Big Science as a Leftist Front

Take any scientific subject that overlaps with politics, and you will find the leading journals and mainstream science news organizations presenting leftist positions, often lambasting conservatives.

Ideally, science is supposed to be apolitical and neutral.  But what is “science,” if not the sum total of human beings who call themselves scientists and their intellectual products?  Lizards and orangutans don’t have science.  As human beings, scientists are prone to political biases like the rest of people.  Surely there are conservatives in the ranks of scientists, but their front organizations – lobby organizations, journals and journalists, which we will call “big science” – lean predominant left, as this sample of articles shows.  It’s evident not only in the positions they take, but in the subjects they focus on – and those they ignore.   (Big science’s uniform and hostile opposition to creationism and intelligent design is so obvious, it needs no documentation in this entry.)

“Gay” rights:  It might seem strange that big science—given its love affair with Darwinism that depends on reproductive success—would take any position on so-called “gay rights,” but, predictably it always advocates the leftist, politically-correct view.  Science Magazine was in an uproar that the African nation of Uganda would pass a law outlawing certain forms of homosexual behavior, calling it an “antigay law” with “draconian” meaures.  Uganda’s President Museveni signed the bill partly because of alleged scientific findings showing homosexuality is behavioral, not genetic; he was also concerned that “mercenaries” were recruiting young people into gay activities.  Live Science called the law “homophobic,” also referring disparagingly to Russia’s president Putin who has attempted to reduce gay propaganda in his country.  Then, surprisingly, writer Michael Quinn [University College London] dredged up the 200-year-old views of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham to advance “sexual liberty” – without drawing any boundaries around what that might entail (polygamy? sexual slavery? pedophilia?).  Jeremy Bentham was no scientist.  Why were his views, and his alone, presented by this science news organization?  Why no views from the Family Research Council, for instance, which has done  extensive research on policy, law and societal ramifications of sex and marriage?

The BBC News took on the challenge of trying to explain the “evolutionary puzzle of homosexuality” without making any politically incorrect statements, doing its best to portray it as a genetic condition preserved by natural selection, apparently unaware (or unconcerned) that a Darwinian explanation removes any possibility of responsibility or redemption from one’s biological predestination.  Where would they draw the line on similar explanations for other deviant sexual practices?

The point is not to debate the laws of other countries, and certainly not to rationalize cruelty against any individuals or groups.  It is to ask why big science inserted itself into the moral affairs of sovereign nations, focusing on this one issue with bold headlines, presenting the leftist position that anything less than full normalization of homosexuality represents bigotry and intolerance.  Not a single conservative is represented in a favorable light.  No concern is expressed about homosexual interest groups recruiting young people away from traditional family roles—something arguably of concern to the body politic and sustainability of a population (e.g., forbidding counseling for those who want to change, adding homosexual praise in textbooks, bringing in homosexual activists to praise their lifestyle to captive audiences of children without letting parents opt out).  Is this issue alone the one needing big science’s big guns?  What about the treatment of women in Muslim countries – honor killings and stonings?  What about persecution of Christians, which is at record highs?  Is the repression of individual rights in Cuba, Iran or North Korea less deserving of attention?

Global warming:  Big science is on a campaign to suppress opposition to the “consensus” view that global warming is man-caused and demands drastic mitigation efforts.  In Nature, for instance, Simon L. Lewis advocates squelching debate in the UK, claiming that “Scientist-versus-activist debates mislead the public.”  Scientists should only debate other scientists, he says, believing scientists would only disagree about details, not the consensus.  In jest, he said that one climate skeptic in particular should debate a climate advocate like the head of Greenpeace.  Ironically, the co-founder of Greenpeace—a PhD climate skeptic—presented on Fox News’s Sean Hannity show Feb. 27th a rapid-fire list of scientific reasons the consensus is wrong.  The leftist direction of his organization, he said, was the reason he left Greenpeace years ago.  (He also said he knows he would be persecuted for presenting his evidence in liberal venues.).  The journals don’t give him the time of day, but give hero treatment to the likes of James Hansen, who has become a global warming activist since leaving NASA to lead a “new climate and advocacy shop at Columbia University.”  Science Magazine let Hansen freely tell about his activist efforts without opposition, showing a big photo of him smiling.  Live Science gave ample space for IPCC scientist Michael Mann, another warming advocate, to criticize as “myths” the views of leading conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer, who had stated on Fox News this week that “There is no such thing as settled science” and that he was not convinced from the science that the current warming trend is man-caused.  Mann mocked him, saying “His commentary is a veritable laundry list of shopworn talking points, so predictable now in climate change denialist lore that one can make a drinking game out of it.”  (Several conservatives have complained that the left’s derisive term “denialist” is an attempt to associate warming skeptics with Holocaust deniers.)  PhysOrg not only touted the consensus of UK and US scientists that “climate change is real,” but took a swipe at conservatives, calling them “industry-friendly” as if to impugn their motives.  PNAS was a fraction more conciliatory, suggesting that people should be allowed to “agree to disagree” on policy—provided policy to combat global warming moves forward.

And yet doubts about warming or humans’ guilt for it continues to surface.  Last month in Nature, Jeff Tollefson took on the embarrassing fact that temperature has leveled off for the past 16 years.  He called “the biggest mystery in climate science today” the observation that earth is “cooler than predicted.”  Nature also pointed out that permafrost in Alaska is expanding, “probably because of vegetation springing up nearby,” forcing the editors to postpone the visible effects of warming till past our lifetimes: “the team calculates that, within 70 years, rising air temperatures will win out and cause this permafrost to thaw.”  Live Science admitted that geoengineering proposals to mitigate global warming won’t work, and could actually make things worse.  Science Daily hypothesized that climate change in the Bronze Age led to the collapse of megacities; if so, that was not due to man-caused carbon emissions in 2300 BC.  Factors not included in climate models keep accumulating, too.  Another Science Daily article reported that aerosol particles in pine forests are larger and more abundant than thought, seeming to appear out of thin air, and could have uncalculated effects on climate.  And yet dubious claims get reported, like Science Daily‘s suggestion that climate change caused the civil war in Syria.  “Climate change” (previously “global warming”) has become a default cause for numerous unrelated effects.  Conservatives do not doubt that the climate changes.  They just disagree that man has caused the latest warming trend, that warming is necessarily bad, and that scientists are the prophets they picture themselves to be.

Life and Death:  As Wesley Smith details in his new book and video The War on Humans, leftist big science has an obsession with death.  Viewing mankind as a plague on the planet, some science professors and evolutionary philosophers would be only too happy to see massive die-off of Homo sapiens—an odd position for a Darwinist to take, considering that survival of the fittest is the only moral good in the Darwinian world view.  Yet some of these same leftist scientists who support abortion, euthanasia, and tinkering with human embryos get all teary-eyed over the pain of fish.  “Fish have feelings, too,” Nature wrote, advocating the abolition of a practice that might make zebrafish suffer when killed for research.  The editors wrote, “Our obligation to keep the suffering of laboratory animals to a minimum — both in life and in death — does not apply only to mammals.”  Where is that tender sensitivity when it comes to abortion?  Medical Xpress reported with clinical coolness that “One year after legalization” there have been “6,676 abortions in Uruguay” (one of the last Latin American countries to legalize the killing of unborn babies).  It has been conservatives alone, not leftists, who have uncovered the horrors of abortion clinics and tried to stop partial-birth abortion that is inches from infanticide.  To its credit, Science Daily described filicide (the killing of one’s own children) as a “heinous crime” both “horrifying” and “tragic” – but at the end of the article, sought for “biological underpinnings” of the practice, as if to justify it on evolutionary grounds or blame it on serotonin levels.

Socialism:  President Obama, the most left-leaning President in American history, usually gets a pass or praise in big science.  This week, Medical Xpress reported (without critique) that “Obamacare enrollment reaches 4 million” as if to celebrate the number, even though it falls far short of expectations.  “Advocacy groups are reporting a whirlwind of activity this month as they try to enroll as many uninsured Americans as possible before open enrollment ends on March 31,” the article states supportively, only mentioning in the last sentence some of the problems conservatives have been warning about: “The administration hasn’t reported the number of marketplace enrollees who were previously uninsured,” it hides in the last lines.  “And it hasn’t said how many have paid their first month’s premium—a prerequisite for health insurance coverage.”  That’s only the tip of an iceberg of problems, lies, scandals, botched dealings and collateral damage to real people that Fox News has been detailing continuously (while holding frequent debates between supporters and opponents of Obamacare).  But if you are a conservative in the mainstream science media, watch out, if you can: Medical Xpress also gave voice to severe criticisms of the late conservative UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, blaming her conservative policies for “unnecessary and unjust premature death of many British citizens, together with a substantial and continuing burden of suffering and loss of well-being”–hardly an opinion many Brits would hold of their respected Iron Lady who participated in the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Similar outrage would be hard to find in big science communications against dictators who actually kill and repress the human rights of their people: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, China, and the lot.

With all this background, two writers in The Conversation can’t seem to figure out “Why do some people not care about science?”  Maybe it’s not that they don’t care about real science.  Maybe they are just disgusted with the non-stop leftist ideology being presented in the name of science.

The evidence above speaks for itself.  Big science has been captured by leftists, just as have big media, big labor, big law, and big academia.  The Saul Alinsky tactics of the left appear in big science like they do elsewhere: demonize the opposition, don’t let them get a hearing, and keep telling big lies.  Individual scientists are often very decent people, just as are many decent journalists, laborers, lawyers and teachers, but their voices are suppressed by management.  Leftists are the darling talking heads for the mainstream media.  Conservatives, usually, are happy to debate.  They are glad to give both sides a decent hearing.  Here at CEH, we let the evolutionists do their best, and we provide the links so that you can check out what we report.  Leftists, though, are selfish ideologues, thinking common people are too stupid to agree with “the scientific consensus” if they were to hear opposing points of view.  Well, what does that tell you about their credibility?  Can you imagine Live Science or the BBC returning the favor and linking to our material or anything like it?  Watch out for any institution that suppresses opposition and doesn’t want you to think.  That’s totalitarian.