Liberals Are For Science—Until They’re Not

I think it was our pal Charles Kesler who first quipped that “social Darwinism” was the only kind of Darwinism liberals opposed—a line I have deployed to great effect many times. But it appears he may be mistaken about this. It appears that liberals are increasingly upset with evolutionary science as it reveals gender differences, and goodness, some of this science might even show up on a Google search, at least for a few more hours.

Next time you hear the nonsense to the “Republican war on science,” point people to this delicious Slate headline and article from today:

Science is sold to us as an almost holy, objective pursuit: a pure endeavor, a way of pursuing truth and only truth. . . But nowhere is it more evident that this perspective is flawed than when we consider the uses and abuses of evolutionary biology and its sibling, evolutionary psychology.

It is impossible to consider this field of science without grappling with the flaws of the institution—and of the deification—of science itself. For example: It was argued to me this week that the Google memo failed to constitute hostile behavior because it cited peer-reviewed articles that suggest women have different brains. The well-known scientist who made this comment to me is both a woman and someone who knows quite well that “peer-reviewed” and “correct” are not interchangeable terms. This brings us to the question that many have grappled with this week. It’s 2017, and to some extent scientific literature still supports a patriarchal view that ranks a man’s intellect above a woman’s. . .

Science’s greatest myth is that it doesn’t encode bias and is always self-correcting. In fact, science has often made its living from encoding and justifying bias, and refusing to do anything about the fact that the data says something’s wrong.

Does this last paragraph apply to the climate science community I wonder? Meanwhile, down with evolutionary biology! Burn the heretics!

Grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the whole thing, which gets worse as it goes.

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