to be posted on nobabies.net
Bart Gordon
bart.gordon@klgates.com
Dear Congressman Gordon:
I see you have been quoted (They Said It SCIENCE vol. 341 no. 6141 July 5, 2013 page 15) as having said, “They see science as a liberal plot, to validate something that they don’t think is true, and climate change is a good example.” So far as climate change goes I am happy to leave it to others. I don’t think we understand climate, but there is another issue so important I say let’s agree on trying to stabilize the climate because if you don’t know where you are going it’s probably a good idea to stop.
It is, “science as a liberal plot” that grabs my attention and I should like to make a little plea for tolerance.
I have an issue with babies. The matter of babies is more important than all other issues subject to human decision combined. I think that self evident. The facts indicate – and with an effort I shall not burden you with the facts unless you care to ask – that fertility is dependent on kinship. To a first approximation and barring extremes, more kinship means more fertility and less means less. In the case of less, infertility accumulates over generations with catastrophe at the end. This is going on world wide.
Now the issue is more than important; it is in crisis. I think people ought to be free to choose but of course cannot be free unless they understand what the results of their choices are. The ignorance on this matter is almost total so I have pretty much made it my life’s work to spread the word with stunning lack of success although I can prove the effect in the lab.
So you know what I believe and you know what my experience is. Back a couple generations there really was a liberal plot. They wanted to integrate the schools. Once it was clear that people had a right to enter public institutions, schools included, regardless of race, they were not content. They managed to force people to go to schools in the name of integration. At that point they ceased to be espousing freedom and were fighting against freedom. “Freedom to pursue happiness” be hanged, eh what?
Schools of course are social institutions as well as academic. The predictable result was that intermarriage would occur, and so it did although not to a great degree.
Now you see the conflict. If I say, “Hey. It matters who marries whom. It is a biological issue,” I could be branded as a racist. I don’t care about “race.” I hate to use the word and I don’t really believe it reflects any biological reality. Race actually has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter whether you marry a tenth cousin (likely the same “race”) or a one thousandth cousin (likely not the same “race”); the implications are the same. But it makes a serious difference whether you marry a fourth cousin or a tenth cousin; the results are significantly different in one generation and over several generations become overwhelming.
So I run around and try to contact scientists and get them to take notice of what other scientists have shown. That’s their job, isn’t it?
Brick wall. I hit a (insert favorite expletive) brick wall. I can understand why politicians, religious leaders, artists or others might not care. I don’t understand how anybody with a stake in the future could fail to care, but I see why most people might not even look at the facts. Scientists should but by and large ignore the matter.
I don’t suspect for an instant that there is a “plot.” Were there one, they would have recruited me. They haven’t tried so they are not there. But the sense of being frozen out is quite palpable.
So my plea is, have some tolerance for people who think science is a plot. It can seem like that even from the inside.
Sincerely,
M. Linton Herbert MD
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