You’ve seen the bumper sticker – “Science is Real.” More often than not it’s sported by self-satisfied Subaru drivers who believe they’ve planted a flag on the peak of wisdom.

It’s an easy position – right up to the point one ponders who’s in charge of the real. The subsequent plunge from the peak of wisdom to the valley of the shadow can be dramatic.

That’s because science is real, but so is the ability of people to manipulate science.

The ‘science’ of climate

Conservative folks who like “walk your talk” leadership generally have a real problem with the science of climate change, global warming, climate disruption, or whatever advocates are calling it these days.

Most of the folks pushing the alarm – Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Hollywood and about every middle-school kid in the country – drive gas-guzzlers, fly in private jets, live in big houses and leave the carbon footprint of a battalion of Abraham tanks assaulting Baghdad.

Please excuse my middle-school reference. Like many scientists, I suddenly had this overwhelming urge to inflate the facts to make my point.

If things are so bad, why are these bubbly champions of climate science being so reckless?

Asheville’s 7-0 hyper-liberal City Council loves to push the climate change agenda using taxpayer funds. But ask them – and their counterparts on the county commission – how often they ride the buses they seem determined to shove us into as they simultaneously defund the parking structures they seem equally determined to keep us out of?

Climate change science has more angles, shifts, suppositions, frauds, and hysterical references than Joe Biden has policy positions.

No one I know personally argues against taking care of our environment. With apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Climate Virtue Signaler, there’s no honest difference in pouring an oil change down a city sewer and burning tons of jet fuel flying around to climate change lectures.

What’s the sweet spot on climate science? How about keeping things honest, working together to nurture our world, and simultaneously keeping us warm, fed, mobile and employed?

The ‘science’ of COVID-19

It’s popular to blame Donald Trump for America’s COVID-19 woes, but exactly where is that special person who got it all right?

Truth is, we’ve been all over the map on “proper” protocols and each and every authority has tripped on their own words as we’ve stumbled toward solutions.

It’s OK that no one’s got all the answers on the “science” of COVID-19, but it’s not OK for all these buckaroos to be claiming their current view is the be all and end all of scientific fact.

Current scientific fact on COVID-19 is to be skeptical of all “facts” associated with COVID-19 – and it doesn’t matter if they come from the CDC, Chinese communists, or Facebook conspiracy theorists.

I personally believe in wearing masks in public spaces, but did you just hear the CDC’s recent acknowledgement that eighty plus percent of COVID-19 patients are mask-wearers?

Common sense remains in play with our foggy science on COVID-19.  Somewhere between hibernating in lockdown and playing beer pong at the local brewery is a safe spot. Social distancing while continuing to be civil and pleasant is no big deal. Patrolling your health – we do know it is already sick people who get sickest with COVID-19 – remains a smart play. Exercise and diet? Well, do you know much of anything – besides mad scientist syndrome – that diet and exercise doesn’t help?

The ‘science’ of abortion

Any middle-school student who has snuck a peak at the remains of a mangled aborted fetus will tell you, “that sure looks baby parts.” For those who think new life isn’t real life, if I set your house on fire while its under construction, haven’t I still effectively burned down your house?

Our current fascination with abortion in the name of women’s health is a major deception. The real motivator is mostly women’s convenience. In today’s America, we do better by unwanted kittens than we do by unwanted children.

Anyone who believes our track record of ending 65 million new lives has been a positive solution to a complex social issue isn’t upholding science so much as validating genocide.

The ‘science of polling’

This one is easy. In 2016, Donald Trump permanently banished the “science” of polling to the “Fantasy” section at the local library.

Will he do it again? I hope so, but I don’t know. You probably don’t either. But it’s for darn sure the pollsters don’t.