Perspective

Ex Cathedra: Science, Politics and the Alt-Right in Modern America

Part 1

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So if you’ve been following the news you have probably heard about the “non-partisan but political” marches that took place on Earth Day, April 22nd. These marches were billed as just scientists, science advocates, and science fans getting together to protest what they saw as the rejection of science by “that guy in the White House,” as was said by more than one person virtue signaling on FaceBook after the march.

This is an old play out of the American (primarily leftist, but I’ve seen people on the right use it as well) playbook. If you support something you must believe in federal funding for it. If you don’t believe in federally funding some project you are opposed to it.

The dichotomy is obviously false. Plenty of people support something without believing it needs federal funding. Science is no different. Opposition to new highway funds or new funds to give teachers a raise does not mean you hate roads and education. But that’s the way the modern left makes the argument.

Fund it or else you are anti-science, roads, education, medicine, gay rights, etc…

More rational people, you know the kind of people who don’t feel the need to virtue signal about loving science and facts and truth, understand that not funding something is quite different than being outright opposed to it.

Science is in trouble, and not from the right or the Trump Administration. But from its own internal inconsistencies as well as the politicization of science. This is the first article in a series that will attempt to illuminate the world of science to the layman who may not have trained in science or who probably did not spend the better part of his life in academia (which today is the home of much science) training for a career in the sciences.

This series of articles will address the way in which politics has been politicized, and how the left has attempted to co-opt “science” to counter the arguments of the right. We will look at peer review, funding issues, the over production of STEM majors including PhDs as well as looking at the effects of pushes to get women into STEM programs and careers.

For today, let’s address the March for Science, and some of the talking points that seemed prominent.

It was supposed to be a non-partisan demonstration, but in fact looking over many of the signs present at the rallies it is clear that the left is trying to steal the notion of science for themselves. Why?

Well because science is a high trust and high prestige endeavor. Most people believe in scientists, because they have never seen behind the drape. Here are a few problems, explained briefly in this article, but will be explored more in depth in the future, with modern science that the march for science did not address.

First, most people never see how often peer reviewed articles are pushed through simply because the research agrees with the people on the editorial board of the refereed journal. It’s incredibly difficult for a dissident scientist to get a paper published. Never mind get funding for a project that may have some wrongthink included in it. If the hypothesis to be examined threatens the established order of the discipline it will likely die before even being investigated. There are people who take power, then use their positions to prevent criticism of their work. But most laymen never see that.

Second, most people never see how often science changes its direction. A few years ago a friend who is a professional geologist told me that about 40% of what he reads in journals is unable to be replicated. If publishing your results means anything it means the ability to replicate what other scientists did, thus confirming the conclusion or at least affirming the assumptions of the project. But if science is in such a dire position perhaps we the public, non-scientists, should be a little more skeptical of claims made by scientists, and reported on by mainstream journalists.

Third, corruption is common with funding. Several years ago I spoke to a professor of planetary geology and he said that he had an alternative hypothesis about some of the striations seen on Mars. He believed they were due to lava flows, not Martian ice. He has yet to get his work funded simply because “everyone agrees” that these channels on Mars are made by ice. Consensus is the enemy of inquiry. And this is just one case.

Fourth, we are overproducing STEM graduates. Many of the people who spend more than a decade training to become scientists never get the opportunity to conduct their own research. Perhaps the fact that many don’t get funding or positions in academia drove some sentiment of the march for science. But the fact is there can never really be “enough” funding. There will always be questions to be asked, and answered. And to do that requires funding. And America simply cannot fund everyone being pushed into STEM these days.

Finally, there is the issue of dogmatism against skepticism. Most of the scientists I know (and that is quite a few) consider themselves skeptical in temperament. That’s a good quality for a scientist. But today too much science is being turned into dogma that cannot be questioned. That’s the exact opposite position science should take. You can always question scientific conclusions. That’s the difference between science and religion. Religion speaks “ex cathedra” aka “from the chair” of the church. But science is supposed to be different. Unfortunately, when it comes to certain topics in science this is simply not the case.

When I was a kid we were introduced to a concept called global cooling. Then in high school it was global warming. Now it’s called climate change. And I’m told next up is the phrase, “climate catastrophe.”

And science advocates tell us we must accept that anthropogenic climate change is real, less we be called “climate change deniers.” More than simply accepting the science we are told that 99% of scientists believe in man-made climate change. To disagree makes us not only stupid, but immoral.

The climate change debate is but one of the problems facing science from a political standpoint these days. And the Trump administration has been criticized by many on the left for its skepticism about climate change.

The issues I’ve just addressed are only the tip of the iceberg. We will look at each in further depth.

In my next article I will focus on the way academia is undermining future scientists by overproducing STEM graduates, and pushing people who don’t belong in the sciences into STEM fields.

For now, it is enough for me to say that the march for science was an attempt by the left to grab the authority with which science speaks, and claim it for themselves. We cannot let them define the debate or define us, by calling themselves the sole advocates of science and logic and reason.

Everitt Foster
the authorEveritt Foster
Everitt Foster is a former geologist and historian. He holds an MA in military history. He is also a novelist and short story writer. He is the co-founder and co-editor of uprisingreview.com. Follow him on Gab at gab.ai/ever

23 Comments

  • Completely off topic,still I believe worthwhile mentioning:

    http://www.anncoulter.com/

    Ann Coulter is really,constantly changing for the better recently.
    I get the impression that for the last couple years,or at least one year, she has been getting a clue of who is manouvering our governements and our culture.

    This ,which just came out ,is to me an amazingly intelligent article .

  • In my next article I will focus on the way academia is undermining future scientists by overproducing STEM graduates, and pushing people who don’t belong in the sciences into STEM fields.

    You have to look at the connection with immigration as well. STEM fields are magnets for (relatively) high-IQ immigrants because cultural familiarity and interpersonal and language skills are less important. In cases where there are genuine shortages, we should be retraining Americans instead of importing nonwhites. Many of the best research jobs are taken by nonwhite foreigners. It isn’t that we need these people. It is that the very presence of the foreigners drives whites out of the fields through oversupply.

  • Wow, how the left just loves being miserable & scared all of the time. They never seem to enjoy anything about life! Always victims, always feeling unsafe. Even unsafe from the climate! I am Christian but I refuse to go to church because all they preach is how we should be doormats & allow to be hurt over & over by our enemies. Never fighting back just forgive over & over. This Christian doesn’t believe in that! And I will not live in fear of climate change. I will never believe in more than 2 genders. I trust science, but in a basic way. All of this “settled science” is BS just like its BS to be a weak Christian. What we need to do is keep telling the left they are full of $*it & stay with the facts. All of this is just a diversion to keep us from our priority of separation. This is how they keep us engaged with their antics.

    • Political correctness is the moral code of the religion of secular humanism. The marxist have effectively managed to ban traditional European Christianity from the public sphere by pretending that their religion is not a religion.

  • I am very interested to read the author’s take on various problems with the science industry today. I know more about the academia side of things, but the private sector definitely has problems too.

    • Just some navel gazing by our Dick. Ummmmm. Buddha says….as they say in the Kung Fu movies.

      Personally, I’m more concerned with people who complain about nice weather.

    • Not only does Richard Spencer display his scientific illiteracy once again, he also manages to reveal a complete lack of understanding of how the mind/body issue relates to transgender in a thoroughly sophomoric way. One’s sense of gender identity is ultimately determined by a particular body part: the brain. This is basic college-level neuroscience. The difference between cis- and transgender men is not the “soul” but the developmental processes that organized brain function.

      • Here’s some science for you, the ovaries and testes produce hormones that have an effect on how the brain works. It would behoove gender studies majors to take a few upper division biology courses before attempting to out-science their critics.

        • Take a look back at your upper level biology notes. Hopefully your classes covered something about organizational versus activational effects of gonadal steroids.

      • Curious how Spencer is so educated on the science of the soul and how one inherits it. I’d like to hear his fact-based explanation of the male and female soul.

        Your sex is based on allosomes.

        One’s behavior and concept of the world are entirely based on genetic inheritance. For the same reason that people develop dementia, neurological disorders and are not the same people after brain damage. Your soul has no ability to counter that. Your body determines your self.

        You see these movies where one’s soul or mind is transplanted into another person. That would never work because the body is different. The hormones are different. The brain is different. You are your body and brain. If your brain is seriously damaged you are literally a different person.

      • I don’t think Spencer is agreeing with the mind/body distinction he’s talking about in that tweet. He’s pointing out how that distinction has allowed us to think of mind and identity as separate from biology.
        I don’t think he’s being implicit here.

    • He’s basically saying that the Christian idea of identity and consciousness coming from the soul has allowed us to conceive of someone who deviates from nature and has a “female soul” or “female mind” (for Godless liberals) and transcends their male biology. This is also used against the Alt-Right in non-arguments such as “What if u were born a black person???” because the false premise is made that the mind/soul is not defined by the body and thus a certain consciousness can be “born into” any number of races or sexes.
      A Nietzschean or Pagan might argue that identity is defined by the physical body, and so it is absurd that a given person could have been born into a different body while maintaining that specific person-hood/identity.
      But it’s mostly just sophistry lol.

      • Not that Pagans did’nt believe in the soul…quite the contrary.
        They believed you ARE,fundamentally a soul,
        You did’nt just “have” one.
        You were one,much more and before than a body.

        The forgotten point here:
        THE SOUL HAS NO SEX PERIOD.
        But of course your body gives you your sexual identity( and what else?)..it is that simple

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