Monday, June 11, 2018

NYT: In Trump White House, science is unwelcome and so is advice

Is there anything more annoying than unscientific, pseudo-scientific, popular-science, and politicized-science people calling their ideologic opponents unscientific?

They remind me of myself at age four.

I was dazzled by science. An orange-flavored children's aspirin got me thinking how mind-blowing it is that scientist thought of this before I was born. I get a headache, they got a pill. I was born into a world where everything that could happen to me is already met and conquered by science. Science is awesome.

But then I learned science has more questions than it has answers. And even when it comes up with answers they are not iron-clad, they're still subject to challenge. Science is humble. Open to correction. Ever open to challenge. It requires experimentation and proof of replication. It is rigorous and open minded and never closed.

And politics is not any of that. The two do not go together. They are different spheres of human endeavor.

When Bush was president a friend found the online site Moveon.org, the one site that comported with his Fahrenheit 911 mentality. (You must see the movie, you must see the movie, you must see the movie, to be properly educated. No thank you. I'd much rather you read the page of 59 deceits in the film Fahrenheit 911, but that's not going to happen either.) And instantly, overnight, he became the most vulgar, determined, fierce, absolute impossible asshole that I know. His vocabulary changed overnight. He kept saying the same things repeatedly using words and phrases he hadn't used up to this point. Iraq is a quagmire just like Viet Nam, Iraq is a quagmire just like Viet Nam, Iraq is a quagmire just like Viet Nam, Iraq is a quagmire just like Viet Nam. Shut up! Who even uses the word "quagmire?" Iraq is desert. A quagmire is a swamp. You want it to be a quagmire. You want it to be failure just like Viet Nam, and you won't be satisfied until you can say, "See I told you so." It is you and people like you who will create this failure merely to satisfy your smugness. So then, don't expect your opposites to support any of your Party's government undertakings. They will have failure built right into them from the start, exactly like you're doing now.

And I am so smugly pleased to say about Obamacare, I told you so.

Regarding Bush's determination not to use pluripotent cells derived from abortions for use in stem cell research all I heard day in, day out, "Bush is politicizing science, Bush is politicizing science, Bush is politicizing science, Bush is politicizing science, Bush is politicizing science, another phrase he memorized from Moveon.org. He drove me insane with his newfound political activism and his stupid repeated mantra.

And what does his Party do? Politicize climate, and politicize weather through politicized education showing Gore's film up to three times per student, their captive audience, and through their politicized media. With plans to actually tax the air that we breath and with Gore positioned at the confluence of new money streams. And my one-time friend incapable of making the connection with his earlier incorrect statement about Bush ending stem cell research even as Bush's position proved correct as advances in stem cells are made without the cells derived from abortions. He could never make the connection between a wild abortion industry that's grown to distressing size and ethically directed research. Not when he has his mantra. Never made the connection with his Party politicizing climate, never made the connection between his own faith displaced from his traditional religion onto his Democrat party, his new religion of faith, no matter what it is that they are preaching, he is their most fierce disciple. He fancies himself scientific. But it's all being enthrall to Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek vision of the future. He, and his type, are not scientific but he and they will go to their graves insisting they are more scientific than everyone else.

But Coral Davenport at NYT is right. NYT advice is not welcomed at the White House. Nor is their heavily politicized pseudoscience. What we have here is another example of the thoroughly politically indoctrinated risibly presuming to be more scientific than their political opponents.

Read her at Seattle Times. I dare you. She cannot comprehend a White House without its traditional scientific advisory leadership. Don't worry. Obama's chief advisor, John Holdren is keeping track of Trump's anti-science administration whether Tump appreciates his vain efforts or not. The arrogance, it is to laugh.

3 comments:

edutcher said...

The Left is like Islam, something for people who want to be told what to think.

And who to hate.

PS Nifty piece to show how Trump is going to leave his mark on this country for a long time. SCUS allows OH to purge voter rolls of unused names.

Think this is no biggie? Consider more than 24 million voter registrations are invalid, more than 1.8 million dead voters are still on rolls and more than 2.75 million Americans are registered to vote in more than one state.

The Columbus Post-Dispatch found more than 20% of registered OH voters are phony.

Looks like vote fraud got a whole lot harder. Toss in cake baking and letting IdiotCare die and you have a legacy that will last.

This is why Anthony Kennedy is making retirement noises. Now, if we could just get rid of Breyer and RBG...

Leland said...

I think for the NYT, science is working your source's cock to see what comes out.

ampersand said...

Al Gore finally realized the age old dreams of the Alchemists when he changed coal into gold.