Lessons In Woke "Science": Covid-19 And Climate

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Lessons In Woke "Science": Covid-19 And Climate

  • Over time, I have had many posts on the scientific method, most recently in January 2021 here. You posit a falsifiable hypothesis. Then you collect and examine the evidence. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis you must abandon it and move on. Really, that’s the whole thing.

  • Then there is woke “science,” most visible these days in the arenas of response to the Covid-19 virus and of climate change. Here the principles are a little different.

  • In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”

  • But what if evidence seems to contradict the official orthodox consensus view? I’m sorry, but as I said the official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted.

  • Today’s news brings a couple of extreme examples of that, one on the virus front, and the other relating to climate.

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A Look Into New York Times-Think On "Food Relief"

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  • Several years ago I would make a practice about once every few weeks of ridiculing some New York Times article or other. More recently, as Pravda has increasingly abandoned any pretense of being a news organization in favor of pure political advocacy, I haven’t bothered. But every once in a while, it is worth looking at one of their pieces to get some insights into how the progressive brain works.

  • For today’s lesson, I select the article that appeared at the top right on the front page of the print edition on Monday April 5. (Top right of the front page would be the article that they designated as the most important “news” piece of the day.) The headline of this one is “Many Need Food, Energizing Push To Expand Relief.” The byline is Jason DeParle.

  • The subject of this article fits under the “poverty” category of DeParle’s beat, rather than immigration. It is a given that this article will be an exercise in political advocacy.

  • That is not why we are looking at it. We are looking at it to try to understand this fundamental issue: Is DeParle, after covering “poverty” for the Times “extensively” for over 30 years, still completely ignorant about the subject? Or, alternatively, is he intentionally misrepresenting the facts in order to deceive the readership for his noble cause?

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The Hunter Biden Story Is Mainly About Presidential And Media Corruption

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The Hunter Biden Story Is Mainly About Presidential And Media Corruption
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The Latest On The "Stupidest Litigation" In The Country

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  • Perhaps you are amazed at the millions of people who have bought into the idea that the gradually increasing level of a trace atmospheric gas (CO2, currently about 0.04% of the atmosphere) is going to bring about world climate doom a hundred or so years from now.

  • You may be even more amazed at the similarly large numbers of people who seem to think that the salvation from this doom is to be found in bringing lawsuits against various companies that produce fossil fuels and getting some court somewhere to order that the companies do . . . what exactly? And that is going to avert the climate doom . . . how exactly?

  • I can’t answer those questions. But the posing of the questions has led me, as a service to readers, to try to follow some of these ridiculous lawsuits, which I have dubbed the “stupidest litigations” in the country.

  • On Thursday (April 1), the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that only applies directly to one case, but for reasons I will describe has potentially dealt a serious blow to all of the cases. . . .

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U.S. Gets Ready To Go Full Venezuela On Economic Policy

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U.S. Gets Ready To Go Full Venezuela On Economic Policy

  • It was in 1998 — a mere 23 years ago — that Hugo Chavez first got elected President of Venezuela.

  • From the start, his program was explicitly one of vastly increased government spending, which was supposed to make the economy grow, reduce income inequality, eliminate poverty and bring about social justice. Chavez called his social programs his “Bolivarian missions.” Among some 30 or so such “missions,” big ones included blowout spending on education, subsidized food, subsidized housing and healthcare.

  • In the early years, things seemed to be going swimmingly, at least if you believed the official statistics put out by Chavez’s government. Not only was there supposedly steady and mostly rapid economic growth (often over 5% per year, particularly 2004-10), but they also regularly crowed about how the redistributionist spending had greatly reduced the rate of poverty.

  • Then, starting around 2013, it all started to fall apart. Today, eight years later, it continues to fall apart. More details on that later.

  • Yesterday, the Biden White House put out what they call the “American Jobs Plan.” . . .

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Update On Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn Litigation

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  • In my last post a couple of days ago, I referred to the defamation lawsuit brought by Michael Mann against Mark Steyn as an example of abusive litigation seeking to use the expense of the legal process to suppress public debate on an important subject.

  • The lawsuit was originally brought in October 2012. Other defendants in the case include National Review (where Steyn published the blog post that is the subject of the lawsuit), Competitive Enterprise Insititute (which published another blog post which Steyn used as a basis for his own post) and Rand Simberg (author of the CEI blog post).

  • The tortured history of this case very well illustrates the difficulty of trying to strike a good balance between, on the one hand, having libel law as a mechanism for people to defend themselves against false statements that could ruin their reputations and, on the other hand, having a wildly expensive litigation process that can be wielded as a weapon by the powerful to threaten to bankrupt political opponents and thereby silence debate on important topics of public interest.

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