How the 'pro-science' party has destroyed science

Here is how Einstein practiced science: He would propose a theory, say, general relativity, then immediately begin to find the holes in the theory and invite others to do the same.

Here is how progressives practice science: They propose a theory, declare it "settled" and then proceed to humiliate anyone who dares look for the theory's holes.

The progressive shift from science to scientism took root with Darwinism – challenge it even today and the ACLU will sue – and reached a fevered pitch these last two months with COVID-19.

Although nothing is close to being settled about the Wuhu Flu, the same clowns who proudly display "Question Authority" bumper stickers on their cars now savage those who dare, well, question the authorities.

Here are some typical recent headlines from progressive sources:

TRENDING: Romanians flooding U.S. border at record numbers, committing fraud across America

"Anti-science groups drive U.S. protest against COVID lockdowns."

"COVIDeniers: Anti-science coronavirus denial overlaps with climate denial."

And from the New York Times on Tuesday: "Trump's response to virus reflects a long disregard for science."

I could write a book about the left's infatuation with dubious, unproven and/or junk science. In fact, I already have.

In "Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture," I document a century's worth of scientific misinformation, disinformation, half-truths and lies promoted all too often to advance a progressive agenda.

It has only been in the last 20 or so years, however, that the media have decided that respect for science follows party lines: The Democrats, of course being the pro-science party; and the Republicans being anti-science.

I got an up close look at Democratic dogmatism a few years back when a local college invited me to debate Chris Mooney, a young journalist who made his mark in the Democratic-science complex with his 2005 bestseller,"The Republican War on Science."

One subject on the table was embryonic stem cell research. In 2006, the pro-science lobby in Missouri, backed in full by state Democrats, narrowly carried a proposition to embed the right to clone in the state's constitution.

To launch the campaign, the so-called "Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures" brought to the state a pitchman so perfectly attuned to the pro-science party that he once thought of running for Congress.

That would be prominent Beto-backer Lance Armstrong, a man who, if nothing else, surely knew his science.

The coalition that led the opposition went by the name "Missourians Against Human Cloning." Its activists argued in favor of non-destructive adult stem cell research.

In his book, Mooney dismissively compared adult stem cell research to creation science. When I pointed this out during the debate, he denied that he had made any such comparison.

So I read out loud from Mooney's book: "Conservatives have repeatedly hyped adult stem cell research. The right's faith based advocacy in this area has even been likened to 'creation science.'"

Mooney mocked the hope that adult stem cells might substitute for embryonic ones, calling it "dogma" and a "leap of faith," one that had been "resoundingly rejected by researchers actually working in the field."

Not so fast. By the time Mooney's book came out in paperback, the field of embryonic stem cell research was crashing and burning as surely as Lance Armstrong's career.

In 2006, Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean scientist on whose research much of the enthusiasm for embryonic stem cell research was based, was busted for fraud.

In 2011, the California-based biotechnology firm Geron abandoned its embryonic stem cell research to focus on cancer drugs. The science wasn't working. Not a single person has ever been cured by this methodology.

Meanwhile adult stem cell research was taking off. November 2007 witnessed the remarkable discovery in two different labs that adult skin cells eventually could replace the use of human embryos in stem cell research.

If possible, my conversation with Mooney on global warming grew even more detached from the real. In explaining my skepticism, I stuck to the easily graspable, starting with the historic record of the medieval and Roman warming periods.

Incredibly, Mooney seemed unaware of either warming period. No worry. The all-purpose hobgoblin "climate change" no longer requite that the earth be getting any warmer.

Hoping to cash in on a climate change spin-off, Hurricane Katrina, Mooney went on to write a book called "Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming."

No sooner did he write this alarmist tract than nothing started to happen. Florida went a record 11 years without a single hurricane strike before the modest Category I Matthew struck northern Florida in October 2016.

No problem. Failed predictions have little, if any, effect on the reputation of a leftist man of science. Consider the case of Dr. Paul Ehrlich. In 1968, Ehrlich began his massively popular book, "The Population Bomb," with the embarrassingly stupid claim, "The battle to feed all of humanity is already lost."

Twenty years later, Ehrlich won the Crafoord Prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel equivalent for environmentalists, and a $345,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant to boot.

Or consider the case of the good doctor whose 1983 JAMA editorial affirming that "household contact may cause AIDS" set off a nationwide panic that took years to undo. No problem here either. Dr. Anthony Fauci has done quite well ever since.

As to Lance Armstrong, when last heard from he was bragging how he "blew the f***in' doors off Mike Pence on a Nantucket bike path. Day. Made."

And the left weeps for Galileo? Please!

Jack Cashill's forthcoming book "Unmasking Obama" is available for pre-order at Amazon.