So, who is engaging in a war on science?
Of course, it is those on the right who refuse to genuflect to the dogma of settled science on the topic of man-caused global warming, right?
Not so fast, says John Stossel in a commentary posted on Townhall today. He interviewed veteran science writer John Tierney, who says, “The real war on science is the one from the left.”
It is the left that quashes any attempts to perfect genetically modified foods to feed the masses. It is left that refuses to even look at any scientific evidence of any genetic differences between the races, such as intelligence. It is the left that refuses to even consider that there is a fundamental difference between the sexes.
Here is a video Stossel posted with specific examples of leftists fighting science:
4TH ST8 
Valid points, mostly, but spoken in an echo chamber.
I certainly agree that the left often ignores science when it gets in the way of their beliefs just as the right does. This piece was terribly one sided though. For example, this guy claim the banning of DDT was antiscience. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was little disagreement about the science. The disagreement was over whether the burden of proof should be on those claiming there was risk or those claiming there was no risk in spraying millions of tons of a substance that’s extremely toxic to many species, never degrades, and becomes more and more concentrated as it moves up the food chain, into the air to be directly inhaled by children in many instances (the kids in our neighborhood used to run and play in the “smoke” being released by the mosquito truck). Hardly antiscience. Of course, the Conservatives still deny that DDT harms any advanced life such as warm blooded animals, despite definite evidence to the contrary. Now THAT’S antiscience. http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/ddtgen.pdf
He claimed there were few or no victims from the antiscience from the right. I suppose a 40 year delay in the banning of lead in paint or gasoline or a 50 year delay in banning asbestos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Discovery_of_toxicity doesn’t count, or the active misinformation about the risks of smoking, which was propagated by Conservatives. Ironically, those same Conservatives claimed that smoking marijuana would rot your brain. Toxic waste of course, has never led to any harm to anyone, right? And the tacit assumption by Stossel is that there is no harm done by our failure to act on global warming, despite essentially zero evidence that it is due to factors other than the generation of man made greenhouse gases.
The problem with GMO’s is also more philosophical that scientific. Conservatives argue that the public has no right to know whether the food they consume is genetically modified. That’s not antiscience. That’s antifreedom for individuals to eat the food they prefer. For example, some GMO’s are resistant to insects because they make their own pesticides. Is it wrong to question the wisdom of forcing the public to consume sizeable quantities of pesticides against their will?
The discouragement of racial differences in IQ is understandable, although probably rightly classified as antiscience. If the races do differ in their relative average intelligence, what would be the benefit of broadcasting that to the public? Do Conservatives really believe the government should fund this kind of research?
I could go on, but my endurance is limited at my age. Yours too.
BTW, didn’t you declare years ago that global warming was over? Still refusing to believe the scientists (many who risked their careers) who, back in the 1980’s, made accurate predictions of global temperatures thirty or so years into the future? Have Conservatives found any alternative explanations for the obviously unusual warming or are they still just claiming that climate varies from causes impossible for mere mortals to discover?
Sounds like some conservatives are finally waking up. In a periodical entitled the Prairie Farmer (4/18, p. 4), they claim that, although average rainfall has been pretty close to normal, the percentage of precipitation from 24 hour rain falls of greater than 2 inches rose 71% in the northeast, 37% in the midwest, 27% in the south, and 5-12% in the west since 1958. Accordingly, they urge farmers to utilize practices to enable the soil to capture and hold larger amounts of water. The frost free period since 1958 is 16-19 days longer in the west, 10 days on the plains and northeast, 9 days in the midwest and 6 days in the southeast. Does that mean global warming is over? Or maybe the Prairie Farmer is a radical left wing publication.
Smokers were conservatives?
Not the smokers, the politicians that aided and abetted them for decades. You really doubt that? I suppose Conservative is too nonspecific. How about Republican? Since you’re not terribly fussy about your sources, this one should do the job: “The Republican Party a Tobacco Related Cancer” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/3/31/103491/-
If you prefer a more trusted source:
“The tobacco industry has begun an aggressive campaign-donation drive, pouring more than $1.5 million into national Republican Party treasuries in the first half of 1995, five times as much as in the same period last year.
The surge in donations comes when the industry is facing the most serious threats from Washington in its history.
The industry’s chief worry comes from the Food and Drug Administration, which is moving to have nicotine declared an addictive drug, a fundamental change in the Government’s approach to tobacco.
The industry also faces proposed new limits on advertising and measures to curtail tobacco sales to young people. And the Justice Department has begun an inquiry into whether tobacco companies misrepresented to Federal regulators the contents and health effects of cigarettes.
Industry officials and employees also gave $413,300 to individual Republican lawmakers, who may accept no more than $5,000 from the political funds of industries, unions or associations. All told, the industry gave nearly $2 million to Republican committees in the first half of 1995.
Republican leaders, he said, like House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader, have been silent on the dangers of smoking, but highly critical of David A. Kessler, the F.D.A. Commissioner, who has pushed for regulation of cigarettes.”