Elected officials and politicians have staked out positions that are unsupported by facts, and the reality that the vast majority of scientists have proven those positions to be indefensible does not seem to matter to those who refuse to alter their views regardless of the ample evidence that disproves them. Instead of looking at the mountains of verifiable data, these science deniers choose to cherry pick ‘evidence’ from the microscopic segment of the scientific community that simply reaffirms what they already believe in. In the deniers’ point of view, if just 1% of scientists back up their positions, they have been vindicated and the near unanimity among the rest of the scientific community is cheerfully ignored; they hold that even if 99% of scientists agree that the deniers are wrong, that 99% is entirely comprised of the lying tools of corporations and other rich boogeymen committed to maintaining the status quo at all costs. Any who do not hew to the Party orthodoxy concerning science denial are branded as heretics and viewed with mistrust, and their failure to display rigid obedience can lead to exile from their political Party and even political death. Meanwhile, Americans who believe that the best way to govern is to use evidence-based, scientifically sound data to form the foundation of policy, are learning to steer clear of these anti-science zealots and the Democratic Party that they call home.

After reading that, one might be thinking that I have it wrong and it is Republicans who are spitting in the face of the global scientific consensus because of their Party’s position on climate change and their drive to make decisions on women’s healthcare without even the most basic understanding of the female reproductive system, and one would be right to think that. However, science-denial is now a bipartisan affair. Many of the same Liberals who arrogantly mock conservatives for believing that many policies that impact human lives should be based on blind religious faith rather than hard data are themselves firmly committed to the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements. While Liberals have the scientific community on their side on the issue of climate change, they are in the opposite situation concerning both GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and the benefits of certain vaccines. Many Liberals appear unaware of the inconsistency of contending that to question the overwhelming scientific majority on climate change in any way is the mark of a fool, a liar, or a tool of Big Oil, while simultaneously claiming that, when it comes to GMOs and vaccines, the majority of scientists they celebrate concerning climate change are the stooges, liars, and tools of big business. And just as Conservatives claim that the sliver of a minority of scientists are the only ones ‘brave enough’ to stand up to their peers by refusing to accept the mountain of data (or, as the Right sees it, refusing to subscribe to the hoax of climate change that the scientists are trying to force on the world) that proves climate change is real, Liberals hold that the few scientists ‘brave enough,’ to ignore the data on the safety of GMOs and efficacy of vaccines are the ones who have it right. Liberals have long scorned many Conservatives for using whatever facts support their deeply held convictions as validation those beliefs, while willfully choosing to ignore any ‘inconvenient truths’ (thanks Al Gore) that disprove those convictions in order to hold onto their preferred viewpoints, but now the Liberals are doing it too.

A major problem for political discourse about science is that it is not enough for one Party to claim that the scientists who disagree with its views are incorrect, but the ethics, motives, and intelligence of those researchers must be attacked. Again, this troubling trend is unfortunately bipartisan, and while Republicans try to eviscerate the reputations of any economists who show that there are now 35-years of evidence that tax cuts for the rich do not lead to a general prosperity for all, Democrats try to destroy those who favor things like nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to coal and oil-burning power plants. Those who disagree with one side or the other are not honest people who believe that there is a better way to do things, but is a greedy enemy of all that is good and decent. In some ways this is even worse on the Liberal side, as decades of pointing to factual evidence because it has supported Democratic contentions has led to a hyper-arrogance that, long aimed at Conservatives, is now being redirected inward.

One of the best exemplars of this kind of Liberal arrogance is Bill Maher, who spends a large part of his time ripping the religious to shreds, and who now takes time to compare Monsanto to the Nazis, and to tear down any who have the audacity to question whether genetically modified crops are 100% bad. Monsanto does not warrant a vigorous defense, and it is absolutely guilty of most of the same crimes that other gigantic multinational corporations engage in on a regular basis; it is committed to its shareholders and not to the well-being of anyone else, the same as almost all other multinational corporations. That said, Maher’s exaggerated claims that the company is ‘evil’ in ways other corporations are not, or somehow equivalent to Nazis reveals a powerful cognitive dissonance where Maher, a man who has made his living mocking those who choose to believe in something (like religion) without a scrap of evidence, in this case chooses to side with those who are producing the scraps, and he has done so without sacrificing his normal smug self-righteous shtick. Maher casts everything in terms of black and white, good and evil, but he is just the symptom of a political culture that is largely shaped by cable news stations and a media that wants everything to be placed into the box of good or bad because it is more exciting and therefore more likely to attract viewers and readers. Every issue is presented as having two sides that are equal in merit; everything must be presented as black or white, and nothing is gray because gray is boring.

Unfortunately, discussing whether or not the majority of vaccines are beneficial and necessary (and most are) does not make for good TV. The anti-vaccination contingent argues that the pharmaceutical industry or ‘Big Pharma’ is peddling vaccines it knows to be either needless or even harmful, the truth is that Big Pharma would probably make more money if they refused to produce vaccines: if they did not produce vaccines, the industry would then be able to sell the cures for many illnesses (such as mumps, measles, and more) that are largely eradicated, making a huge profit. The anti-vaccine movement is largely the consequence of the work of one man: Doctor Andrew Wakefield of the United Kingdom. In 1998 Wakefield published a paper hypothesizing a link between certain vaccines and autism, and his work was quickly debunked by his peers while his evidence was found to be largely fraudulent. However, by the time it was debunked the idea was unfortunately catching as if Wakefield’s quackery was itself a contagious disease. Celebrities and others who should have known better bought everything Wakefield said, and as a result the USA, the richest nation on earth, is seeing a return of viruses and diseases that have been stamped out even in the most impoverished nations on earth. In 2010 Wakefield even lost his license to practice medicine in the U.K. due to the fact that his irresponsible and unsubstantiated claims led to such a panic, but it was too late. Wakefield’s crackpot theories have refused to die and who knows how many will pay, some no doubt with their lives, for his irresponsible work before the USA and the world at large finally shake off this literally unhealthy skepticism of vaccines.

The movement against genetically modified organisms is another part of the building anti-science wing of the Democratic Party. The anti-GMO movement mostly comes out of a fear of things that are not perceived as ‘natural’ and the corresponding belief that all things that ARE natural are inherently good and anything that anything that is not considered natural is bad. Around 52% of Americans believe that GMOs are bad for them, and this belief persists in spite of the fact that, according to the nonpartisan American Association for the Advancement of Science, 89% of scientists worldwide agree that GMOs are safe for human consumption. Crops like corn (by far the most common genetically modified crop in the USA), are modified to make the corn resistant to certain pests and herbicides, and a majority of scientists not only believe that GMOs are safe, but that genetically modified food may be the solution to potential food shortages and famine. Scientists take the more desirable traits of things like corn and cotton and replicate them to make them better and more plentiful. And yet, the public fear of GMOs is very real, and it is why supermarkets like Trader Joes and Whole Foods are moving away from GMO foods and why the restaurant chain Chipotle recently announced that it would be doing the same. These actions and the reputation of Monsanto and others have made the job of scientists speaking the truth harder and harder, and they are left without their usual allies – Liberals and Liberal intellectuals – and therefore they have struggled to convince the public of the truth.

The strain of science denial that has become so prevalent on the Left these days is just as pronounced as that on the Right, but it comes from a very different place. While much of the anti-science part of the Republican Party comes from the most religious members of the Party, the Liberal fear of vaccines and GMOs comes from an ingrained belief that everything that comes from nature is inherently superior and better for human beings than anything that has been shaped by human beings. To this group ‘organic’ is synonymous for ‘good’ and non-organic food is ‘bad.’ Of course, this view ignores the countless ‘natural’ things on earth that are dangerous or even deadly to humanity, or that laboratories have produced medicines and food that have saved millions and millions of lives. It is a black and white view that fails to realize that these particular issues are too complex to fit into that narrative, and It is the kind of fear that had led to things like the gluten-free movement in spite of the fact that unless a person has a specific allergy to gluten, there is no harm at all in eating it. The main beneficiaries to the anti-gluten movement have been many of those same multinational corporations that so many Liberals hate, as an uninformed American public rushed to spend millions of dollars for over-priced and utterly unnecessary gluten-free food. And now we see big businesses rushing to exploit the anti-GMO fad, charging consumers more money for many products that are considered by 89% of scientists to be no healthier than their cheaper and ‘evil’ GMO counterparts.

While it may seem cynical to say so, experience seems to show that the raw data on the efficacy of vaccines and the safety of GM crops won’t matter much to the anti-science wing of the Democratic Party any more than the unanimity of the scientific community regarding climate change has mattered to the Republican Party. But it is the Democratic Party that will likely be more damaged by the growth of the science-denial among its ranks because a fact-fueled arrogance long ago infected the Liberal community and has remained even in the face of growing anti-science sentiment. It is the kind of arrogance that Bill Maher says only exists in religion, a certainty whereby someone believes in something so strongly that there are no numbers or facts that can possibly impact the person’s world view. And while the Liberal confidence regarding its opposition to vaccines and genetically modified food does not have religion at its roots, it may be every bit as resistant to facts as the religion-driven certainty of the Conservatives. And yet, if there was some vaccine that could cure the Democratic Party of its slide toward an unhealthy skepticism of science, how could one get the infected Liberals to take it?