Jonah Goldberg Asks Who is a Science Denier

He writes,

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?

Actually, he is quoting something he wrote three years ago.

The occasion for recycling it is the litmus test that reporters are applying to Scott Walker, namely whether or not be believes in evolution. Can we imagine a reporter asking Elizabeth Warren whether she believes that people at the extreme right tail of the distribution for math skills are more likely to be male than female, and using that as a litmus test for whether she believes in science?

In the case of economics, I think that we should not view “science” as binary, in the sense of truths that are close to 100 percent certain and you believe them or not. Rather, there is stronger evidence to favor some propositions than others. Confirmation bias takes the form of grasping at straws when you want to believe something that runs counter to most evidence (such as refusing to believe that the minimum wage reduces employment or that extending unemployment benefits raises the unemployment rate). Or it takes the form of taking something that has a reasonable probability of being true and believing it with certainty (such as the claim that the Fed caused the recession).

35 thoughts on “Jonah Goldberg Asks Who is a Science Denier

  1. Good, except it is perfectly scientific (and economic) to be skeptical about GMOs. I hadn’t heard about them being the cure for blindness.

    Let’s say some one proposed that rice be engineered to produce arsenic. We’d want some more science on that wouldn’t we. “They’d never do that!” Doesn’t count.

    • Similarly, let’s suppose someone proposed that babies be engineered to shoot lightning out their arses.

      They’ll never do that doesn’t count. Because William Wallace.

      • Arsenic is in rice partly because it was a pesticide. Now we know that was a bad idea.

        Glyphosate is in corn because it is an herbicide. In the future we may come to know that was not a genius move. Rinse and repeat.

        Understand now?

        • “With better understanding of the toxicology mechanism, two other compounds were used starting in the 1890s.[39] Arsenite of lime and arsenate of lead were used widely as insecticides until the discovery of DDT in 1942”

          • On second thought, let’s just not have laymen team-based science groupie litmus tests at all.

          • Well, I found the paper where they transfected rice to absorb more arsenic for soil remediation. Then I found a reference to government funded research into arsenic resistant rice (which would put more arsenic in rice for human consumption). Turns out rice is also damaged by arsenic so somebody apparently thinks it is a good idea to breed arsenic resistant rice.

            So, they are almost doing exactly what I said, not that I actually even thought they would do that. The point was, had they the ability to transfect cotton to build up arsenic back before they realized the fields would be used for rice for human consumption they would have done it. This is luck.

            No, I wasn’t saying that

  2. Somewhat related: My least favorite common phrases are “science proves” and “scientists know.” People (journalists, bloggers, and politicians) almost always mean, “a study concluded” or “studies suggest” or “some scientists believe.” Take some time reading stats blogs, and you realize how shoddy much (most?) published research is, and how few studies are able to replicate. Science tends to move in the right direction over time, but there’s a lot of published nonsense. And there are enough published studies that one can usually find support for just about any position they want to take (maybe not anti-evolution, but certainly in the social or medical sciences). I’m “pro-science,” but at least I’m aware that what science “knows” evolves over time, and sometimes reverses on previously accepted facts and theories entirely.

  3. While we’re on this fine topic, let’s ask another question:

    So somebody does or does not believe in evolution. What possible real world difference does that make in policy?

    So somebody does or does not know how old the Earth is, what causes obesity (this year), the safety risks (or not) of GMO products, etc. Does anybody really think that substantive policy will be driven by such beliefs? That military or trade policy will actually be driven by them? That it will make any real difference in people’s lives?

    Saying “HE doesn’t BELIEVE in EVOLUTION like WE do, he’s clearly an IDIOT!” is exactly the same construction as “SHE doesn’t BELIEVE that FETUSES are ALIVE like WE do, she’s clearly EVIL!”

    Now, we might argue that candidates for office ought to have a really firm grasp of conservative, liberal, and libertarian economic thinkings, a deep understanding of incentives, personal liberties, and basic mathematics. But such people are generally unelectable to high office.
    And an actual engineer, one Jimmy Carter, seems generally viewed as a not very good president.

  4. Riffing on “science proves” …. since I can with a straight face claim to be an actual expert on a topic or three….

    What ‘expert’ really means is not ‘knows the answer’ – it means ‘knows the question’ and in mature fields ‘has a grasp of implications’

  5. It is because the right has a substantial dogmatic core refusing to accept evidence contrary to their beliefs, and others who won’t challenge them for fear of division and disunity. It is not that the left also doesn’t have a fringe, but they are fringe and not core and as minimized by the left as the right and there is little need to pander though some passes under the name of uncertainty. Some of these beliefs are actually bipartisan.

    • No. It is the left thinks portraying themselves as pro science, probably stemming from their disproportionate representation in the academy and they think their flawed tautological beliefs on some subjects (e.g. macro) justifies central planning, will give them an electoral edge.

  6. It’s a fair point Goldberg makes, but that said, being skeptical or disbelieving of Darwinian natural selection may not affect many specific policies, but it really does say something about an individual’s personality and their capacity for cognitive bias or dismissing information they find inconvenient or conflicting with their priors. I don’t think that’s controversial. With that in mind, I think it’s perfectly legitimate to question political candidates about it.

    So if I were a journalist and a man of the left and I noticed that when I posed questions about evolution and natural selection to right-leaning candidates, they tend to squirm and try to awkwardly dodge the question or mouth some really idiotic platitudes supposed to demonstrate a pseudo-open mindedness on the subject like “the jury’s still out,” both of which made them look bad, I would keep asking and keep asking and keep asking and then keep on asking. I would revel in this. I would delight in it. It’s like handing your enemies a rope to hang themselves with. So I can’t blame left wing journalists for something I would be happy to do myself in their shoes.

    Furthermore, it’s a very strange thing for Jonah Goldberg to complain that left-leaning politicians aren’t asked tough questions about their scientific beliefs by journalists. Uh, Jonah…what do you call your occupation again? Is it “journalist?” Why not take it upon yourself to start asking questions about Yucca Mountain, GMO’s, and vaccines, if you think there’s such a double standard at work? Or some of your pals at NR, Fox News, etc? Be the change you wish to see in the world, as some chap once said.

    • We can talk about why this wouldn’t work. I suspect the academy and journalism being highly liberal is a good start.

      The left is also just smart enough not to take clear stances on certain things. I also see the right, for whatever reason, as not interested in attempting to use a little knowledge of science ad a wedge issue. Thus i doubt Goldberg is actually pining for the same lame tactics from the right.

      • Which is asinine. This strikes me as yet another instance of the left making chess moves while the right plays checkers and then cries “no fair!”

        • Maybe. But why jusy accept that science should just be the next thing tossed onto the political football field? I don’t want that asinine game where every election cycle I get to hear some dumb NPR journalists simpleton take on a politicized science issue. There are things more important than the two party circle jerk.

          • Or, to paraphrase JR Smoove, if they are playing chess and you are playing checkers then what really matters is whether or not you are sitting around a checkers board.

          • As I stated above, I think it’s legitimate to discuss candidates’ positions on stuff they should have learned in a ninth grade biology course because if you can dismiss natural selection as a plot dreamed up by secularists or Satanists or whatever, that is a clear sign of unfitness for office.

            Also, as the not-so-great coach or commentator Herman Edwards once wrote, “you play to win the game!” If your business is politics and you’re not in it to win it, then what are you in it for, exactly?

          • But the reporter didn’t ask about the 999 other things from science class. And why is the journalist helping the Democrats? Is that what we want?

  7. It mostly seems like baiting for coalition-allegiance signalling.

    Comity and harmony is maintained in an ideologically heterogeneous society by avoiding pointless confrontations and disputes over what are mostly matters of conscience. A conservative politician wants the support of religious and traditionally minded constituents without having to explicitly say things that will make him an object of ridicule amongst progressives.

    But the progressives want to force the issue and make a politician explicitly pick sides publicly, compelling them to alienate at least one major part of their coalition. It has very little to do with ‘science’ in general, except that when the progressives say ‘Science’, they mean, “things on which progressives agree and religious conservatives often disagree.” Progressives agree on the origin of species, but not on human biodiversity, so one is ‘Science’ and the other isn’t.

  8. Of course Walker believes in evolution. The reason he doesn’t want to answer the question directly, and the reason liberal reporters want to trap him into answering, is that probably 50% of the electorate doesn’t believe and Walker wants to get elected president.

    This is the same reason Obama lied about his views on gay marriage when he was a candidate. Of course in that case the same liberal reporters weren’t bothered by his answer because they thought they knew what he really believed and because they wanted to see him get elected.

    • Actually, Walker may very well not believe in “evolution” the way the left construes It.

      “Evolution” the hack left/journo gotcha litmus test is probably very different from what actual evolution is or even how scientists use it (or don’t use it.)

      I try to do science (more accurately it does me). The only way evolution helps me out, and pure coincidence would suffice is through animal models and conserved protein analogs. I could have never heard of evolution and it wouldn’t matter. I know some of you scientist groupies won’t get this.

        • The essentially controversial bits, in the broad spectrum of all who would question it, about the modern theory of evolution concern two things: macroevolution (especially of complex structures) and universal common descent. Those two ideas are basically untestable abstractions derived from certain things we can demonstrate empirically: natural selection, homology, genetics and so forth. No one asked Walker, “do you believe traits in a given population shift over time in response to changes in its ecosystem,” or “are you aware extinct whales have skeletal features awfully similar to extinct land-dwelling mammals?” Those sorts of things constitute empirical science. Macroevolution and Universal Common Descent may indeed be the most parsimonious explanation of all those relevant facts. Even so, the relationship between the evidence and its theoretical interpretation is more complex and less straightforward than something like the efficacy of vaccines, or the safety record of modern nuclear reactors.

          • I am going to have to disagree with the arguments of macroevolution and universal common descent. From your writing, I expect that you probably already know these arguments, but macroevolution has always been a bit of a shell game, using a “god of the gaps” logic. “Macro” is whatever the arguer wants it to be. I have heard people use the eye as an example. The I bring up eyespots on cnidaria, then simple eyes, then eyes with lenses. Then Macro becomes about something else.
            And common descent is pretty hard to explain away, at this point. The conservation of genetic material and biochemistry between species is pretty robust. It is not quite right to call the only feasible current explanation for that similarity an abstraction.

            But your point about what the media means when they ask Walker about “evolution” is dead on.

          • Replying to triclops:

            Thanks for the thoughtful comment since so much discussion of these questions is not.

            I agree it helps to define terms – even given the limits of comment posts as a medium. I’m using macroevolution as shorthand (perhaps not good shorthand) for the question of what the blind mechanisms behind population traits in the short term (fleas becoming resistant to certain pet and livestock dips/shampoos within a decade or so) can achieve, unaided, over the very long term (4.6B yrs for the whole of natural history, ~nM years for particular lineages). To me that’s it’s own shell game – claims for the latter are always justified in terms of the very real but less dramatic demonstrations of the former. A curious and impatient agnosticism would be the intellectually honest approach. My impression is that biology has too much inherited physics envy as a discipline, and too much invested in conflict with creationists/ID folks to ever entertain that.

            As for common descent keep in mind I was referring to universal common descent. I suspect we are in less disagreement as I agree that within many lineages there is a very strong evidence for common descent. Whether it should be applied to every living organism is another question. As with what natural selection can achieve on its own (macroevolution) the explanation is hopelessly outnumbered by the phenomena (the history of life) it seeks to explain. Since most of that phenomena is by definition forever lost the most rational course, IMO, is to treat these concepts with respectful skepticism. FWIW I think the great majority of Darwinism’s critics do not follow that course.

  9. There’s an institutionalized (literally, the Discovery Institute) anti-science factor at work on the right as opposed to the left, where it exists in small bits scattered across the many minds working in the university system. Still Sullivan asks a good question.

    Though where I’m at in the bay area maybe it’s fairly institutionalized too. I recall reading that approximately half of the non-profits here are somehow environment-related (which seems high, I have to say). So there’s that.

    • No, the left ones aren’t institutions because they are right.

      Kind of like how the two Kochs are bad but all the lefty rich guy donors are humanitarians by definition.

      I’m not right, but ive been in this for 15 years and I only hear about the kochs from lefties and this thread is the first I’ve heard of these so called right anti science institutions.

      Isn’t it more likely that it is just assortat I’ve politics of a 2 party binning system?

      If being pro science includes swallowing the left’s version and implications of global warming based on studies they didn’t read (and don’t even matter when it comes to discount rates and economic policy), then I guess they made me anti-science.

  10. “In the case of economics, I think that we should not view “science” as binary, in the sense of truths that are close to 100 percent certain and you believe them or not. Rather, there is stronger evidence to favor some propositions than others.”

    I’d suggest that the law of supply and demand is more thoroughly scientifically tested than the theory of evolution.

    How strong do you want?

  11. Culture war posts get more comments — even on Arnold’s blog. Gotta be evidence of something.

  12. I would like to ask politicians the following question: “There is evidence for the existence of a natural nuclear fission reactor on Earth two billion years ago based on the nuclear waste found in rocks of that age. Do you accept such evidence and what do you think of the implications of the fact that the waste did not move with respect to the surrounding rock (in particular, the implications for nuclear waste disposal)?”

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