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Jonah Goldberg flips the “anti-science” smear against all those GOP prez hopefuls inside out

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You heard. They’re all, like, “anti-science,” right?

That’s not hurting them because today a lot of what passes for science is too nuts to be wrong. How can we prove we’re not living in a giant sim? Or that we are? Do reasonable people spend a lot of time on it? Yet Templeton gave the guy who thinks it’s possible this year’s Prize. As we say here, when science is nuts, anti-science is newly respectable. For one thing, it is a handy proof of sanity.

Now Goldberg comes along and asks,

Why does the Left get to pick which issues are the benchmarks for “science”? Why can’t the measure of being pro-science be the question of heritability of intelligence? Or the existence of fetal pain? Or the distribution of cognitive abilities among the sexes at the extreme right tail of the bell curve? Or if that’s too upsetting, how about dividing the line between those who are pro- and anti-science along the lines of support for geoengineering? Or — coming soon — the role cosmic rays play in cloud formation? Why not make it about support for nuclear power? Or Yucca Mountain? Why not deride the idiots who oppose genetically modified crops, even when they might prevent blindness in children?

Some of these examples are controversial, others tendentious, but all are just as fair as the way the Left framed embryonic stem cell research and all are more relevant than questions about evolution. (Quick: If Obama changed his mind about evolution tomorrow and became a creationist, what policies would change? I’ll wait.)

Most of the people who fit Goldberg’s description think that their laundry list of causes is science, along with the giant sim and the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution.

See also: He said it: Jonah Goldberg on why media promote failed experts

Comments
When i read National Review before I swore it off Jonah Goldberg was amongst those pushing the "The bell curve". UIt was a attempt and others to say intelligence was from genetics and then list the winners and losers. They said the male was above the female in smarts. So did Darwin. BUT , get this, they didn't then say English/British/Canadian men were the smartest!! NO. , get this, they said JEWS and ASIANS (both are really are Asians and good grief about twisting historical results) were the smartest. Next. Mr Goldberg and a heap of NR bosses were Jewish. The losers, the most losing, were Blacks, Browns, (they probably included Palestinians ). In this article THERE HE GOES AGAIN. As a YEC creationist I say the agenda of these people to bring racial/sex controlled intelligence ideas is no friend of the good guys. Its unbiblical, absurd in concept and evidence, and just dumb wrong in research and analysis. These people are just contrary to a 'liberal" dominance but are not friends or thinkers in the tent of creationism(s). Don't let them set the science credibility agenda anymore then the hapless left. If I may say so diplomatically. (I am being diplomatic for sure)Robert Byers
September 2, 2011
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