One of the more familiar tropes of American politics is that the Left embraces science while the Right is at best ignorant about science or even hostile to it. Reporters hungry for a “gotcha” moment like to badger Republicans with questions on science, hoping for an easy story, as when, following the 2012 election, one asked Sen. Marco Rubio (R, Fla.) how old he thought the earth was. (Rubio dodged.)

In Science Left Behind, authors Alex Berezow (holder of a doctorate in microbiology and editor of the website RealClearScience) and Hank Campbell (founder and editor of Science 2.0, an independent science communication community) take a hard look at that trope and argue that the Left—especially its green and “progressive” elements—is even more ignorant of or hostile to science than the Right is. Because those powerful elements of the leftist coalition are so prone to anti-scientific notions, they often push for and get laws and regulations that do a great deal of harm.

To support their thesis, the authors contend that the “progressive” Left (and it’s getting hard to find leftists who dare to dissent from that part of their clan) has adopted four myths:

  • Everything natural is good.
  • Everything unnatural is bad.
  • Unchecked science and progress will destroy us.
  • Scientific knowledge is merely relative—just another opinion or worldview.

Throughout the book, Berezow and Campbell show repeatedly that those beliefs drive leftists to take positions for or against ideas without regard to clear scientific evidence that they will make many people worse off.

Food phobia | Food is one area where the progressive opposition to science (and actual progress) has been the most pronounced. They are infatuated with “organic” food (and pay more for it) even though it is no healthier and may be less safe than ordinary produce. That is only a costly personal choice driven by the “everything natural is good” myth, but the authors note that because organic farming is less efficient, it requires more cultivated acreage to get the same yield. Going “organic” isn’t saving the planet.

Far more damaging, though, is the effect of the second myth on food issues. Opposition to anything these progressives perceive as “unnatural” leads them to obstruct scientific advances such as irradiation (which does a much better job of killing harmful pathogens in food than the most careful washing) and genetically modified (GM) crops. Progressives have blocked irradiation on the baseless ground that radiation is always bad for people, never mind that once the pests have been zapped, there is no effect on human consumers. They do their utmost to block or delay the use of GM crops with silly slogans such as, “We’ll create Frankenfoods!” Berezow and Campbell show how absurd those fears are. Increasingly precise genetic modification, which has been used on a hit-or-miss basis for thousands of years as farmers have tried to breed better plants, could lead to greatly improved crops, such as “golden rice” that has the Vitamin A needed by many poor people around the globe. The progressives have used their political clout to put up regulatory obstacles to GM crops.

Energy anxiety | When it comes to energy, progressive anti-science ideas are equally harmful. They have thrown up one ill-conceived roadblock after another in opposing nuclear power (it’s not “natural” to make energy by splitting atoms), to hydroelectric power (dams are inconvenient for fish), drilling for oil (can’t touch the “pristine” Arctic National Wildlife Refuge even though no one goes to that desolate littoral and hardly anything lives there), natural gas (progressives have pushed dubious horror stories about “fracking”), and even wind power (which kills birds). On the other hand, progressives (allied with agricultural interests and a few big businesses) foisted ethanol on the nation—an inefficient fuel that requires steady subsidization, drives up food prices, and even does environmental damage. A few progressives have finally admitted that ethanol is a bad idea.

The authors sum up the mindset of the progressives with regard to energy as follows: “No energy source is perfect and every energy source either poses a risk or some sort of environmental disturbance…. (P)rogressives seem to be holding out for a miracle solution—an unlimited, completely renewable, environmentally sound energy with no downsides whatsoever.” Unfortunately, that childish utopianism gets in the way of energy production we need now.

Obstructing medicine | Speaking of risk, the progressives have managed to enshrine the “Precautionary Principle” into law, although much more so in Europe than the United States. This self-contradicting principle amounts to the demand that any new product or process must be proven safe before the government approves its sale or use. What’s wrong with proving safety? Berezow and Campbell answer that proving anything to be completely safe “isn’t just difficult—it verges on the impossible, since science can’t account for every single possible exigency.” That being the case, progressives who fear something new can always say, “We haven’t done enough testing to be certain it’s safe.”

Among other examples, the precautionary mindset is responsible for preventing the introduction of new medicines that could save many lives and relieve much suffering, on the grounds that testing has not yet proven beyond all doubt that the drugs will never have any harmful effects. The Precautionary Principle fits in perfectly with the anti-science mindset of the progressives because it ignores the inevitable tradeoffs between the known risks of the status quo and the speculative risks of innovations.

Medicine has also been badly affected (maybe we should say “infected”) by the anti-science mindset of the progressives. The most vociferous opponents of childhood vaccinations are found not among religious conservatives, but among left-wing elitists who have been taken in by the anti-vaccine hysteria peddled by a number of media stars. We also learn that the federal government is squandering money on an agency called the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the legislative baby of Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa). The focus of this bureaucracy is homeopathy, the key concept of which is that “like cures like.” Thus, symptoms of a disease should be treated with diluted chemicals that, if undiluted, would cause the same symptoms. The authors call it quackery and note some of the goofy research the center has funded. Progressives may not like your ideas about science, but they don’t mind forcing you to help pay for theirs.

Education and journalism | Worrisome as all of that is, perhaps the most frightening topic the authors examine is the way progressivism is worming its way into our education system. In the world of higher education, progressives have sown a minefield in numerous topics, making research into them or even discussion hazardous. Science, of course, assumes that questions are always open, so it isn’t surprising that the anti-science progressives reject free inquiry into matters central to their belief systems.

One of those matters is gender. Many ardent feminists are progressives and they have decided that the sole acceptable explanation for labor market differences between men and women is discrimination. In 2005, Harvard University’s then-president Larry Summers made the fatal mistake of delicately suggesting at a conference on women in science that one reason why we find more men than women in science departments might be because of the different choices men and women tend to make. For his perfectly reasonable speculation, Summers was relentlessly attacked by feminist progressives, who were later joined by a majority of the Harvard faculty in voting “no confidence” in Summers over his remark. He had stepped on a mine and was dragged off the field, a bloody mess.

Unfortunately, progressive hostility to inquiry is widespread. Berezow and Campbell write, “This problem has become so bad that some scientists are afraid to talk about their research for fear of being labeled sexist—just for pursuing certain hot-button topics.” Gender is one of those topics. So is race. So is climate, unless you toe the correct alarmist line. Science is being politicized in those and other fields as progressives, who now largely control hiring and funding at universities, increasingly place boundaries around the freedom to pursue research.

Another malign impact of progressivism is on science journalism. The authors despair that Americans are losing out on what used to be a reliable, objective source of information about science as older reporters retire and are replaced by young ones who have mostly been steeped in the progressive thought-world. Those reporters are often content to write stories that do little more than repeat the press releases of the many Luddite organizations intent on pushing the “Science will destroy us!” line. Rarely do they ask any probing questions. Increasingly, when Americans read stories about science, they’re reading advocacy journalism without realizing it.

Science and politics | But wait; didn’t President Obama promise in his 2009 Inaugural Address that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place”? Indeed he did, but all he has accomplished, write the authors, is to replace Bush’s conservative anti-science policies with progressive anti-science policies. They offer plenty of evidence to back up that assertion.

Science Left Behind concludes with a chapter devoted to a dozen science issues the authors would like to see the country address in the future. Some of the changes they advocate will appeal to Regulation readers, such as managing resources efficiently, which to the authors largely entails throwing off the obstructionist policies that progressives employ. Other advocated policies are not so appealing, such as deciding on America’s future in space, where the authors seem to suggest that the government needs to remain active.

The trouble with the chapter is that it is hard to see how we can make progress on any of those ideas until we somehow negate the power of anti-science forces to throw monkey wrenches into the gears of genuine progress. The depressing takeaway from this survey is that momentum is strongly with the enemies of progress.

Above all else, the book is a plea to stop politicizing science. I couldn’t agree more. Not just the United States, but the whole world is losing out on goods we could have produced, energy we could have used, innovations that would have helped people (especially poor people), and knowledge we might have acquired—all because so-called progressives keep obstructing science. Berezow and Campbell have done the world a gigantic service by demolishing the myth that the Left is pro-science. It emphatically is not.