The Scientific Hypocrites of the Left

Lefties like to think of themselves as the so-called reality-based community, but only so long as reality comports with their beliefs:

The core trait of a scientific mind is that when its commitments clash with evidence, evidence rules. On that count, what grade do liberals deserve? Fail, given their reaction to the latest evidence on universal health care, global warming, and universal preschool.

The policy world was rocked recently by a New England Journal of Medicine study showing that Medicaid doesn't improve the health care outcomes of uninsured individuals...

For two decades, progressives have castigated those questioning global warming as "deniers."

But the Economist, once firmly in the alarmist camp, recently acknowledged that global temperatures have remained stagnant for 15 years even as greenhouse-gas emissions have soared.

This may be because existing models have overestimated the planet's sensitivity. Or because the heat generated is sinking to the ocean bottom. Or because of something else completely...

Numerous studies on Head Start, the federal pre-K program for poor kids, show that its reading and math gains virtually evaporate by fourth grade. And the latest evidence from Oklahoma and Georgia, two states that implemented universal pre-K in the 1990s, only confirms this.

When the facts contradict your expectations, believe the facts.

Update, 5/17/13:  Here's another one:

What’s the Matter With Portland?
The city has been fighting fluoridation for 50 years. Will facts trump fear this month?

Update #2, 5/18/13:  If the thesis is correct, what does that say about these Harvard students?

Harvard students, outraged over a doctoral dissertation arguing that Hispanic immigrants lack “raw cognitive ability or intelligence,” this week urged the university to investigate how the thesis came to be approved and to ban future research on racial superiority...

The thesis was accepted by Harvard in 2009....

The proof is mathematics, and science. To their credit, the school stands by the work:

Ellwood, the Kennedy School dean, said in a statement that any views and conclusions by its graduates do not reflect the views of Harvard. He urged scholars and critics to engage in reasoned discussion and criticism after fully reviewing the work.

“All PhD dissertations are reviewed by a committee of scholars,’’ Ellwood said in the statement. “In this case, the committee consisted of three highly respected and discerning faculty members who come from diverse intellectual traditions.”

George Borjas, chairman of the Kennedy School’s Standing Committee on Public Policy, which accepted Richwine’s work, also defended the paper.

“Jason’s research was sound,’’ wrote Borjas, in an e-mail to the Kennedy School student newspaper, The Citizen. “None of the members of the committee would have signed off on it if they thought that it was shoddy empirical work.”