Politics invariably gets way ahead of the science

Robert Tracinski writes at The Federalist,

I wrote recently about seven big failed environmentalist predictions, from global cooling to the population bomb (which the New York Times, always on the cutting edge, has just noticed was a complete bust). But it’s not only the big scientific theories they’ve gotten wrong. When science gets harnessed for a political cause, it tends to produce a running series of oversold theories that don’t bear up under further examination.

Here are five examples that recently crossed my desk.

1) Electric cars aren’t all that “green.” ...if the electric cars ever actually become convenient and affordable for the masses—which is still a very long way off—environmentalists will suddenly discover all of the hundreds of thousands of tons of heavy metals that are being stripped out of the Earth to build them, then combined with various chemical concoctions and distributed carelessly on our roadways.

2) Global warming isn’t killing the bees. ...Recently, scientists serendipitously discovered what looks like the actual cause of colony collapse: the spread of a parasitic fly that attacks the bees and uses them to grow its own larvae. ...The fly is not spread, as far as anyone can tell, by warmer weather. (And even if it were, global temperatures have been flat for the past 15 to 20 years.) Instead, it seems to be spread by the increased transportation of honeybees across the country by beekeepers.

3) It’s not killing the frogs, either. Global warming was also supposed to be killing frogs. But again, new studies indicate that the frogs are being killed by a natural pathogen, the chytrid fungus, and that its spread has been accelerated by the natural weather pattern known as El Niño, and not by some anomalous global warming.

Nature is always roiled by competition between species, which includes the spread of natural pathogens that evolve to prey on a particular species, which in turn evolves to avoid the pathogens. This has been going on since the beginning of life on Earth, and those who seek some extraordinary cause for every new pathogen are the ones who are denying science.

But the temptation is understandable, if not entirely forgivable. It’s driven by something scientists refer to, when talking amongst themselves, as “grantsmanship”: the skill of writing a grant proposal in a way that is more likely to win funding, particularly from government agencies. So if you just want to study frogs, for God’s sake don’t say that. How much money can there possibly be for studying frogs? Instead, say that you want to study the effect of climate change on frogs. Now you’re tapping into a much larger fund, the money set aside for studying “climate change.” So you’re more likely to get your grant, while some other poor sucker who just wants to study frogs gets left out.

4) “Organic” food is grown with pesticides.

Tracinski links to an article by Andrew Porterfield in Genetic Literacy Project:

The USDA National List of allowed pesticides for organic growers is quite long. The list includes some substances that one would assume would be relatively harmless, such as mulch, dairy cultures or vitamin B. But others on the list should raise eyebrows: Copper sulfate, elemental sulfur, borax and borates are all known to cause some harm to humans and are approved members of the organic list. Among “synthetic” pesticides, pyrethrums are still allowed, and Vitamin C that is chemically derived (and therefore synthetic) is allowed, as are various forms of alcohol.

Read more here.
Tracinski continues,

5) Genetically modified organisms are natural.

Tracinski links to this news report from May 22 at Reuters:

All human beings, two Cambridge University scientists have established, are genetically modified, including Chipotle’s customers. Over the years, hundreds of foreign genes have jumped into human DNA through a natural phenomenon called “gene flow.” As a result, all humans carry genes that originated in algae, bacteria and fungi. If humans can safely accept alien genes without mishap, why not food, too?

When fears about genetically modified foods first arose, little was known about gene flow, also called horizontal gene transfer. The idea that genes could jump across species violated then-conventional wisdom. But scientific research has established that natural gene transfers regularly occur. So genetic transfers are not a human invention—just a belated human effort to imitate what nature has been doing all along.

Tracinski concludes,

These are just a few more reminders that we should be skeptical when science is dragooned for a fashionable political cause. Because the politics invariably gets way ahead of the science.