Democrats, The Party Of Science (Fiction)

I&I Editorial

We don’t know for sure but we’d bet most of those we see smugly wearing NASA T-shirts are Democrats, because, after all, they’ve declared theirs to be The Party of Science. But that’s about as true as one famous Democrat’s claim that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

From President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, to the political right’s warranted skepticism of the man-is-overheating-Earth narrative, the Democratic machine, which includes the legacy media and an ever-expanding segment of academia, has peddled the indictment that Republicans and conservatives are anti-science.

According to failed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, the Trump administration denied the science and denied the experts when it tossed out a public health crisis “playbook for any administration that followed” that had been left by the Obama White House. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has labeled the GOP as the “anti-science” party. Just a few months back, noted Democrat Barack Obama said Republicans have “denied the science of climate change just as they denied the science of pandemics.”

Before the pandemic, Democrats called anyone who didn’t kneel before the shrine of Al Gore and activist researchers trafficking in climate fear to be a “science denier,” just as they will again once the coronavirus no longer dominates the headlines.

“The Republican War on Science,” written by journalist Chris Mooney, summarizes as well as any other rant the Democrats’ contention that the political right is anti-science. The Publishers Weekly reviewer, no doubt eager to join the charge, said the tome “is the first to put the whole story, thoroughly documented, in one place.”

This is all rather funny, because the “science” the Democrats put their faith in is often little more than a set of baseless theories that fit their policy agenda. They treat their own share of “settled science” as if it’s witchcraft.

For instance, the left is convinced that genetically modified foods are mysterious products that pose a profound health threat. The fanaticism and fear-mongering of GMO crops are much like the 20th century – and the 21st century in Democrat-run Portland – resistance to fluoridated water that has left a trail of harm. 

The truth about genetically modified foods is that they have likely saved billions of lives. The process, led by Norman Borlaug, the father of a genuine green revolution, has developed crops that are more nutritious and grow faster than non-genetically modified foods; are resistant to drought, disease, and pests; and produce higher yields. Democrats have screamed “danger,” yet the World Health Organization, which is philosophically in line with U.S. Democrats, and the National Academy of Sciences have said genetically modified foods are safe to consume.

It’s not the party’s sole instance of rejecting science. A few years back, Politico noted that Democrats “conveniently ignore science or promote agendas that contradict the scientific consensus” in a piece that also took took shots at Republicans. One of those scientific blind spots is the Democrats’ “chemophobia,” described by the Politico reporter as “an irrational fear of ‘toxic chemical’ exposure in situations where there is no scientific evidence of danger.”

Then there’s anti-vaccine movement, a “dangerous concept,” says Politico, which “was once a darling of the left, as evidenced by early proponents such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and by the poor immunization rates in historically” leftist regions, “such as the Pacific Northwest and much of California.” Politico even reminded us that during the 2008 campaign, Obama “offered up the incorrect and misleading idea that the ‘science is inconclusive’ (it’s not) regarding a possible link between autism and vaccines.”

Democrats are also nuclear power-phobes. The New Republic reported three years ago that “only 30% of Democrats support increased use of nuclear power, compared to 54% of Republicans.”

“Imagine,” said TNR, “the accusations of science-denial that would be hurled at Republicans if these roles were reversed.”

John Tierney, contributing science columnist for the New York Times, has documented in City Journal the campaign from the left “by animal-rights activists against medical researchers, whose work has already been hampered and would be devastated if the activists succeeded in banning animal experimentation.” He also noted “the resistance in academia to studying the genetic underpinnings of human behavior, which has cut off many social scientists from the recent revolutions in genetics and neuroscience.”

“Each of these abuses is far more significant than anything done by conservatives, and there are plenty of others. The only successful war on science is the one waged by the left,” said Tierney.

We should also mention recycling, though it’s a mixture of religion and science for “progressive” thinkers. The science of economics, at sharp odds with the left’s belief system, tells us that the “wisdom” of recycling is actually a tall tale told by propagandists, full of baloney, signifying nothing.

Naturally we will hear wall-to-wall through the election, and possibly even beyond, about Trump and the Republicans denying the science regarding the coronavirus. Joe Biden swears he’d “lead by science” if he just had the chance to manage a pandemic response. Fellow Democrats nod their heads in self-satisfied agreement. But how much does science even know about the virus at this moment? 

Henry Miller, a physician, molecular biologist, and senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, tells us “scientific studies haven’t yet revealed the penetrance of Covid-19 in the population,” nor determined “how long immunity persists after infection.” Unknown as well are “how susceptible kids are to infection, and how able they are to shed virus during asymptomatic infections,” the efficacy of “drugs to prevent COVID-19 or treat mild infections,” and “what makes an infected person a ‘super-spreader.”’

Miller, also a contributing editor on these pages, says “there’s always plenty that’s unknown” in science, and with coronavirus in particular, “we’re still largely in what I call ‘the fog of war.’”

Yet Biden and the Democrats swear if they had the power, they’d make policy based only on the science, and save us all. Don’t believe their fiction.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board