Groupthink has become so routine that many scientists aren’t even aware of it. They come to assume that their opinions are not only the norm but also the truth. (In sociology, where the ratio is 44 to 1, a student is much likelier to be taught by a Marxist than by a Republican.) The lopsided ratio has led to another well-documented phenomenon: people’s beliefs become more extreme when they’re surrounded by like-minded colleagues. Academics have traditionally leaned left politically, and many fields have essentially become monocultures, especially in the social sciences, where Democrats now outnumber Republicans by at least 8 to 1. Scientists try to avoid confirmation bias by exposing their work to peer review by critics with different views, but it’s increasingly difficult for liberals to find such critics. When the conclusion went the other way, they quickly found problems with its methodology.
![the real war on science the real war on science](https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/92/9d/929d02d9-f0bb-4fde-bf97-bd35f191be75/embalming.jpg)
Sure enough, the more liberal referees were more likely to recommend publishing the paper favorable to the left-wing activists. Some referees saw a version of the paper showing that the student activists’ mental health was above normal others saw different data, showing it to be below normal. In a classic study of peer review, 75 psychologists were asked to referee a paper about the mental health of left-wing student activists. The first threat is confirmation bias, the well-documented tendency of people to seek out and accept information that confirms their beliefs and prejudices. Bush refused federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but that hardly put a stop to it (and not much changed after Barack Obama reversed the policy).īut two huge threats to science are peculiar to the Left - and they’re getting worse. Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding? What vital research has been corrupted or suppressed? What scientific debate has been silenced? Yes, the book reveals that Republican creationists exist, but they don’t affect the biologists or anthropologists studying evolution. I finished it with the same question about this war that I had at the outset: Where are the casualties? I’ve read the Left’s indictments, including Chris Mooney’s bestseller, The Republican War on Science. I know that sounds strange to Democrats who decry Republican creationists and call themselves the “party of science.” But I’ve done my homework. Conservatives just don’t have that much impact on science. My friends don’t like my answer: because there isn’t much to write about.
![the real war on science the real war on science](https://catorrent.org/uploads/posts/2020-04/1587117691-catorrent-real-war-1.jpg)
![the real war on science the real war on science](https://i0.wp.com/www.realmicentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/God-of-War-Ragnarok.png)
It’s fine to expose pseudoscience on the left, they say, but why aren’t you an equal-opportunity debunker? Why not write about conservatives’ threat to science? My liberal friends sometimes ask me why I don’t devote more of my science journalism to the sins of the Right.