AAAS Tries to Influence Elections
Farewell to unbiased science.
The AAAS has gone political.
You know what that means.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the journals Science and Science Advances, is one of America’s leading scientific institutions. CEH distinguishes “science” (knowledge, the pursuit of truth wherever the evidence leads) from Big Science: corporate, institutional science, consisting of journal editors and publishers, academic deans and lobbyists who presume to “speak for the scientific community.” They are not that different from labor bosses in Big Labor who presume to speak for “all workers” even though some workers may disagree with the leadership politically. And just as labor bosses are almost uniformly leftist radicals who send union dues to Democrat candidates, Big Science has gone Far Left long ago (search “Politics and Ethics” in our menu bar for proof).
Called out as the “Big Science Cartel” by J. Scott Turner in 2022, the Big Science editors, including those at the AAAS, always support Democrat candidates (and leftist candidates globally) and never support Republican candidates; send us evidence if you can prove otherwise. They cannot possibly represent all scientists fairly when they censor all Darwin skeptics, show little or no concern about government waste, and depend on taxpayer money. The conflict of interest is stark, since they perceive tax-and-spend Democrat candidates as most likely to give them all the money they want without restrictions.
Are these the people you want influencing voters in one of the most consequential elections in American history?
Misinformation About Misinformation
The AAAS sent out a letter last week urging its members to help “local media combat election-year misinformation.” Combating falsehood is a noble pursuit. But the Big Science Cartel redefines misinformation and disinformation as anything that disagrees with their left-leaning consensus which had pre-censored opposing views. In pursuit of their leftist goals, they position themselves as paragons of objectivity and trust.
Trusted voices and accurate news reporting are crucial to countering the spread of mis- and disinformation. Without them, it’s harder for people to make evidence-informed decisions, whether personal – such as about their own health or the well-being of their families – or on a larger scale, such as what choices they should make at the polls.
Elite Alert! It is not the business of “science” to tell voters how to vote! It is especially not the business of Big Science influencers to nudge voters about “what choices they should make at the polls” when they are dependent on taxpayer funding for their pet projects.
Like characters on a political cartoon soapbox, the AAAS wants you to visualize them as American as democracy and apple pie. Who would be against “scientific facts” and “evidence-informed” positions to help reporters write “accurate” research-based stories about “contentious, election-related topics”? The appeal is commendable on the surface, but it’s a half truth, because AAAS bias came baked in prior to this letter. They had already pre-censored any criticisms of Darwin, climate change, abortion, and the litany of leftist/Democrat causes. You’ll never hear from Dr Judith Curry, Dr Patrick Moore, or Dr Jordan Peterson about climate change, for instance, or double-PhD Stephen Meyer about evolution. The only arrows in their quiver to combat misinformation (or to bring the analogy up to date, their only heat-seeking missiles) are targeted at Republicans and others who are critical of the consensus.
Having redefined misinformation, now they want to take their political bias to news reporters.
This is where SciLine comes in. Since 2017, the free, nonpartisan service based at AAAS has given thousands of reporters at more than 1,000 news outlets across all 50 states quick access to knowledgeable, articulate scientists and rigorously validated resources, empowering them to deliver not just sound bites and opinion but also what the science can tell us about issues in the news. [Bold in original.]
Oh, so righteous. Nonpartisan. Knowledgeable. Articulate. Rigorously validated. Empowering. They have good publicists at the AAAS, don’t they? Now, the appeal comes for the wallet:
Demand for our services has skyrocketed, and we need your help. Today, I am writing to ask you to support SciLine with a tax-deductible gift, and to have your contribution matched two to one.
Your tripled gift will be put to use right away as we work urgently to leverage the power of local trusted media to share with the voting public what the best research says about contentious, election-related topics.
Translation: we need your help keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.
Don’t believe it? Go ahead: look at SciLine yourself and see what the “science says” about abortion, climate change, immigration, Covid-19, vaccines, gun violence, renewables, immigration, taxes, spending, and every other “contentious, election-related topic”. They’ve rigged the site to only allow professional journalists access to the details they disseminate about each issue. A clear tip-off is that the About page ends with “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Those are keywords of the Left, which conservatives allege are being used to undermine Constitutional rights.
Coincident with this letter, Science published an editorial on July 4 by two liberals at University of Washington that (1) exonerated Joe Biden from colluding with journalists to censor conservatives (remember the “Twitter Wars”?), and (2) lied about Republican members of Congress (specifically Jim Jordan), using fearmongering to accuse them of “postmodern” efforts to unmask academic fact-checking centers that they believed acted as highly partisan groups that were censoring conservatives. The words “gaslighting” and “projection” come to mind with their opening statement below:
Today, academic freedom is under assault once more. Some states, like Florida, seek to ban scholarship touching upon structural racism. Elected officials seek to undermine scientific consensus on climate change and public health by impugning experts. As we’ve seen through our own work at the University of Washington, the study of misinformation has become the newest political target of the right. [Bold added.]
Notice, also, their promotion of the word “consensus” (which is not science, and science is not consensus).
Every citizen regardless of political party should be alarmed to see “the scientific community” so lopsided. Remember, too, that the AAAS is thoroughly Darwinian on the origin and history of life. This implies that the minds of the editors (in their worldview) are genetically determined by an unguided evolutionary past, making their efforts to expose “misinformation” a mere strategy of their selfish genes to advance their own fitness.
Misinformation is a real problem. Every educated citizen is aware that mis- and disinformation is rife on the internet. There are countless self-proclaimed experts on YouTube, TikTok, X and Facebook making sometimes-good-but-sometimes outlandish claims about diet, health, and miracle cures that the “establishment is trying to hide from you.” Often they end up trying to sell you a product. Political campaigns use similar tactics. But this is nothing new. Critical thinking has always been a vital requirement for every citizen in every age. The best way to develop it is to (1) learn the tricks of sophistry and propaganda (see our Baloney Detector), and (2) take Darwin’s advice, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question” (something Charley failed to do in The Origin; see Darwin’s Bluff). If you only have access to one side of an issue, the potential for misinformation skyrockets.
An astute reader might ask about CEH’s own bias. Shouldn’t we give equal time to opposing views? (Actually, we do: we routinely offer links to original sources, so readers can do their own fact checking.) But like popular radio host Rush Limbaugh used to say, “I am equal time!” The Big Science Media are so uniformly pro-Darwin, you don’t need us to reiterate their view. It’s already ubiquitous. What you need are thought-provoking and critical analyses of evolutionary claims, which the AAAS and the rest of the Big Science Cartel never provide. Have you ever seen them cite a leading ID paper or book? If so, it was only to ridicule or dismiss it. Their preference is to ignore ID material and deny that there is or ever was a controversy about Darwinism.
Debate—hearing and balancing opposing views—is a key input for voters. Many states post candidates’ positions side by side, which is helpful, provided the reader can discern keywords that might try to mask a candidate’s biases as they try to put their best foot forward. Comparing party platforms is also important. The problem with the AAAS and their SciLine service is that readers and journalists will only get “evidence” geared to one side. Ask yourself: in what ways, if any, do the AAAS views at SciLine differ from those Democrat Party Platform? Readers of CEH already know the answer: SciLine will be pro-abortion without restrictions, will oppose the Second Amendment, will speak uncritically about anthropogenic climate change, and give positions that are indistinguishable from Democrat views on every contentious issue. In order to appear nonpartisan, SciLine will couch AAAS support for Biden and antipathy toward Trump in stealthy yet slanted language, all written by selected scientists who are Democrats. Watch for euphemisms, like killing an unborn baby in the womb labeled as “reproductive healthcare.” (It sure isn’t healthy for the baby, is it?) Scrape away the rhetoric and look at each policy and its consequences.
Project: Search the resources at SciLine and see if you find any that are favorable to conservatives or Republicans. Write us at editor [at] crev.info if you find any, or put your evidence in the comments below. Good luck.
Project: If you are a professional journalist, unmask SciLine. Dig into the political bias and write articles about what the AAAS is actually doing in this “service” for journalists. They claim, “We are editorially independent—both from our funders and our host organization (AAAS)—and we are assiduously nonpartisan.” Is that true? Catalog their positions on abortion, climate, energy, immigration, evolution, and other issues. Are any of them favorable to conservative positions? How are the scientists who speak to journalists selected and vetted? Who are the funders? Find out if tax dollars or global elitist NGOs are supporting SciLine or not. Follow the money.