Science Has Left the Building

Over the past few days, we’ve been having some fun on Twitter regarding the Democrats and “Science.”  The Democrat-controlled Minnesota Legislature is about to ban electronic cigarettes.  The Democrats (styled “DFL” in Minnesota) will accomplish this feat by declaring e-cigs to be tobacco, the physics and chemistry of the matter, notwithstanding.

In that context, political operative Brian Cook recalled this "news" story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune from a year ago.  The Star Tribune piece opened with this startling sentence,

Science made a comeback at the State Capitol on Tuesday.

Headlined “Minnesota legislators and scientists team up on climate change,” the article promises that the then newly-installed Democrat majority would elevate the role of “science” in their decision making and would tackle the issue of global warming.  In the event, they have done neither.

As I pointed out recently, Minnesota is about to miss its first statutory deadline (2015) for reducing greenhouse gasses.  State Democrats—who enjoy a complete monopoly on power—are oddly silent about the failure of one of their signature issues.

The Star Tribune wrote a year ago,

The point, Reps. Jean Wagenius and Alice Hausman said, is that the DFL-controlled House intends to base new laws and policy decisions--especially those related to climate change--on research rather than dogma.

"It's science vs. ideology," said Hausman, a DFLer from St. Paul and chairwoman of the House Capital Investment Committee, describing a debate that is going on nationally as well. "There are still some that question the science."

The Star Tribune wrote this week,

“I have not seen the scientific data that says this is dangerous if you’re simply in the same room as someone using an e-cigarette,” said Rep. Will Morgan, DFL-Burnsville. “I’m a physics teacher. I think we should rely on science for decisions like that.”

At some point in the last year, it seems, “science” has left the building.