Why I Don't "Believe" in Science

For some years now, one of the left's favorite tropes has been the phrase "I believe in science." Elizabeth Warren stated it recently in a pretty typical form: "I believe in science. And anyone who doesn’t has no business making decisions about our environment." This was in response to news that scientists who are skeptical of global warming might be allowed to have a voice in shaping public policy. So what it really means, of course, is, "I believe in global warming."

But we owe it to Andrew Yang—a Democratic presidential candidate who just managed to qualify for the televised primary debates by getting more than 65,000 individual campaign contributions—for stating this trope in such a comical form that it gives the game away: "My father has a Ph.D. in Physics. I believe in science."

This prompted some well-deserved mockery along the lines of, "My father was a cartoonist. I believe in Daffy Duck." More important, it captures a lot of what annoys the rest of us about the "I believe in science" crowd. It reduces a serious intellectual issue—a whole worldview and method of thought—to a mere signifier of social group identity.

Read the rest at The Bulwark.