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March for Science Gets “Hijacked” by Partisanship

Hijacked March.JPG

The Left twists any and every discreet issue, politicizing it into the usual culture war agenda items. Now it’s the March for Science, which presents “colonization, racism, immigration, native rights, sexism, ableism,” etc. as “scientific issues.”

Over at the American Council on Science and Health blog, Alex Berezow (with whom I have sometimes disagreed) sounds the alarm and explains why he won’t be marching:

I wrote previously of my concern that the Science March would be hijacked by the kind of political partisanship it should instead be concerned about – and that has indeed come true. This fear was based on not-so-subtle hints provided by its Twitter feed, such as embracing “intersectionality” (a concept taught in classes on feminism) as a core principle.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with science, you’re certainly not alone. The answer, of course, is nothing. These issues are the primary concern of revisionist historians and social justice warriors, not empirically minded scientists.

Berezow is exactly right: For example, science can tell us the biological nature of a fetus. It cannot tell us whether it is right or wrong to have an abortion. Questions like that belong in a discussion of morality, ethics, or religion.

If science properly understood ever becomes conflated in the public mind with left-wing advocacy, it will profoundly harm that crucial sector and hence, the human future. Science is already too politicized by policy or ethical debates that turn into fights over whether one side or the other is “anti-science.”

I suspect that if we were to dig deep enough, we would find George Soros money paying for all of this. Be that as it may, no reputable scientist should march in the March for Science.

Photo credit: Infrogmation [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cross-posted at The Corner.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

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