An Essay: Non-Overlapping Magesteria

Stephen Jay Gould, 1941-2002

Magisterium: The teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church, especially as exercised by bishops or the Pope

Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist wrote an essay, Nonoverlapping Magesteria, in response to a statement by Pope John Paul II on October 22, 1996, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The statement, entitled “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth”, defended both the evidence for evolution and the consistency of the theory with Catholic religious doctrine. Gould found the worldwide publicity the statement received puzzling because it did not appear to state anything new. As far as Gould knew, there was no conflict between church doctrine and evolution. The church valued science and there was no conflict with evidence about evolution as long as religious people believed that “at some time of his choosing, God had infused the soul into such a creature.”

That doctrine was fine with Gould, a Jewish agnostic, because “science cannot touch such a subject and therefore cannot be threatened by any theological position on such a legitimately and intrinsically religious issue.” To try to figure out what prompted such a widespread public response to the 1996 proclamation, Gould read two church pronouncements on evolution, Pope Pius's Humani Generis of 1950 and Pope John Paul's October 1996 proclamation. That made the basis for the uproar very clear. Once he understood the facts, Gould said the 1996 proclamation “could not be more welcome for evolutionists and friends of both science and religion.”



In Gould’s view, science and religion were nonoverlapping magesteria where knowledge and teaching from one area could not overlap into each other’s domain. He explained: “The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. . . . . This resolution might remain all neat and clean if the nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) of science and religion were separated by an extensive no man's land. But, in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer—and the sorting of legitimate domains can become quite complex and difficult.”

Doctrine in 1950: Gould explained church doctrine in 1950 like this: “In short, Pius forcefully proclaimed that while evolution may be legitimate in principle, the theory, in fact, had not been proven and might well be entirely wrong. One gets the strong impression, moreover, that Pius was rooting pretty hard for a verdict of falsity. . . . . To summarize, Pius generally accepts the NOMA principle of nonoverlapping magisteria in permitting Catholics to entertain the hypothesis of evolution for the human body so long as they accept the divine infusion of the soul. But he then offers some (holy) fatherly advice to scientists about the status of evolution as a scientific concept: the idea is not yet proven, and you all need to be especially cautious because evolution raises many troubling issues right on the border of my magisterium.”

In 1950, evolution was ruffling the church magesterium’s skirts and that made the pope uneasy.

Doctrine in 1996: “John Paul—states and I can only say amen, and thanks for noticing—that the half century between Pius's surveying the ruins of World War II and his own pontificate heralding the dawn of a new millennium has witnessed such a growth of data, and such a refinement of theory, that evolution can no longer be doubted by people of good will . . . . . John Paul, nearly fifty years later, reaffirms the legitimacy of evolution under the NOMA principle—no news here—but then adds that additional data and theory have placed the factuality of evolution beyond reasonable doubt. Sincere Christians must now accept evolution not merely as a plausible possibility but also as an effectively proven fact. In other words, official Catholic opinion on evolution has moved from ‘say it ain't so, but we can deal with it if we have to’ (Pius's grudging view of 1950) to John Paul's entirely welcoming ‘it has been proven true; we always celebrate nature's factuality, and we look forward to interesting discussions of theological implications.’”

Hence, the Catholic church made a full declaration peace with evolution in 1996. Before then, it was just an uneasy truce of sorts.

Are the science and religious magesteria really nonoverlapping?: Gould argues that the Catholic magesterium or religion is where “the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives” should occur. That assertion seems to say that human cognitive or social science have little or nothing to say about either spirituality or ethics/morals. Is that true?

His essay is explicit that he sees no overlap, but instead he sees “two magisteria [that] bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border.”

When he wrote Nonoverlapping Magesteria, presumably in the mid or late 1990s, cognitive and social science had generated at least some data on the biology of spirituality and ethics/morals, although those areas of inquiry have advanced significantly since then. Presumably, Gould believed the data he was aware of at that time did not lead him to think that science could, or maybe ever would, generate knowledge and insights about spirituality and ethics or morals.

It is worth noting that Gould seems to reject Creationism and a literal reading of the bible, which would seem to violate his view that the separation of church and science is inviolate. He dismisses ‘scientific creationism’, which he sees an an oxymoron like this: “Creationism is a local and parochial movement, powerful only in the United States among Western nations, and prevalent only among the few sectors of American Protestantism that choose to read the Bible as an inerrant document, literally true in every jot and tittle.”

From a 2018 point of view, cognitive and social science have generated a great deal of empirical data that are claimed to apply to spirituality and ethics or morals. S. Matthew Liao’s 2016 book, Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality, summarizes the state of the art and it cites hundreds of references. That book discusses many experiments showing the morality of things such as life and death decisions and their sensitivity to both personal morals or mindset and social context. Brain scan data shows differential responses when one is in a ‘spiritual’ thinking mode compared to an ‘analytic’ thinking mode. When one of those thinking modes is in operation, it tends to suppress the other.

Could Gould have been mistaken that the magesteria do not overlap? Is it possible that the science magesterium can teach the religious magesterium, but not vice versa? One source states that, in regard to the nonoverlapping magesterium hyopthesis, “Gould put forward what he described as ‘a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to . . . the supposed conflict between science and religion.’ . . . . If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions residing properly within the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution.”

Maybe scientists can claim insight at least into the biology of moral truth, but not ‘higher insight’. That raises the question of what is the difference between ‘higher insight’ and insight from science? That would appear to be a question for the church magesterium or magesteria to decide.

B&B orig: 9/198/18

Ideological Cleansing: Republican RINO Hunts Continue Bagging Game

The New York Times published this editorial last June. It speaks for itself.

“When the obituary for the Republican Party is written, the year 1980 will be cited as the beginning of the end. Reaganism was in full flower, but the big tent was already folding. Republican leaders endorsed a constitutional ban on abortion at the convention that summer, ending the party’s historic commitment to women’s rights and personal freedom.

‘We are about to bury the rights of over 100 million American women under a heap of platitudes,’ protested Mary Dent Crisp, the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Her colleagues assured her that the platform was nonbinding and that reproductive health services were not in danger.

But she was prescient. As pro-choice Republicans, we refuse to support a party that has rightly earned the labels anti-woman and anti-common sense. Our organization, the Republican Majority for Choice, the organization founded by Ms. Crisp in 1988, is shutting its doors. The big tent has collapsed for good.

As Republicans, we spent four decades working inside the party to produce effective policies helping women and families. Despite growing malice from an anti-choice faction, we kept our disagreements within the family. We redoubled our efforts to find common ground, rather than simply walk away.

But these successes [by the Republican Majority for Choice group] were dismissed by party leaders who became increasingly beholden to the social extremists who were winning primaries in our broken, gerrymandered electoral system.

Lifelong Republicans were booed out of state and local committee meetings for just raising abortion rights and family planning ideas. The nastiness escalated to personal attacks on men and women who had dedicated countless hours and dollars to the party.

We don’t have the space to outline President Trump’s transgressions, but it is important to understand that his rise is an inevitable result of the hostility to women within the Republican culture. Women’s reproductive freedom has shifted with the wind: Remember that Ronald Reagan once supported abortion rights, as did George H. W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Mr. Trump himself.

It is no wonder that women are voting with their feet. According to a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of women identify as or lean toward Democrats. The gap is even wider among college graduates and minority voters. The party should take note that 70 percent of millennial women have either registered as Democrats or lean Democratic. We will no longer be available to help the Republicans appeal to these changing demographic realities.

It has become taboo within the party to even say ‘pro-choice’. Most of our supporters gave up on the party as it moved to the extremes not just on abortion but also on other social and fiscal issues.

This Republican Party is no family of ours. And so we say goodbye.”

B&B orig: 9/20/18

Statistics on Women Alleging Sexual Assault

The issue of allegations of sexual assault by women is currently relevant and highly divisive. Being aware of statistics about it helps put the issue in a more rational context. (NOTE: The statistics here have been challenged as misleading.)

False assault allegations: The BBC recently reported that academic studies over the past 20 years, have led to the conclusion that about 2-10% of sexual assault accusations are false The BBC commented: “Two to 10% is too many, but it is not a big proportion of the total. Fake rape accusations get a lot of attention.” . The lawyer for Prof Ford’s lawyer says she believes Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her client, Christine Ford.

A 2010 research paper from a symposium on false sexual assault allegations commented: “One of the most controversial disputes affecting the discourse related to violence against women is the dispute about the frequency of false allegations of sexual assault. In an effort to add clarity to the discourse, published research on false allegations is critiqued, and the results of a new study described. All cases (N = 136) of sexual assault reported to a major Northeastern university over a 10-year period are analyzed to determine the percentage of false allegations. Of the 136 cases of sexual assault reported over the 10-year period, 8 (5.9%) are coded as false allegations. These results, taken in the context of an examination of previous research, indicate that the prevalence of false allegations is between 2% and 10%.

[The data this 2010 paper reports appears to be in error. The false allegation prevalence is about 17% based on the number of incidents that actually found enough evidence for prosecution or academic discipline.]

Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality. For example, despite decades of careful social science research, prevalence rates are still frequently challenged on political grounds, and bold assertions are made in the absence of any data (e.g., MacDonald, 2008; Roiphe, 1993). And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women ‘cry rape’, that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives. Most famously, Sir Matthew Hale, a chief justice of the court of the King’s bench of England, expressed this view in a form that became the basis for special jury instructions that would be used late into the 20th century (Schafran, 1993). Hale (1847) wrote,

It is true rape is a most detestable crime, and therefore ought severely and impartially to be punished with death; but it must be remembered, that it is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent.

The determination that a report of sexual assault is false can be made only if the evidence establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. This determination can be made only after a thorough investigation. This should not be confused with an investigation that fails to prove a sexual assault occurred. In that case the investigation would be labeled unsubstantiated. The determination that a report is false must be supported by evidence that the assault did not happen. (IACP, 2005b, pp. 12-13; italics in original)”

Senate republicans and president Trump refuse to allow the FBI to do a thorough investigation, Dr Ford’s sexual assault claim is not seen as false under the law. It is simply uninvestigated, not merely unsubstantiated. People who claim the allegation is false are making bold assertions in the absence of data, or even in the face of some contrary data.

The 2010 paper goers on to observe: “All of the methodological issues outlined previously underscore the necessity to scrutinize law enforcement classifications of sexual assault cases. However, such scrutiny requires access to confidential information, and few studies have either attempted or succeeded in obtaining such information. As a result, many published studies on false rape allegations have relied on the classifications made by law enforcement agencies. As such, they are unable to determine whether those classifications adhere to IACP and UCR guidelines and whether they are free of the biases that have frequently been identified in police investigations of rape cases. . . . . Given these serious limitations in the literature on false rape reports, there are actually very few studies that provide meaningful data on the frequency of false reports. Among the 20 sources listed in a recent review article (Rumney, 2006), only a handful provided clear definitions and used systematic methods to evaluate their data.”

Based on that, it seems that much more research on this topic is necessary. Given the importance and social divisiveness of the topic, this should be a high priority academic research topic.

Why women do not report sexual assaults, or delay reporting: The national Institute of Justice wrote in 2010: “The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reports that the majority of rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated against women and girls in the United States between 1992 and 2000 were not reported to the police. Only 36 percent of rapes, 34 percent of attempted rapes, and 26 percent of sexual assaults were reported. Reasons for not reporting assault vary among individuals, but one study identified the following as common:”

1. Self-blame or guilt.
2. Shame, embarrassment, or desire to keep the assault a private matter.
3. Humiliation or fear of the perpetrator or other individual's perceptions.
4. Fear of not being believed or of being accused of playing a role in the crime.
5. Lack of trust in the criminal justice system.

In the case of allegations against Kavanaugh, one can clearly see intense social pressure at play leading many Americans to conclude all allegations are at best confused and false or intentional lies and unwarranted character assassination at worst. Kavanaugh’s defenders point to his sterling character and the delay in reports against him as evidence he could not have ever sexually assaulted any woman. The limited available facts associated with the allegations contradict those assertions and/or are consistent with the allegations.

More recent data indicates the following: “Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police. That means about 2 out of 3 go unreported.”

Individuals of college-age:
Female Students: 20% report
Female Non-Students: 32% report

The elderly:
28% report

Members of the military:
43% of female victims and 10% of male victims reported.

Reasons Victims Choose to Report—or Not:

Of the sexual violence crimes reported to police from 2005-2010, the survivor reporting gave the following reasons for doing so:
28% to protect the household or victim from further crimes by the offender
25% to stop the incident or prevent recurrence or escalation
21% to improve police surveillance or they believed they had a duty to do so
17% to catch/punish/prevent offender from reoffending
6% gave a different answer, or declined to cite one reason
3% did so to get help or recover loss

Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to police from 2005-2010, the victim gave the following reasons for not reporting:
20% feared retaliation
13% believed the police would not do anything to help
13% believed it was a personal matter
8% reported to a different official
8% believed it was not important enough to report
7% did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble
2% believed the police could not do anything to help
30% gave another reason, or did not cite one reason
Additional more recent statistics, e.g., perpetrators by race, are here: https://rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence

B&B orig: 9/26/18

Trump's Legitimacy: A Thought Experiment

New York Magazine reports that vice president Mike Pence is alleging that US intelligence found that Russian attacks on the 2016 elections did not lead to president Trump's election or even have any effect whatever. In an interview with Axios Pence stated: “Irrespective of efforts that were made in 2016 by foreign powers, it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election.”

NYM characterizes the Pence assertion like this: “He is lying” and “this is unequivocally false.”

A formal US intelligence assessment released last month concluded that Russia “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” The assessment took no position on whether this interference had any effect on the election. The intelligence report stated: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”

In testimony before congress earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that “there should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

A thought experiment: There's no way to prove or disprove this, but it is possible that Russian influence was a necessary factor in Trump's win. Specifically, Clinton lost by about 107,000 votes spread among three states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Given that, what is the probability that pro-Trump Russian influence, including the effects of hacking and Wikileaking damaging stolen emails were, along with other factors like the Comey investigations and his pronouncement of Clinton's email 'carelessness', was enough to make a 107,000 vote difference in three states? If Clinton had won those three states, she would have won the election.

The vote difference could have come from people (i) not voting for Clinton or anyone else due at least in part to the Russian attack on her candidacy, or (ii) voting for another candidate, including Trump. No one can know the answer. Most people whose votes were affected probably cannot say for certain how much of an influence the Russian attack had on their own vote choice.

Mental calculations like this tend to be more grounded in biased unconscious thinking, than in cold, unemotional conscious reason (logic). Most people simply cannot know whether Russian influence was needed to tip their vote choice one way or another. That's just a matter of human biology, not political ideology.

Given the uncertainty, people will believe what they want and they cannot be proven wrong. However, simple logic says that it is likely that Russian attacks did affect some voters. Doing that was the whole point of the Russian attacks. People who say the Russians affected no one is simply not credible.

All things considered, it is reasonable to conclude there is a about a two-thirds (66.66%) chance that Trump is an illegitimate president who is in power now due to Russian interference.

The Kenyan Muslim ISIS terrorist: On this point, it is worth remembering, millions of people (about 20% of American adults in 2010) believed that Obama was not an American citizen despite contrary evidence, i.e., his birth certificate. In this situation, there is more evidence to support belief that Trump is an illegitimate president that what supported any belief that Obama was illegitimate. In addition, many Americans believed Obama to be an ISIS operative and supporter of terrorism, based mostly or completely on unsubstantiated, partisan conspiracy theory.

So, when Trump, his supporters or his administration makes illogical claims that the Russians had no influence and US intelligence proves that, it is just another reality- and logic-detached pro-Trump lie. Unfortunately, such lies incur no political or legal consequences for causing the damage this kind of false rhetoric inflicts on the American republic, its people and civil society.

B&B orig: 2/15/18

The NRA Blocks Gun Violence Research

Since 1996, the NRA has effectively blocked research on the public health impacts of gun ownership. This 1993 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine triggered the NRA's ire and the congressional ban three years later -- gun violence data gets in the way of gun maker's revenue streams.

No solution can be perfect: Nothing we can do in a society awash in hundreds of millions of guns can fix this with perfection. What we can do is try to reduce the incidence of slaughter, even if it is imperfect and even if it costs some money. After all, since both parties are OK with allowing tax cheats to steal $400 - $600 billion/year from the US treasury and not lift a finger to stop that staggering degree of theft from honest people and businesses, America can afford a few billion/year to do at least try to block some of the slaughter, e.g., by requiring universal background checks.

Even if that is a 100% failure, it would show society's respect for the slaughtered innocents. In that case, the money would be far better spent than in allowing thieves to rob us blind every fucking year with bipartisan approval.

As far as I am concerned, showing some tangible degree of respect for the dead is far more important than conservative and/or vehemently pro-gun, anti-public safety politicians blowing baseless smoke about why they oppose reasonable (yes, REASONABLE) attempts at gun control.

The old days: This is a topic I've been harping on for some years now. Here's my post from June of 2015 on my previous site Dissident Politics.

IS THE DEBATE OVER GUNS POINTLESS?

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The matter of guns, gun violence and the endless gun regulation debate flares up after each mass murder. The body count this time is nine innocents. This debate is now routine. A massacre occurs, both sides reiterate their arguments, the press moves on, emotions cool and nothing changes very much. Meanwhile, about 31,000 Americans die each year from gun violence (11,000 homicides and 21,000 suicides) and another 71,000 are injured. Like it or not, empty debate followed by little or no change has been society's response over the last decade or two.[1]

Given that, it is fair to argue that the current debate over the slaughter in Charleston, SC is mostly pointless. To the extent any societal response occurs, changes are at the state level and new state laws tend to expands guns rights more than restrict. Despite the NRA and gun advocates belief to the contrary, federal law under President Obama has expanded gun rights. Meaningful new regulation, e.g., universal background checks to try to prevent insane people from getting guns, is nowhere on the horizon. That appears to be a consequence of deep public distrust in the federal government coupled with a polarized, corrupt congress.

Since congress is hopelessly gridlocked on this and most other issues, it is unrealistic to expect reasonable new federal legislation that might have some impact, assuming there is anything that can be affected for the better. With hundreds of millions of guns in American society, criminals, haters and most insane people can usually get guns if they want them. Maybe it is too late to do anything in service to the public interest. If that is true, calls for any additional gun regulation are pointless.

Gun advocates, the NRA and gun manufacturers use every mass killing incident as a rationale to reduce gun restrictions so that good guys with guns can shoot bad guys (with guns) who are doing bad things. That logic will probably never be dislodged, especially by the endless arguments the two sides ineffectively throw at each other. On this issue, as most others in politics, the two sides are simply talking past each other with little or no policy impacts.

Where's the data?: There is a discouraging aspect of this issue. Federal funds for research on the public health impact of gun violence cannot be obtained in practice. Researchers fear career damage from venturing into the political morass. Research is at a standstill and has been halted since 1996 due mostly to conservative opposition. The American public cannot truly know or assess the overall impact of guns on public health. This situation reflects the profoundly corrupt nature of politics[2] under the two-party system. Special interests including the NRA and gun manufacturers have effectively blocked federal funding for gun violence research since 1996, presumably because they fear the data may show guns and gun use to carry costs that are far higher than the benefits. Some of limited data that is available suggests that at least in domestic settings guns are a harmful influence: "Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance."[3]

Under the circumstances, the current debate over gun violence is pointless on three grounds: First, both sides in the gun debate point to the same data and draw opposite conclusions about what policy choices make sense - neither side budges. Second, even if most Americans were to prefer an arguably reasonable new law, e.g., universal background checks, special interest money effectively blocks that. Finally, since rigorous, unbiased research is not available to the American public and policy makers, the debate is based on assumptions about public health impacts that are simply not known.

Footnotes:
1. Dissident Politics (DP) is not arguing here for any additional new gun law or restriction. DP is arguing (1) that the current debate is empty and pointless and (2) for an honest debate that is based on transparent research, unspun facts and unbiased logic to fairly assess the good and bad public health impacts of guns in American society. It is possible that even without the corrupting influence of gun money on the two-party system, most Americans would want to keep the laws more or less the same despite the knowledge that the costs, about 31 thousand deaths and about 71 thousand injuries plus associated medical and law enforcement costs, are acceptable. That could be true even if unbiased research shows the costs are high and the benefits amount to very few or no lives saved, very little or no crime prevented and much personal satisfaction or feelings of security with gun ownership. That is a possible outcome. Americans more or less now accept about 88,000 alcohol-related deaths and about 480,000 cigarette-related deaths each year, so logically, Americans might be willing to accept a high-cost, low-benefit gun situation. 2. Dissident Politics defines political corruption to include serving special interest demands at the expense of the public interest. That definition accords with U.S. laws that were passed over 100 years ago. Corruption of governments by special interest money is a millennia-old phenomenon. Under the current two-party system, special interest money has sufficiently more influence than service to the public interest that the system is fundamentally corrupt, in DP opinion. Research supports the opinion that special interest money in politics has far more influence on policy than what the American people want or the public interest would reasonably require: “Our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.”

3. Calls to restart federal funding on this issue are likely to fail. That too, reflects the domination of the public interest by special interest money. Given the power of the NRA and gun manufacturers, it is very unlikely that federally funded research can be restarted any time soon. Maybe the best that can be done is to identify public interest funding for rigorous, unbiased research on the true costs (murders, injuries, suicides, etc.) and benefits (personal security, psychological well-being, bad guys shot dead or incapacitated, etc.) of gun ownership and use in American society. Only that kind of analysis will reveal the scope of the public health impacts, good and bad, of gun violence. If the costs are shown to be very high relative to the benefits, which is probably the case, that just might foster an informed, but commensurate, societal response.

B&B orig: 2/15/18

Conservative-Capitalist Attacks on Knowledge Quietly Continue

“The business of business is business and profit, not making the nation or world a better place. The business of government is making the nation or world a better place, not just protecting business.” -- paraphrasing Germaine, probably sometime in the last few years

The New York Times is reporting on another quiet, unexplained bureaucrat firing at the behest of conservative and capitalist pro-business, anti-government ideology. This time, a top scientist in the EPA who works on children’s health issues has been quietly placed on administrative leave with no explanation. She continues to receive pay and benefits. For now.

The NYT writes: “Dr. Ruth Etzel, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has been a leader in children’s environmental health for 30 years, joined the E.P.A. in 2015 after having served as a senior officer for environmental health research at the World Health Organization. She was placed on administrative leave late Tuesday and asked to hand over her badge, keys and cellphone, according to an E.P.A. official familiar with the decision who was not authorized to discuss the move and who asked not to be identified.

The official said Dr. Etzel was not facing disciplinary action and would continue to receive pay and benefits. No explanation was offered to the staff on Tuesday.

Public health experts said that, since the start of the Trump administration, they had seen a clash between the E.P.A.’s top leadership, appointed by a president who has pushed for weakening environmental rules, and the children’s health office.”

An EPA spokesman refused to give a reason for the administrative leave, and claimed that no anti-science or anti-EPA agenda was in play regarding cuts in EPA size and leadership. Given the Trump administration’s complete disregard for inconvenient research and inconvenient truth, it is reasonable to believe this is just another quiet attack on knowledge and truth. There really is an anti-science and anti-EPA agenda in play. The EPA gets in the way of profits and its work undermines conservatism, which (falsely) holds that (i) government cannot do anything right, and (ii) it cannot generally be involved in regulating businesses or property because that is unconstitutional.

This is a topic that deserves constant attention. Killing off research and blocking access to knowledge is a tactic that is now well-established with American conservatism, and now populism. The easiest way to deceive the public is to keep it in the dark and feed it BS. That is what is happening before our very eyes.https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-biopoliticsandbionews/the_nra_blocks_gun_violence_research/ B&B orig: 9/27/18