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The Real War on Science
city journal dot org ^ | 2016 | Tierney

Posted on 12/26/2016 5:53:08 PM PST by doug from upland

NOTE: not a duplicate post. The other one sent you to someone's blog instead of to the actual source as was done here.

My liberal friends sometimes ask me why I don’t devote more of my science journalism to the sins of the Right. It’s fine to expose pseudoscience on the left, they say, but why aren’t you an equal-opportunity debunker? Why not write about conservatives’ threat to science?

My friends don’t like my answer: because there isn’t much to write about. Conservatives just don’t have that much impact on science. I know that sounds strange to Democrats who decry Republican creationists and call themselves the “party of science.” But I’ve done my homework. I’ve read the Left’s indictments, including Chris Mooney’s bestseller, The Republican War on Science. I finished it with the same question about this war that I had at the outset: Where are the casualties?

Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding? What vital research has been corrupted or suppressed? What scientific debate has been silenced? Yes, the book reveals that Republican creationists exist, but they don’t affect the biologists or anthropologists studying evolution. Yes, George W. Bush refused federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but that hardly put a stop to it (and not much changed after Barack Obama reversed the policy). Mooney rails at scientists and politicians who oppose government policies favored by progressives like himself, but if you’re looking for serious damage to the enterprise of science, he offers only three examples.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: leftists; science; war
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1 posted on 12/26/2016 5:53:08 PM PST by doug from upland
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To: doug from upland

“liberal friends”

Degeneracy.


2 posted on 12/26/2016 6:10:24 PM PST by Go No
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To: humblegunner

PING

Again giving FReepers the opportunity to see the story on the original website instead of being diverted to someone’s blog. Not cool.


3 posted on 12/26/2016 6:11:06 PM PST by doug from upland (Hillary, get the hell off the stage!)
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To: doug from upland
I thought I should buy a copy of this book, and read it before commenting, but I have discovered a remarkably reliable (and free) alternative technique.

I always read user comments before buying a book, in addition to buying and reading or re-reading at least 50 books a year, weighted to about 75% non-fiction.

This book is a good example of the transparent phoniness of most "reader-reviewers," not all, of course, but enough to take notice.

In the case of this book, what gives them away as "paid" or fake reviewers is simple : the universal and repeated enthusiastic support of absurd "facts" such as "consensus science" and the "social sciences."

Such stupidities are indisputable marks of the science-ignorant.

4 posted on 12/26/2016 6:27:25 PM PST by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW evil, stupid, insane ignorant or just clueless, doesn't matter!)
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To: doug from upland

The “party of science” can’t figure out what bathroom to use.


5 posted on 12/26/2016 6:29:19 PM PST by Organic Panic (Rich White Man Evicts Poor Black Family From Public Housing - MSNBCPBSCNNNYTABC)
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To: Go No

Your criticism is less than literal Christian.


6 posted on 12/26/2016 6:46:47 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Organic Panic

Pointing up that they’re filtering their “science” attempts through a tendentious filter.


7 posted on 12/26/2016 6:47:44 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: doug from upland

Great article - well worth a read or two


8 posted on 12/26/2016 6:49:56 PM PST by rb22982
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To: publius911

People like to pretend that science can stand alone, without some moral impetus behind it.

People are ignorant. What suggests canons of reasonableness or logic to scientists in the first place? The talk about suppressing all presuppositions is balderdash; what is being done is suppressing a set of presuppositions that are presupposed to be harmful.


9 posted on 12/26/2016 6:50:07 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: rb22982

Group think is what many of these “scientists” are all about.


10 posted on 12/26/2016 6:59:51 PM PST by doug from upland (Hillary, get the hell off the stage!)
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To: doug from upland
Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding?

They are actually victims of the left: House GOP accuses Energy Dept. of political intimidation [in the case of firing Dr. Noelle Metting for supporting research on health effects of low doses of radiation]

11 posted on 12/26/2016 7:13:13 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: rb22982

Yep that was a good read. City Journal usually has good stuff.


12 posted on 12/26/2016 7:27:39 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Hmmmm.
OK.
Just more psychobabble to defend another form of psychobabble...
13 posted on 12/26/2016 7:30:18 PM PST by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW evil, stupid, insane ignorant or just clueless, doesn't matter!)
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To: doug from upland

Mathematics, physics, and the disciplines derived therefrom are only responsive to Truth.

Too bad for anyone asserting anything else.


14 posted on 12/26/2016 8:05:41 PM PST by onedoug
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To: publius911

“I thought I should buy a copy of this book, and read it before commenting, but I have discovered a remarkably reliable (and free) alternative technique.”

To what book are you referring?


15 posted on 12/26/2016 8:05:47 PM PST by PreciousLiberty (Make America Greater Than Ever!)
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To: doug from upland

Bump


16 posted on 12/26/2016 8:48:37 PM PST by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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To: onedoug

Certainly, but to the Democrat Thug Party, truth is an inconvenience to the political agendas disguised as ‘science’.

The Left’s tyrannical response to dissenting analysis, views, and theories is an unambiguous demonstration of scientific uncertainty and fabrications.


17 posted on 12/26/2016 9:43:26 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: doug from upland

Remember Climategate?


18 posted on 12/26/2016 10:00:18 PM PST by TBP (0bama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: PreciousLiberty
I think it was this one - John Tierney is a contributing editor of City Journal, coauthor of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Strength, and a contributing science columnist for the New York Times, where he previously wrote “The Big City” column.
19 posted on 12/27/2016 9:00:30 AM PST by Kay Ludlow (Government actions ALWAYS have unintended consequences...)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Pardon me, God.


20 posted on 12/27/2016 11:37:35 AM PST by Go No
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