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Democrats’ Increasingly Tenuous Relationship With “The Science”

Posted on Thursday, July 6, 2023
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by David Lewis Schaefer
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AMAC Exclusive – By David Lewis Schaefer

science

Amid alarming reports of declining student test scores at public schools throughout the country, along with chronic absenteeism, Eric Adams, the ostensibly moderate Democrat mayor of New York City, issued a mandate last week that all public schools must offer two to five minutes of “mindful breathing” every day, claiming that the rule rests on “science.” The puzzling new policy has again called into question just what contemporary liberals or progressives mean when they invoke “the science” to defend their policy preferences.

According to Adams, “breathing calms your nervous system” (to say nothing of keeping you alive). He explained, “It is a valuable low-cost tool that is proven to improve mental health and well-being.”

While a healthy skepticism is in order regarding such new-agey thinking, one wonders whether Adams also wants students to learn that human exhalation – not just cow flatulence or automobile exhaust – is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.

If one takes the threat of global warming with utmost seriousness as many of the mayor’s supporters do, might it not be better to teach the students to breathe less? After all, celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Mark Wahlberg already espouse a “no-eat” diet, which requires practitioners to confine their daily eating to an eight-hour period. As one might expect, the diet lacks any scientific foundation, as a University of Colorado study recently confirmed, since it simply encourages people to gorge themselves during the allotted eating period.

OK, the reduce-your-breathing suggestion is a joke, but one no less silly, from this writer’s point of view, than mandatory classes on how to breathe. However, under the mayor’s direction, New York is indeed pioneering in the quest to reduce carbon emissions.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would require pizzerias, which for decades have used coal- and wood-fired ovens to lend their product a distinctive flavor, to reduce their carbon emissions by up to 75 percent by purchasing expensive emission-control devices.

According to one pizzeria owner, that dictum will not only “cost us a fortune,” but, “ruin the taste of the pizza,” which derives from precisely designed pipes and chimneys.

A city official dismissed such concerns by claiming that the regulations would affect fewer than 100 restaurants. But as one astute customer – a Brooklyn Heights resident who had brought her family, visiting from India, for their first pizza slice at a well-known emporium – observed, “I’m all for responsible environmental practice, but tell Al Gore to take one less private jet or something.”

As a New York Post columnist pointed out, while the pizza ovens’ so-called carbon footprint “is barely measurable,” it would take one such oven 849 years to equal a year’s carbon emissions from the private jet of Gore’s partner-in-climate-hysteria, President Joe Biden’s “climate envoy” John Kerry.

But let’s take a further look at Gore, winner of a Nobel Prize and millions of dollars for his climate-change advocacy and investments, with repeated dire warnings (never vindicated) over the past three decades of the ominous fate that confronts the world in the near future if his recommendations are ignored.

Like Kerry, Gore has indeed traveled many thousands of miles by private jet to make his case at prestigious conferences. In a recent essay, Claremont Institute fellow William Voegeli pointed out that Gore is not only “the most prominent global-warming Cassandra, but also the owner of a 10,000-square-foot Nashville home that uses 14 times as much electricity as the average American residence.” Indeed, “the electricity required to heat just its outdoor swimming pool exceeds the amount six typical households consume for all purposes.”

But progressives’ selective application of “the science” runs deeper than this.

Take, for instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s now-infamous claim in November of 2021 that anyone who criticized his views on the origins of COVID was “really criticizing science, because I represent science.” While Fauci had enjoyed a long and estimable career in public service prior to the COVID outbreak, he should have known as well as anyone that no single person or group of people “represents” science, since the scientific enterprise depends on never-ending inquiry, and it is always possible that future research will demonstrate that a widely held scientific “consensus” was wrong.

This case was proof positive of that fact. While Fauci insisted that COVID originated spontaneously in a Chinese “wet market” and then spread naturally, mounting evidence has cast serious doubt on that theory. Instead, multiple government sources have now concluded that a leak from a Chinese military virology lab in Wuhan, near the wet market, is the most likely origin of the pandemic.

In fact, a 2015 article in the authoritative British journal Nature had already described the conduct of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab generating an artificial virus that was more lethal and contagious than its natural cousins, with a follow-up article warning of its dangers. But the articles were apparently ignored by most scientists and commentators when COVID broke out.

Thus Fauci, who accused his critics of “politicizing” science, was apparently doing that himself – not wanting to alienate the Chinese government and possibly endanger future scientific “cooperation” with it. Subsequent revelations have indicated that Fauci had a direct role in helping to fund the Wuhan lab’s research – again raising serious questions about the reasons for his dismissal of the lab-leak theory.

But while Fauci’s claim to “represent” science is absurd, no serious person can deny that he has major scientific achievements to his credit. Other recent developments, however, call into question to what extent America’s establishment “liberals” – who customarily accuse Republicans of being anti-science –understand science.

Consider, for instance, the testimony of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Senate confirmation hearing, where she said she could not define what a woman is because she was “not a biologist.” Former Olympian Eli Bremer, a female pentathlete who had competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before unsuccessfully running for the Senate in 2022, judged that Jackson’s public agnosticism on the issue had the potential to “send the women’s rights movement back [for] decades,” since it opened the door to the claims of ostensibly “trans” or “non-binary” (but biologically male) athletes to compete in and consequently dominate women’s sports.

One might wonder whether, if Jackson was being honest about her ignorance, she had never taken a high-school biology course, in which she would have learned that the two sexes are set apart by nature depending on whether they were born with XX or XY chromosomes.

But maybe teaching such facts doesn’t belong in the school curriculum at all, if some progressive partisans are to be believed. According to a lawsuit initiated by the First Liberty Institute, a law firm that defends religious liberty, Dr. Johnson Varkey, who had taught biology as an adjunct professor at St. Phillip’s College in San Antonio for 22 years, was dismissed from his position in January of this year for inserting his supposedly “religious” views into the curriculum.

Varkey’s “religious” judgment was his explanation that human sex is determined by one’s chromosomes, and that reproduction must occur between a biological male and a female if the species is to continue.

Although Varkey had been making this point, by his account, throughout his career at St. Phillip’s, without any complaints, when he did it this time, four students stormed out and protested to the college administration, leading to his dismissal. It will be interesting to see whether the First Liberty Institute’s claims are vindicated in court.

Perhaps the American people would be better served if prominent tycoons like Gore and Kerry used their enormous wealth and status to finance improved, rigorous, genuinely fact-based science education – in place of the climate-change and “trans” indoctrination that currently pervades the curriculum from kindergarten through college. Then, perhaps, more Americans would learn, from the works of fair-minded scholars, to be skeptical of climate ideologues, and inclined (unlike New York’s would-be climate guardians) to appreciate the value of cost-benefit analysis in weighing alternative policies.

Maybe they will even re-learn the biological difference between men and women.

David Lewis Schaefer is a Professor of Political Science at College of the Holy Cross.

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Nick
Nick
1 year ago

It has been proven that 97% of “Scientists” agree with whoever is funding them . . .

Ann S
Ann S
1 year ago

Well here we go again. The government in control of all of us, when to breathe, when to eat, how to cook, only on electric stoves, drive only electric cars, work from home, where to live, drug use promotion and don’t forget all you seniors you have a duty to die. Take the booster
The COVID vaccin can help you with that. You young people please take the vaccin to either kill you or sterilize you. All arranged and ordered by the government because those that don’t follow the edicts of the government are killers or worse domestic terrorists. Science has spoken Fauci is only one scientist I have heard many scientist who have a total opposite view and they have been silenced….? MSM ignores these scientists, they are complot thinkers.
Excellent article and please don’t forget to breathe, anytime.

Robin W Boyd
Robin W Boyd
1 year ago

Like so many other terms, Progressives have redefined “science” to suit their agenda. In most cases, when Progressives say “the science”, they are spewing out some Leftist rhetoric that is in no way scientific. They have made “science says” to be as legit as “Simon says”.

P2burner
P2burner
1 year ago

Here’s a thought…instead of mandating several minutes of “mindfull breathing” (aka science), and instead spend several HOURS on actual science…like biology.

Max
Max
1 year ago

Nothing new has been stated. NYC continues to be the area where nonsense situations begin and then continues to spread to other similar run localities around the country.

Rob citizenship
Rob citizenship
1 year ago

This article is important — because Truth is important . And the topic that involves changing the meaning of words is important — because Truth is important. This is an example of how the manipulation of the true , accurate meaning of words can have serious consequences. I have mentioned it in other comments that it is not good to complain about things , complaining is comparable to walking around in a circle. It is far better to identify what it is that needs to be fixed and figure out ways to fix it. Far better to talk about ways to make necessary improvements. The language is something that needs to be defended. It has to do with the value of Truth. Defending the Truth is at the foundation of all the good, ethical , honorable things in life.

jeppe
jeppe
1 year ago

I volunteer at our local elementary school. They have a mindfulness monday where a counselor talks to the students over the intercom attempting to help them address stressful issues etc. Mostly the kids just stare off in the distance and are not engaged in the activity. I used to wait until it was over before I called the children out to work with them on reading. I don’t wait anymore, I have too many children that need real reading practice instead of a 5 minute excercise in which they are not engaged.

SusanP
SusanP
1 year ago

There is truly no such thing as “settled science”. Science is always questioned and once in a while something new is learned. Those who would silence those who question “the science” are intent upon destroying all science. They should never be listened to.

Bob Olden
Bob Olden
1 year ago

Real science doesn’t have a chance as long as the following saying is true:
”There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

Rob citizenship
Rob citizenship
1 year ago

I do believe that at the foundation of doing something about the distortion of the English language, it will benefit everyone who values the truth and values using good sense to give serious consideration to what the internet version of the English language is all about — it is an expression of the internet way of thinking. So, who is involved with determining what that way of thinking is all about, and what is their political affiliation. Consideration for the will of God, in this matter , involves respect for the Truth and respect for thinking clearly, thinking intelligently , defending the principles that make for good character. This is in keeping with Faith, Family and Freedom, in keeping with the things that the United States of America stands for. Those who use the internet version of the English language, and think according to the internet way of thinking, who distort the meaning of words to advance their political agenda, they need to be challenged everytime they try to do it. The concepts of Honor, Honesty, Integrity, Courage and Loyalty are in the balance in this issue. The spirit of Truth will defend Liberty. That is of great importance.

Tai Chi Rich
Tai Chi Rich
1 year ago

Deep focused breathing is not a new age trend. It’s thousands of years old and being used by Tai Chi, qigong, and yoga practitioners and is of great benefit. Research vagus nerve and deep breathing. the new age people have copied most of what they do from centuries old practices. They teach SWAT teams deep lower abdominal breathing so they can remain calm under stress. It should be taught in schools. Don’t let ancient knowledge become a thing of the past. Everyone should be practicing Tai Chi and would be if you bothered to investigate it’s benefits.

Bob L.
Bob L.
1 year ago

New York public schools probably keep kids locked in all day. Th best breathing exercise for them would be to let them outside for a couple of recesses each day and let them run around which would increase their breathing rate.

anna hubert
anna hubert
1 year ago

Mavbe they should have their own Academy of science with Kerry Fauci and Gore as directors

Tim Toroian
Tim Toroian
1 year ago

These stupid Democrats remind me of Stalin and Trofim Lysenko whose different ideas regarding agriculture caused MILLIONS of Russians to starve. Google him.

Corbin L Douthitt
Corbin L Douthitt
1 year ago

The Left- Democrats.. are all about words. Not substance- just words. They talk a good game. They talk a good ‘science’. But all they have is talking points and lies.

Elizabeth Cheever
Elizabeth Cheever
1 year ago

How much “carbon dioxide” is emitted from a human mouth speaking BS all the time? I bet the cows would love to know. Is it measurable? Perhaps it should be.

Elena Tellez
Elena Tellez
1 year ago

‘The NEWS’ and ‘prominent politicians’ are not to be believed. We totally stopped watching TV news. Disgusted w/America right now… & attempted government intervention in many aspects of our lives. It’s all (or mostly) B S. Better things to do with our time: swimming, hiking, reading, socializing (with like minded friends / family), hobbies, etc.
If idiots keep voting for the same morons, there will be no change.

Centurion
Centurion
1 year ago

“The Science” that the demon-communist-cRATS use is actually called “pseudo-science.”

Nancy
Nancy
1 year ago

I’ve always thought Al Gore’s book should have been titled “An Inconvenient Truth (for you but not for me)”

Myrna
Myrna
1 year ago

One of the most important functions of education is to make sure students can tell evidence from assertions promoted without any evidence.

Donald King
Donald King
1 year ago

I remember back when David Dinkens was mayor of New York City. His answer to handling the social/educational issues in the city was to build more basketball courts. I worked in and around the city for many years, both before and after Rudolph Giuliani. Although not perfect, the best years that I saw for New York were those during his administration.

Tplorable
Tplorable
1 year ago

It just aggravates the crap out of me that two super rich elites (Kerry and Gore) do not do one thing to reduce emissions or their carbon footprint, yet expect everyone else to comply. BS!

james carlyle
james carlyle
1 year ago

Mr. Adams would better served, and the students, by learning exactly what the Scientific Method is, how it functions and which results are achieved and which are not. Politicians, Political appointees such as Cabinet Secretaries and Bureaucrats in general would also benefit and so might we as a significant result.

Allan E Brem
Allan E Brem
1 year ago

There’a a sucker born every minute. Democrats can spotj ’em as the come.

Jdubya
Jdubya
1 year ago

I believe that too many people today are too weak minded or have been initiated in colleges and universities to believe everything Science puts out there. Even before it is proven to be right. There Is much about science that has never been proven, yet we have government officials that are using Unproven Science to promote their will amongst the people. It is becoming pretty clear of late that Our Government was involved in more than one way with the development and testing of Covid. And somewhere something went wrong. Something our government is covering up about the so-called accidental release of the virus upon the world.

PIDL
PIDL
1 year ago

Why do I keep getting a ” You are not allowed to vote on this comment” ? Is AMAC censoring voting now?

Dick Rohloff
Dick Rohloff
1 year ago

This goes to show that there are times when even scientists will throw science overboard when it conflicts with their politics.

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