This article from Evolution News points out something that has been happening for decades, so it’s not a surprise, but it is worth mentioning. The issue is using science as a political weapon.

Climate change has long been a political weapon for division, power and money. Evolution is another example. But this article demonstrates one of the pitfalls that occurs when science journals endorse a political candidate.

Sure, I’d love to have every science journal endorse my favored candidate, but is it appropriate to do so? If it’s your candidate, then you might think it’s perfectly fine. But if it’s the opposition candidate, then it’s entirely unacceptable!

The author points out that the credibility of science is at stake. Science faltered during the Covid pandemic with governments mandating masks, forcing vaccines, imposing lockdowns, and requiring social distancing and other ineffective measures. In fact more harm was done than good, with children suffering the most as a result. Not to mention our basic freedoms being assaulted by politicians who flaunted their power by ignoring their own mandates.

According to an article from the National Review, “Science journals do the sector no favors by becoming so overtly political… Moreover, becoming overtly progressively political destroys trust in the science sector among those who are not fellow political travelers. Indeed, earlier this year, a Cambridge professor recently warned that “science” and “activism” are being conflated around the issue of climate change — published, in of all places, Nature.”

Another National Review article says, “Increasingly, those who claim to be science’s greatest defenders do the sector wrong by becoming highly ideological and progressively partisan — as they simultaneously complain that those on the starboard side of politics have lost trust in the science establishment.”

That’s right. People will continue to lose trust in the scientific establishment if its leaders remain highly ideological. Science is great when it’s used properly. But not when it’s abused, and that’s the problem. Science is abused when either side of the political spectrum imposes its ideology upon society, and that is what’s happening now.

So what’s the solution? Stick to the science. And keep science as far away from politics as possible.