In my recent post, “The Dangers of Political Science,” I tried to make the case that the politicization of our scientific and research institutions was not just unhelpful, but dangerous. I attempted to draw a parallel between our response to COVID-19 and our response to global warming, although I did so with an accompanying picture of Al Gore, not with text. See if you notice the same similarities that I do, between our COVID-19 and climate change policies:

So they mix good data with bad, find in that complex data a consistent pattern that does not exist, and demand that we all follow a plan of centralized control, much of which isn’t clear to have benefit.

They then pre-emptively declare that any who are foolish enough to question them are dangerous radicals. So those who want to control society based on questionable data are just being reasonable. But those who stop and think about all this are radicals.

What bothers me about all this is that we have agreed that “science” should be our leader, if not our God. Leftists don’t say that conservatives are promoting policies which are unlikely to help – they say that we “don’t believe in science.” And, it goes without saying, that non-believers and their dangerous radicalism should be publicly shamed and denounced. This may sound foreign to modern Christians, but modern Muslims are slowly nodding their heads right now.

A couple of years ago, Harrison Ford gave a fiery speech about climate science. I found that odd, so I wrote a column about it: “Those Who ‘Believe in Science’ Don’t Understand Science.” I tried to make the point that in math & science, there’s really nothing to believe in. It either works, or it doesn’t. If you think something is incorrect, do a study and see if your hunch is correct. But don’t give passionate speeches trying to convince me of something that you don’t understand. The only reason that anyone gets passionate about statistical analysis is if they’re trying to pull a fast one on somebody.

But it’s important to note that Mr. Ford was not declaring himself to be the leader of this particular leftist cause – the leader is science itself.  Like Mr. Ford’s speech, this seems odd.

The left seems to have difficulty finding appropriate leaders. No leftist politician can cite God as an inspiration unless that leftist politician is black. But no one really thinks that Al Sharpton is simply following the example of Jesus wherever it might lead, so that’s sort of ok. No, they must choose human examples of virtue and sacrifice for leftist causes, which is naturally a tricky business.

To point out police brutality against blacks, leftists chose long-time criminal Michael Brown, who died soon after he robbed a convenience store again when he assaulted a police officer and was shot. They then tried George Floyd, a long-time criminal, and drug addict, who appears to have died of an overdose while being restrained by police.

These are not inspiring figures.

To promote the left’s effort to overturn the 2^nd amendment, they chose an unlikeable publicity-seeking Florida teenager, with no particular expertise in gun legislation or anything else. To promote the left’s effort to gain control of society by leveraging our fear of climate change, they chose an unlikeable publicity-seeking Swedish teenager, with no particular expertise in climate science or anything else.

Cindy Sheehan for the antiwar movement. Christine Blasey-Ford for the Kavanaugh nomination. Al Gore for global warming. Hillary Clinton for women’s rights against sexual abusers. And on and on and on.

Granted, when the whole point of your political movement is to gain control over other people, it can sometimes be difficult to find admirable role models among your supporters. But even so, the leftist struggle to find inspiring leaders has proven to be a recurring problem.

So they’ve stopped trying.

In an effort to win this presidential election, they could have nominated an inspiring leader with a record of honesty, accomplishment, and leadership. The Democrats nominated Joe Biden. They didn’t even try. They’ve given up. And I can’t blame them.

Instead, they’ve decided to return to the worship of a god, who cannot be ridiculed the way their human representatives typically are. The obvious problem with that, however, is that all the major religions believe in things. That is completely unhelpful to a political movement that simply seeks power, and thus needs a more, um, flexible approach to ideology.

So they quickly discarded the more popular Gods out there and decided to design their own. It’s called ‘science.’ And thou shalt not question science. Whatever the heck it says this week.

Leftist control of our educational system has ensured that very few American citizens have a working understanding of math or science, so they can say that science says whatever is convenient for them at the time. Thus, the ideology of this god is completely flexible and easy to adjust, while the authority of this god remains beyond reproach. For leftists, who have searched in vain for a source of authority ever since Marxism collapsed, this god is perfect. And thou shalt have no other gods before science.

Believing in ‘science’ is dangerous even if the science is honest – there are so many things that science doesn’t understand, and so many things beyond its scope.

But when our ‘science’ becomes simply a tool of the left, then the worship of this new god goes from unhelpful to dangerous.

We should treat this new religion like the open threat that it is.