Science's three card monte

While the MSM has assiduously been keeping America's attention focused on intelligent design, and waving it around as a sign that conservatives are messing with science, the real deal -- the real scientific manipulation -- is happening on the liberal side of the spectrum, says Michael Fumento. They've done so with respect to global warming:

Last September, after Hurricane Katrina, activists in lab coats saw a grand opportunity to tie the exceptionally violent hurricane season to global warming. A study in Science declared, "A large increase was seen in the number and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5." But the researchers simply cut off their data at 1970, though public statistics go back to 1850. Using the full data set would have reversed the conclusion. Why did the editors and peer-reviewers at both JAMA and Science not insist on use of the full data set? Because slicing off inconvenient data is a time-honored tool of advocacy science.

They've done so with respect to the differences between men and women (obvious to every parent of boys and girls):

Yet published studies at least are subject to debunking. Try reading between lines that don't exist because journals refuse to publish them. Such was the case this month when Science killed a paper at the very last minute by respected British scientist Peter Lawrence. It criticized "the cult of political correctness" that insists men and women are born thinking alike. Editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy explained it didn't "lead to a clear strategy about how to deal with the gender issue" — as if Science hasn't published countless papers on global warming with no strategy on how to deal with it.

They've done so with respect to putting a "scientific gloss" on the Iraq War:

Some journal editors are completely unabashed about their chicanery. In 2004, The Lancet released ahead of publication and right before the 2004 U.S. presidential election an outrageous report claiming 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed since the U.S. invasion. Yet other calculations showed a range of 15,000 to 24,000 — and even Osama bin Laden claimed just "over 15,000." No matter, the Lancet's editor took the opportunity to blast "democratic imperialism" and said "the evidence we publish today must change heads as well as pierce hearts."

The same thing showed up again just this morning. CBS has released a poll boldly proclaiming that Pres. Bush's approval rating is down to an all time 34% low. Well! That must be true, since we all know that polls are a collection of carefully balanced data with narrow statistical probabilities of error. Not! Turns out that the poll was heavily weighted in favor of Democratic respondents, something CBS conveniently forgot to mention in the body of its article reporting the polling data. Wait -- I'm thinking of a new name for this one. How about "Pollgate"? One used to be able to rely on science as a bastion of objectivity in a subjective world. Indeed, that's the true nature of science -- the ability to use purely factual data to draw a replicatable and reviewable conclusion that doesn't yield to doctrinal persuasion. Once our science is corrupt, we have nothing left. Hat tip: Power Line; Drudge Report Talking to Technorati: Polls, Science