National Geographic got some attention for comparing global warming denier to anti-vaxxers, moon landing conspiracy theorists and the followers of Brother John Birch who are against water fluoridation.
There were objections to the characterization. Science Left Behind showed that not only were the anti-vaccine, anti-energy and anti-food beliefs dominated by the left-wing political demographic and partisans immediately scrambled to show those were all bipartisan.
Well, sure, they are, if bipartisan means any member of the opposite party joins in. When anti-GMO politicians tried to get the weight of the federal government on their side, the 53 Democrats found 2 Republicans who agreed - but if 4 percent are in the other party, is that truly bipartisan? If so, why didn't Democratic Senator Joe Manchin taking a rifle and shooting a hole in President Obama's cap-and-trade legislation in his campaign advertising not make Democrats bipartian global warming deniers?
Left-wing people also deny the moon landing more than the right.
The answer may be predictable; there are a lot more left-wing people in media than right-wing people.
But it's flawed to yell at people they need to accept science. As Stephen Moore, visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation notes, settled science just completely reversed course on fat after decades of selling us all low-fat nonsense. Now all sugar is bad. But those were and still are sketchy narratives embraced by corporate media and dutifully regurgitated.
Of course, science can be wrong and has been wrong, that is not a reason to deny all science. But like nutrition claims, if data are all over the map, you don't make trillion dollar decisions until you converge on a solid answer.
