actually invented more than thirty years before. It was just not economically viable as a product as the bulbs were quite expensive, were fairly dim, and lasted only a few hours. Edison, like Steve Jobs at Apple who did not truly invent the portable music player or the Smartphone, merely improved the concept into viable products that were usable by everyone. . . But the public perception is they’ll be remembered as the inventors.
>>>What about President George W. Bush banning government funding of stem cell research?<<<
Never happened.
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Yes sir, fella.
Science determinations these days are almost the same as the highly paid high school football star who is coveted by the universities before "the star" produces at the college level.
Little is certain ....... it's just highly paid for.
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