Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong hated people and killed tens of millions of them, but they didn’t hate science. So why have things deteriorated so badly, science-wise, with today’s left?
Consider some examples. Democrats believe in astrology by a two-to-one margin over Republicans. Same with fortune telling.
Other examples are more complicated but equally striking.
Like almost all other animals, humans exist in two distinct sexes: male and female. At the genetic level, the distinction is crystal clear. Males have an X and a Y chromosome, while females have two X’s. (There are instances of an extra X or Y but they are exceedingly rare.)
Generally speaking, these different genotypes express in different phenotypes, such as different morphology, microbiology, procreation, hormones and temperament. Nearly all real scientists agree with this.
But the left now tells us that there are 64 “genders.” They define “gender” as something different from “sex” in order to get around that inconvenient chromosome obstacle, while deceitfully using the two terms interchangeably when helpful to advance their agenda. Such as enabling men with trendy sexual proclivities to destroy legitimate women’s sport competition.
The left’s position here is not a scientific one, though they couch it as that. It’s a political one. They don’t argue with scientists who disagree with their political position on this issue, because they have no real science argument. Instead they cancel those scientists.
Then there’s abortion. I believe that we lack the moral authority to take a human life, and so abortion is wrong. (Contrary to most of my tribe, I believe the same about capital punishment.)
But I would not outlaw abortion. It’s a vexing, complicated issue. Although I think it’s morally wrong, I’m not prepared to make everything I think is morally wrong into a crime.
The left disagrees with my moral position, but goes further than mere disagreement. They deny the complexity of the issue. They say there’s not a moral issue at all, because the fetus is not alive.
That’s unscientific. Any biologist would say the fetus is palpably alive. It’s a collection of structured cells that multiplies and metabolizes. Unliving things don’t do that.
OK, says the left, but it’s just a “blob of cells.”
That, too, is unscientific. We know from ultrasounds and from miscarriages and the remains of aborted fetuses that a fetus resembles a baby a few months after conception, and is nearly fully formed by month seven or eight at which time they frequently survive premature birth – and occasionally survive an abortion and are killed on the operating table.
Let’s debate abortion as the complicated moral issue it is, where we weight interests of the fetus, the mother, the father, society and morality.
Don’t insult the conversation with mind-numbing sloganeering like “My body, my choice.” Will we next justify infanticide with “My family, my choice”? Or mass murder with “My neighborhood, my choice”?
Then there’s the purported epidemic (or is it a “pandemic” now?) of white-on-black police violence.
Except, scientifically speaking, there’s not. An Obama Department of Justice study showed that a black unarmed suspect is more likely to be shot by a black or Hispanic cop than by a white one. The likelihood of a black man being killed by a white cop is about 1/18th the likelihood of the cop being killed by that black man.
While blacks account for over half of homicides and robberies, they are only about a quarter of police killings. Some 94% of black murder victims were killed by other blacks – even though blacks comprise only 13% of the population.
Don’t get me wrong. Although it’s rare in comparison to other violence, it sometimes happens. The George Floyd video was sickening.
But one instance does not prove a general problem. The data show that this “problem” is a myth. Science says this “problem” is fake.
When I repeat that fact, people on the left don’t rebut me, engage in an analytical debate or offer facts. They just call me names.
Then there’s nuclear power. In France, 75% of the country’s electricity is nuclear generated. Scientists agree that nuclear power is safer than coal, natural gas, wind or solar. And it generates zero greenhouse gas.
But the left hates it. Because hating it apparently makes them feel good.
Which brings me back to the question posed at the outset. I think the reason so many on the left are anti-science is because they don’t look for solutions that work. They look for solutions that feel good to them.
They even argue that way. They argue not so much that their proposals will solve the problems — because they won’t — but that they are more virtuous than the right’s proposals that will. That’s why Barrack Obama would often dodge analytical debate with the sacharine and sanctimoneous saying, “That’s not who we are.”
He was right. Problem solvers are not who they are. Feel-gooders are who they are. Obama knew that and exploited it.
But feel-goodery is the antithesis of science. It’s unintellectual, childish and self-indulgent. The world would become a better place and the debate between left and right would be more constructive and civil if the left could get over it.
In other words, just grow up.
the Aspen beat 
And yet the left are the first to crow about “settled science” when it comes to climate change! Talk about an inconvenient truth!!!
Especially given that it is not settled. Also, that their claim that some impossibly high percentage of scientists agree with them, was made up by a non-scientist radio talk show host who did so with no basis whatsoever for her claim (the WSJ took the time to track the claim back to its initial source). But, like nearly every tenet of the Left’s various “truths”, it is repeated and repeated until believed by the hordes of group thinking Leftists.
Thank you Glenn Beaton for another thoughtful, informative, spot on column.
Brilliant
You took the words right out of my mouth! The nugget: “I think the reason so many on the left are anti-science is because they don’t look for solutions that work. They look for solutions that feel good to them.”
Great article, great insight. Although I do disagree with you on capital punishment, every other point was spot on.
Isn’t it better to agree to disagree rather than resort to violence, looting, murder and assualts???
Great article, great insight. Although I do disagree with you on capital punishment, every other point was spot on.
The actual, true reason that the left is so anti-science is that if they can impose their goofy fairy-tales about how the world works, or should work, then they will have POWER over us Deplorables who live in the Vast Cultural Wasteland of Flyover Country. Politics is now solely about Power over others…
Really, it’s both POWER and warm, fuzzy, more-virtuous, feelings. How much of one or the other?
You’re correct. It is both Power and warm, fuzzy more virtuous feelings. maybe in equal measure; it’s hard to tell. What we need to realize is that the left feels that they’re the only people to rightly have the power and Authority to rule the proletariat. Us common peeples are just too stoopid to know what’s the right thing to do…
It’s a singular achievement to be simultaneously anti-religion and anti-science, but the left has found the sweet spot, by reducing religion to the status of unenlightened mythology and raising such things as “climate science,” diversity, and “social justice” to the status of revealed truth deserving of religious veneration and devotion.
Again, Glenn thank you for your thought and insights. The silent majority is FED UP with CHICAGO, SEATTLE, PORTLAND, AND OF COURSE THE INFAMOUS NYC!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 THANKS BILL
Having a background in both civil/environmental engineering and economics, I am demonstrably a lot more familiar than most people with both technology (what is possible to accomplish) and economics (what can be accomplished “profitably,” i.e., with greater benefits than costs).
My political opinion is that ideologues of the extreme left and extreme right are about equally willing to ignore scientific “theories” (i.e., explanations of reality that are the most widely accepted by career practitioners in fields such as physics, geography, ecology, climatology, and economics) when they conflict with their particular opinions of “morality” and/or “religion” (i.e., what they think “should be”).
I’m “guilty” of applying both concepts to the governmental policies and social practices that I support. I’m just more open to making the distinction between the most objectively credible scientific “theories,” as opposed to moral/religious opinions.
I would note, however, that many “moral” opinions are based on logical assessment of the appropriate balance between individual freedom and the welfare of society, and correspond to the tenets of most religions. For example, the principles of honoring parents; not stealing (or destroying other people’s property); and not committing adultery. I doubt that that overlap is just coincidental, in that societies that ignore those principles are likely to succumb to the Darwinian principle of being less fit for survival, given that humans are inherently “social animals.” That is standard “theory” in the science of anthropology.
Ah yes, the theory that morality is rooted in evolution — the theory that moral persons and societies were more likely to survive and reproduce.
I don’t reject that theory. But I have this question about it: Why have no other animals evolved into moral ones? Look for example at dogs. Even after 40,000 years with humans, dogs are amoral. Dogs routinely steal, for example, to the point that people don’t even think it’s wrong when a dog does it.
Glenn, I knew a priest who glibly pronounced that “All dogs go to Heaven,” although his theology clearly held that all people do not. If our species is uniquely moral, it also evinces depths of depravity that no dog in my acquaintance ever came close to. We can kill the spirit within us — that which “animates” us as “animals.” It’s hard to see how evolutionary theories predicated on the notion of advancement through random natural selection can account for this. It’s equally hard to understand how Marxist ideology is making such headway in contemporary America. Is there a field of science, even “social science,” that can make sense of this?
Humans not only evolved as “social animals,” but more specifically, as “tribal animals,” whereby their loyalty to others was confined to others in their “tribe.” Hence, the dictum “Thou shalt not kill” has, for all practical purposes, meant “Thou shalt not kill other members of your tribe,” but members of other tribes were “fair game,” often sanctioned by a tribal “God” such as Yahweh of the ancient Israelites.
Wolves and their cousins, dogs, chimpanzees, bees, ants, and other “social animals” display similar behavior. They take care of their own particular “tribe.”
The main problem that humans now face with their remaining tendency towards “tribal behavior” is that some of the “tribes” now have nuclear weapons. In saying that, I have always supported a policy of strong national defense that boils down to a willingness to kill the members of other “tribes” despite the realization that usually only a handful of the leaders are the real troublemakers (an exception being ISIS).
I personally supported that policy by voluntarily serving as an officer in a combat unit in the Army. Although I did not experience combat, I like to think that I would have retained some level of humanity in the treatment of P.O.W.s and enemy civilians. That same philosophy of concern for people who are basically innocent is why I have opposed your idea of just letting cities go to hell where the local politicians enable domestic terrorists to threaten the lives and livelihoods of the general population.
Dr Beaton, Love this, however, you didn’t go to the probable source, macro-evolution. Although it has fallen apart as a theory, it is called a “fact” and “settled science.” That should sound familiar, but a true scientist would rarely use those terms. I defy anyone to find a scientist where I could send the base elements found in a cell and have them create a cell, much less a human being. From its start, it has infected almost everything: the law, education, politics, morality, etc. But, I still haven’t gotten to the source. They want to reject absolutes, such as God and natural law (you can’t mention either at most university faculty parties and be taken seriously)… i could go on and on …Humorous Note: I had a former friend drone on and on about racism. Rather than point out his inconsistency in believing in evolution and the wrongness in racism, I pointed that he and God were in agreement and God said racism was wrong before anyone else did. He got very mad.
I am a fan of Mr. Beaton and am always interested in reading his opinions, generally finding myself sympatico. But I must suggest there is difference between summarily executing an unborn child (who is inarguably innocent of any wrongdoing, let alone a capital crime) and a murderer, who has been adjudicated guilty of taking another human life with malice aforethought. I concede that there have been case of mistaken convictions as well as executions, but the statistics establish those numbers as vanishingly small. Additionally, what does one do to deter, for example a convicted murderer who premeditatedly kills another inmate or guard? Does another life sentence offer any punishment or deterrent effect? Is the possibility of future rehabilitation offer a justification for precluding execution? I merely pose this comment, respectfully, and certainly welcoming to arguments to the contrary.
No argument here! My beef is with Pope Francis, who overturned centuries of Catholic teaching and doctrine to obviate the death penalty.
“Pope” Francis has overturned much more than the Church’s position on capital punishment. (I use the quotation marks intentionally!) He is the Church’s version of Barack Hussein Obama; remember, the “president” (those quotation marks again!) whose desire was to “fundamentally transform America.”
Yes, Obama and Bergoglio were a matched pair, crafted by The Deep State and The Deep Church to bring down the two remaining pillars of Western Civilization.
Fortunately, thanks to the “anti-Bergoglio” — Carlo Maria Viganò — and the “anti-Obama” — Donald Trump, the host civilization is not succumbing so easily. Thanks also to myriad antibodies such as Glenn Beaton and his readers — I salute you all.
Amen to that.
The article is mostly accurate yet discusses the validity of human co2 reductions as impacting climate. Pure speculation, 97%+ of co2 input has nothing to do with humans. The co2 sink isn’t defined by “science” as well, it’s a nonsense Political theory.
I agree with your position on abortion: Abortion ends a human life, but ending that life by preventing a fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus is morally far removed from “aborting” a fully developed baby during birth; this does make abortion a vexing and complicated issue. However, there is no justice in abortion, only a judgement about the value of the health of the mother (now stretched to include convenience) versus the life of the unborn.
Capital punishment is also a vexing and complicated issue. The shocking rate of false convictions that has been exposed by DNA testing and the callous disregard for exculpatory evidence by prosecutors should raise the bar for imposing the death penalty extremely high, but as with abortion, should it categorically be ruled out? Some crimes are so heinous and the miscreants so malignant that suffering such monsters to live injures the health of society — particularly the affected families — while the death penalty confers finality upon the process of justice and brings closure to those whose lives have been traumatized (hopefully).
With abortion, there are concrete restrictions that can be enforced to reduce the moral hazard (such as no abortions after the first trimester). Are there any comparable restrictions that could be imposed on capital punishment that would reduce the moral hazard sufficiently that you would overcome your opposition, Glenn?
My opposition to capital punishment is on religious and morality grounds more than on practical and technical grounds. In my personal value system, which I do not seek to impose on others, taking a human life is God’s business, not ours, unless the taking is necessary to protect an innocent life (as in self-defense).
Stalin was quite the Scientist, he killed so many….reminds me on Obama Administration brought in some “Fresh” engineers onto the Klamath River Dam removal project they wanted to achieve. They disputed the Science and engineering findings handed to them from what they saw and were fired or transferred for their trouble, the fight over the damns continues to this day. Obama wanted them gone.
Here’s another of your comments that I can’t help but disagree with (although I generally agree with your comments criticizing the anti-white racist hysteria over the causes and severity of alleged “systemic racism” in the U.S.)
On the one hand, you reject the conclusions of the majority of scientists on an issue such as the contribution of human activities to global warming (which is indisputably occurring, for whatever reasons).
Then, you claim that “Scientists agree that nuclear power is safer than coal, natural gas, wind or solar.” As a retired professional engineer with particular experience in the economics of public works projects, I regard your claim as gross over-generalization. Both the safety, monetary costs, environmental impacts, and sociological impacts of all forms of energy production/conservation are highly site-specific, where the “site” may range from an entire nation or continent to an individual building.
I generally support nuclear power — especially constructed according to federal standards reflecting the best current technology — as an alternative to fossil fuels. (And I also support “fracking” for natural gas according to regulated “best practices” as the least worst interim approach.)
But, after having rejected photovoltaic solar panels on two houses that I have had built for me since 1987, I am now planning a third house (in the sunny Southwest) with a photovoltaic collector system on the roof (especially, the PV tiles manufactured by Tesla). So, apart from economic or environmental considerations, just how would that be any less “safe” than having my electrical energy supplied by a nuclear plant? And, yes, I recognize the continued need for centralized power plants to feed the electrical “grid” when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, and also recognize that the “safety” of a critical supply of electrical power is increased by the redundancy of on-site generation backed by a communal grid.
Carlton, I’m not sure where you are getting your information about policy positions that you attributed to me such as in the second paragraph of your comment. Do you have a preconceived notion of the policy positions of “conservatives” and assume that they’re all the same with regard to those positions?
I’m okay with you making straw man arguments, as that is a time-honored if unpersuasive rhetorical device, but please don’t put the straw man in my mouth.
BTW, you’re not the only one with an engineering background. My undergraduate degree was in Civil Enginnering with an emphasis on structural analysis, and I worked as an werospace engineer for The Boeing Company before going to law school. I don’t pretend, however, that my education, training and work i that field make me an expert on these topics we’re discussing.
This just in — Basic math is “white supremacist patriarchy,” according to several woke math professors. 2+2 does not equal 4 any more than X+X equals female, because both equations make some people feel bad.