I believe in science. Donald Trump doesn’t. It’s that simple, folks. (Joe Biden – October 2020)
That tweet exemplifies how politics and science don’t mix. Behavioral science does not posit personal comparisons are “simple” or that one can know what another actually believes. What’s “simple” is the tweet’s hypocrisy. Trump’s comments and orders, based on the science of behavioral modification, reduced the flow of illegal immigrants, while Biden’s comments and orders created the current border crisis. His refusal to own “the crisis” proves Biden’s the science denier.
In 1972, a geology PHD taught me the “fact” was faunal succession and the “theory” was evolution. The distinction between fact and theory in earth science dates back to 1660, when the Royal Society adopted the motto Nullis in Verba (take nobody’s word for it). That intellectual honesty launched the Scientific Method: observations beget credible theories, which invite legitimate skepticism, which beget honest debate and experiments, resulting in change that benefits humanity.
Notice how the political left over-uses the term “existential threat” when selling its plans to solve climate change (Paris Accord), pandemics (business shut-downs), and racial inequality (defund police). It’s their go-to descriptor to silence skeptics and alternate plans, when they should recall Dwight Eisenhower’s advice: “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” He was a real military scientist, facing a real existential threat, achieving real victory by not marrying one plan.
Take Nobody’s Word on Global Warming
Joe Biden calls global warming “the existential threat of our time” to silence political opposition and sell his costly climate-change solutions. He refers to his theory as “accepted science,” his plan as “scientific consensus,” and his opposition as “science deniers.” He exemplifies an in-party ending the climate-science debate to the benefit of fortune (Elon Musk) and status (Bernie Sanders); thereby subjugating the philosophy of science to the business of science.
Global warming is a “fact.” The Kyoto Protocol is a “theory.” This is true, but citizen-funded agencies (EPA, IPCC, NCAR, and NOAA) act exclusively upon that theory – and why is that? Follow the money. Last year, salaries at the EPA averaged $117,000, environmental lawyers averaged $182,000, and Tesla executives averaged $228,000. The EPA budget was $9 billion and Elon Musk amassed $140 billion (source: Bloomberg).
Much of Biden’s “economic recovery” money ensures the growth of save-the-planet companies and directs US citizens into save-the-planet jobs. He might turn green industries into growth sectors and millions of career greenies into Democrats, but that doesn’t make his theory “accepted science” or his economic disruption “progress.” Legitimate skeptics, like Oxford PHD Matt Ridley, offer facts that poke holes in Biden’s “existential threat” proclamation.
Viscount Ridley is a politician and scientist with evidence that global warming is “happening slower than forecast [with] effects [actually] not showing up as bad as we had feared by now.” He questions the Paris Accord because “America has used [fracking] to transform its economy and cut its carbon emissions,” and faults the Green New Deal because “climate policies are hitting mainly poor people while enriching mainly wealthy people.” The real “science deniers” are so-called liberals dismissing Dr. Ridley.
Politics Corrupted Medical Science and Millions Died
Ridley has teamed with Canadian biologist Alina Chan to research how politics corrupted governments (China) and scientific agencies (WHO), resulting in 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths. He enumerates the deadly sins: (1) China stopping scientists from reporting “everything they’ve been doing with bat viruses,” (2) science agencies trying “to protect the reputation of science as an institution,” and (3) US scientific communities having “a reliance on China [for] income and input.”
His criticism should not surprise Joe Biden or Anthony Fauci, because everybody in Washington knows China craves global economic and military hegemony, achieved largely by preeminence in science and technology. And, voters should be alarmed by Ridley’s belief that scientists now hold “a top-down view of the political world, [that if] scientists were in charge, they would run the world well.” His belief was echoed by The New York Times in several articles on Dr. Fauci.
NYT writer Bret Stephens faults Fauci for dismissing “the lab-leak theory” when the US government “did support gain-of-function research” in China. Stephens reports it’s “incontrovertibly true that beneficiaries of that funding engaged in deceptive tactics and outright mendacity to shield their research from public scrutiny while denouncing their critics as conspiracy mongers.” This is true, and the evidence of political corruption is more than circumstantial.
- Vanity Fair reports State Department officials “were explicitly told not [to] explore the Wuhan [lab’s] gain-of-function research [to avoid] unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.”
- The Times reports the CDC “vastly overstated the risks of outdoor spread of the virus [at] 10 percent” when it was “closer to 0.1 percent.”
- The Times reports Fauci “lied – there’s no other word for it – about what he saw as the threshold figure for reaching herd immunity” because of “his gut feeling” about what Americans were “ready to hear.”
- Nature reports as untrue the CDC study claiming minority children were more likely to be hospitalized for Covid, which allowed teachers unions to seem benevolent with no-school mandates.
And there you have it. Candidate Biden used “science” to defeat President Trump. Victorious Biden predicted in March that July “would mark our independence from this virus.” Stumbling Biden now blames GOP Neanderthals for missing vaccination numbers (his spokeswoman outed White House thinking by citing their “good ideas” of public service announcements on NASCAR and Country Music TV). Team Biden reminds us all to take nobody’s word for it.
Forbes reports that Trump supporters are NOT the problem, because the “think I’ll wait” group is evenly divided: 39% registered Democrats and 41% registered Republicans, 22% Black and 20% Hispanic, and 72% between the ages of 18 and 49 (source: Kaiser Family Foundation). I’ll bet even you thought Republicans were the un-vaccinated, which just shows how politics corrupts science.
Progressive Politicians Believe in Self-Serving Science
Liberal commitment to science is a bigger lie than Jerry Falwell’s commitment to Christ, and Democrats fell off the “science wagon” in the 2000 presidential election. It was then that Democrat “science” believed in the fact of humans knowing what a hanging chad meant and the fact of a national popular vote. Mind you, candidate Gore claimed he invented the Internet, and ex-candidate Gore amassed $330 million as the spokesman for global warming (source: Money Inc). Follow the money…
…and take no progressive’s word for it. Know the historical facts of Jim Crow and question profitable critical race theories. To wit, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors claimed black Americans were the primary victims of fatal police shootings in 2020 – and spent $1.4 million on her fourth home (source: BBC). Antiracist pundit Ibram X Kendi claims systemic racism denies black prosperity – and charges colleges and corporations $20,000 an hour for virtual presentations.
The point here is not to silence social-science theorists, but to expose lucrative careers created by identity politics. The facts in 2020 were 457 white victims, 323 “other race” victims, and 241 black victims of fatal police shootings. The theory in 2020 was the (higher) ratio of black deaths to black population proves systemic racism in police departments – and that “theory” begat down-sized police departments and super-sized crime waves.
Questioning Science Theories Is Not Denying Science
If you care about your family’s health, you should question the too-political Fauci because China might have released a bio-weapon to monitor America’s response. If you care about your livelihood, you should question Biden’s rushed anti-carbon orders because rolling brownouts will hurt your business. If you care about your property, you should oppose defunding your local police because 911 calls cannot go un-answered (as reported by ABC 11 in Durham).
Back to The Royal Society, whose members included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. If these titans believed the Scientific Method demands we take nobody’s word for it, then Americans should remain skeptical of the so-called science behind the decisions of federal agencies, city councils, and local school boards. And, before you criticize those angry parents and open-up protestors, support their right to take nobody’s word for it.