He should have led a Black Mass and explained how Catholics were genetically inferior...

Sometimes a "war on science" is perfectly acceptable.

//Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians.//

Nicholas Wade is kind of big name in science writing.

I think his thesis is wrong, because I think that human beings stopped evolving when they began to control the environment rather than vice versa, but as I explained in a law review article I co-wrote 30 years ago, the answer to "bad science" is "more science" not "restrict science."

First Reaction: This dude is nuts.

Second Reaction: He made it though Med School?

Here is a video of Florida's Representative Hale Broun (R) that is being used to tar all Republicans with the anti-science label.



Broun refers to the "Big Bang" and evolution and embryology as "lies from the pit of Hell."

I stumbled across Broun's statement at Bad Astronomy, who wrote:

Two points: one is that all Congresscritters, upon entering office, have to swear to uphold the Constitution, and the second is that this document is pretty clear about legislating religion. In fact, Supreme Court judge Hugo Black said about this topic, "Government must be neutral among religions and nonreligion: it cannot promote, endorse, or fund religion or religious institutions."

Rep. Broun’s words don’t sound terribly neutral to me.

You may disagree with me about the shaky ground (like Richter 10 shaky) Broun stands on Constitutionally, but there is no doubt – none – that he is 100% completely off the rails with his science. The Big Bang is "straight from the pit of hell"? It’s bad enough that anyone would actually believe something like that, let alone a Congressman, but I will remind you he sits on the House science committee!

And he sits there with Akin. And Brooks. And Hall. And Rohrabacher.

These are the men whom the Republican majority placed on that committee. Men who think global warming is a fantasy. Men who think women have magic vaginas. Men who think the Earth is thousands, not billions, of years old.

I have my issues with Obama right now, which in truth are dwarfed by my issues with Romney. But remember that come November 6 of this year in the US we’ll be voting for members of Congress as well. And the majority party decides who sits on what committee, and those people will in turn decide what to legislate: reality, or fantasy.

The choice, quite literally, is yours. Choose well.

Bad Astronomy has some interesting astronomy posts, but he is a doctrinaire liberal, and his equation of skepticism on global warming with skepticism for Big Bang cosmology is never explained and consistent in the face of evidence that shows that there has been no warming during the last decade.

What was missing from the Bad Astronomy post was any reference to the fact that Broun is a medical doctor.

Obviously, Broun got his Science and Technology Committee assignment on the strength of having gone to Medical School, rather than his eclectically weird views on Young Earth Creationism.

Now there is an interesting question in the issue of how anyone who made it through medical school could be skeptical of embryology, but are we to prevent Young Earth Creationists from running for, and being elected to, public office? That seems to be the implication of Bad Astronomy's statement about the Constitution.

Obviously, that approach would constitute a "religious test" and would violate the Constitution, and be offensive in a democracy.

In areas dealing with the age of the Earth, Broun's views are distinctly unscientific i.e., they don't accord with the consensus of scientists. The scientific consensus is undoubtedly true, which is an important thing.

But do we know what Broun's views are in areas that don't involve his bete noir? And how much of his committee work involves these kinds of issues? He was a medical doctor; one suspects that he was able to recognize scientific consensus in practical matters, which, frankly, Big Bang cosmology is not.

Broun is obviously an embarrassment. Young Earth Creationism is an embarrassment and a weird and stupid enthusiasm. But what gets ignored in these discussion is the scientific illiteracy on the left, which is far more extensive and far more intrusive in public policy than Young Earth Creationism. For example, there is no scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, yet the left has treated this like an article of faith and public policy has been bent to this faith. Similarly, any scientific study questioning the goodness of homosexuality is treated as blasphemy, lest public policy not be reshaped according to the left's desiderata. Likewise, how many people have died because of the left's war on DDT? Or how about the left's war on genetically modified food? That's an area of science that has saved millions.

Or how about the left's desire to crush any scientific study that might show that there are differences between "racial" groups? The government and leftists succesfully prevented study into the Kennewick man skeleton - notwithstanding First Amendment objections - because it might have shown that some early Americans arrived from Europe.

Ben Shapiro makes this interesting point about how liberalism has systemmatically denied science in order to reshape society:

There’s only one problem: science shows that adolescents simply don’t have the brains to use condoms. Literally. According to virtually all scientific studies concerning adolescent neural mechanisms, teens are biologically incapable of inhibiting risky behavior. “(T])e major sources of death and disability in adolescence are related to difficulties in the control of behavior and emotion,” explains Ronald E. Dahl, Staunton Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Although adolescents’ brains have developed enough to allow them the capacity to reason better than children, adolescents are biologically driven toward risky behavior and sensation-seeking by their functionally mature limbic systems. And the part of the brain that generally controls such risky behavior -- the prefrontal cortex -- is not yet fully developed. In other words, despite the fact that teenagers are smart enough to recognize the dangers of risky behavior, their brains ignore the risks when things get hot. Thus, teenagers are morons.

Yet liberals insist that teens are fully capable of making informed choices on subjects ranging from sex to abortion to pot smoking. Even if the science doesn’t back them up, liberals say that we must assume that teenagers are logical, and that they will use discretion -- and condoms -- if told of the risks of unprotected sex.

This unscientific philosophy has created an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease and teen pregnancy, and the attendant teen abortions and teen suicides. At least, however, teens are not being grounded by their unhip parents. That would be uncivilized

And:

Want more? How about liberals’ bizarre insistence that men and women are identical, and that gender is merely a social construct? That entirely false belief is the basis for the gay marriage movement, which states that a child with two mommies has essentially the same upbringing as the child of a traditional mother-father coupling. The gay marriage movement also asserts that sex is the equivalent of race -- they say that the differences between men and women are equivalent to the differences between African-Americans, for example, and Caucasians.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Men and women have different brain structures, which have real effects on behavior and perception. “In mammalian species numerous sex differences in brain structure and function have now been documented,” writes Judy L. Cameron of the University of Pittsburgh Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Cell Biology & Physiology. “Behaviors showing documented sex difference include behaviors associated with reproduction (mating and maternal behaviors), aggression, activity, and various cognitive functions including spatial cognition, verbal skills, and various aspects of learning and memory.” But this is science liberals don’t like. And so it is largely ignored.

For years, liberals have complained that conservatives ignore science. The truth is that mainstream conservatives often refuse to accept dubious science (e.g. global warming and population bombs). Far more often, it is liberals who ignore hard science in order to promote their agenda of irresponsibility, consequence: free living, and destruction of traditional family values.

There is a war on science, and, thus far, it is being succesfully waged by the left.