The Golden Age of scientific research has come and gone, says Austin Ruse in his book Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data: “If you’re a scientist, you’ll discover that vital funding, opportunities for publication, and the other necessary accoutrements of a successful career are difficult to come by if your research challenges the leftist narrative.”
It’s relatively easy to purge any organization of dissent. For decades now, hiring and firing practices have culled all but those on the Left. First, get Leftist leaders and administrators in place, then use the rewards and punishments mechanisms to move out undesirable professors. This started decades ago at universities. Now the transformation is complete—though unstated and never above board.
Science professors were the last to surrender, but most faculty have families to feed, and bills to pay. You quickly discover what mindset it will take to survive. Play ball with your team, and a regular paycheck and eventual pension will be waiting. Students become customers, and the college itself a business. Professors become more like pedagogy-oriented salesmen while students keep their eyes on the financial rewards awaiting them.
Fake science is embraced, says Ruse. While one-time “Real science improves all our lives exponentially because it tells us the truth about the world we live in,” the fake science “that the Left is pushing does just the opposite. It establishes fraud, propaganda, and even…literal insanity as the basis of our public policy, with disastrous results.”
Money rules academe just as it does all other businesses and corporations. Independent study and disinterested truth-seeking aren’t practical. But Ruse insists that “We can’t concede science to the Left. It’s too important. We have to fight to take the mantle of science back from the leftists who have appropriated it for their very unscientific agenda.”
Fake science is extremely politicized, but “Public policy issues—which in the current political climate covers not only the direction of our country but the intimate details of our lives—are too important to be left to ideologues, even if they call themselves ‘scientists.’”
Ruse’s prose style is meant to be clear and engaging, not deliberately obscure like so much academic and legal writing. His book covers most of the current issues that conservatives incorrectly assume are protected by “science” and political correctness. The chapters deal successively with 1) fake poling and the 2016 election 2) transgenderism 3) homosexuality 4) abortion 5) the Sexual Revolution 6) divorce 7) food and nutrition scams 8) poverty and hunger rackets 9) petroleum fracking and 10) global warming.
Ruse is an activist as he asks the public not to be cowed by fake science: “Even now, your local school board is probably debating what to do about the transgender issue, inviting so-called experts into their meetings and into the halls of your schools to spout the latest nonsense. Will you simply stand aside and let them have the field uncontested? There is plenty of hard science that debunks ‘transgenderism.’ Boys are boys and girls are girls; science confirms what we all know is common sense.”
