Here is Luke Hamilton writing at IllinoisFamily.org about the information war concerning science:
“The science is settled.” ~Al Gore, creator of the internet
It’s becoming an incessant catchphrase. More and more frequently, this simple statement is used as conversational pepper-spray to discourage contention and dissuade any who would continue to press their objection to the status quo. Those foolhardy enough to persist in their dissent are often labeled science-deniers; which in today’s culture of scientism, is tantamount to being branded with the Scarlet Periodic Symbol and cast from the village.
We’re told that the science is settled on a myriad of issues. Settled science has definitively shown that sexuality is genetic and immutable…except when it isn’t. Closely related is the settled scientific fact that gender is a social construct and open for molding, changing, redefining, or even ignoring. The science around evolutionary theory and its ability to demonstrate that all living beings are descended from a common ancestor was settled long ago, so we’re told. Not yet settled is what this common ancestor might have been, where all of its fossils are located (also missing are the fossils of any of its tens of thousands of mutant descendants), or how genetic mistakes could proceed toward greater complexity when we observe the exact opposite progression in our day.
We’ve been assured that the science is quite settled regarding a fetus being merely a blob of cells, devoid of any nerve endings, personality, or consciousness; unless the pregnancy is desired, at which point the blob of cells somehow becomes a pre-born human, able to be named and celebrated. And of course, the science was long ago settled on the actuality of climate change (formerly global warming) being REAL, brought about by evil mankind and the flatulence of cows.
So we’ve heard that all of this science is settled and no longer open for discussion or scientific inquiry, but how exactly did this come to be? How does science become settled, after all? In a fascinating clip, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently engaged with the head of one of the largest and most influential environmentalist organizations during a hearing on Capitol Hill. If you haven’t watched the exchange, it’s well worth your time.
Aaron Mair, Sierra Club President, does a wonderful job of exposing precisely how bare the intellectual cupboards of settled Science really are. If the Science is definitively settled, it should be able to hold up under scrutiny and examination, yes? When Sen. Cruz brings up the fact that data transmitted via satellite shows that we are in a sustained period of no warming activity on Earth, Mr. Mair is so reluctant to countenance this fact that he refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the data, which has been widely-accepted by people on both sides of the issue.
Read more: Illinois Family Institute
Image credit: Cartoon by A.F. Branco.