The ‘Cry Wolf’ Project

The excerpt about the project below is from Breitbart’s “Big Journalism”. I am not as bothered by it as the writer is. The guy behind the project seems a bit of a dimwit to me. With the mass media and the universities already pumping out Leftist propaganda day and night, what difference are a few more academic bloviations from the Left going to make? But it is worth noting the corrupt nature of the project.

The most interesting aspect of the matter would have to be a full account of who the “We” is. Where is he getting the money to buy articles at $1,000 a pop?

It could be coming from the college where he works. The college makes some pretty good statements about its students being entitled to politically unbiased teaching and grading but the old Soviet constitution (written by Stalin) guaranteed human rights too.

The reason I think the college may be involved is that it seems very far-Left. It has a whole academic department devoted to “critical theory” — which is not as good as it sounds. “Critical theory” is simply modern Marxism. But if you have read any “critical theorists”, you won’t feel threatened by them. “Critical theory” is just a type of theology and if you don’t believe in the holy books (in this case the writings of Karl Marx) of the theologian concerned you won’t see the point of it all

The Cry Wolf Project is a politically motivated and financed scheme to recruit university students and faculty to “give substance and scholarly integrity” to a predetermined partisan narrative – namely that in the “battle with conservative ideas,” “conservative politicians and right-wing pundits” use “falsity and exaggeration” to “thwart progressive reform.”

Simply put, Cry Wolf wants scholarly proof that conservatives are liars and is willing to pay to get the results it wants.

In addition to the potential legal — and certain ethical — violations, there are two fundamental problems with the Cry Wolf Project’s approach:

The first is that the purpose of science, even social and political science, is not to prove, but rather to disprove hypotheses. Legitimate academic process suggests that an idea be first proposed and then tested. If the available evidence all supports the idea, and the idea holds up in the face of all of the testing it can be subjected to, the hypothesis is still not proven since a future test or as-yet-undetermined piece of evidence could still one day disprove it.

The best science can do is to elevate certain hypotheses above others. Thus, anytime someone employs the term, “science has proven,” you can be certain it is not science that is being discussed. Science has not proven anything, from modern evolutionary theory, to man-caused global warming, or even the simplest ideas, like what gravity is (Exaggeration? Google: Large Hadron Collider).

The role of science is to question, probe, and test. Good science is habitually skeptical of the claims of scientists and subjects every idea to relentless opposition. It is precisely this method of continuous critique that makes the scientific method the best process available to us to test ideas, just as the constant competition of a truly free market is the best process available to test innovation, goods, and services. Free markets are decidedly scientific.

So, when the well-lettered doctors in this and that field from one college or another who are behind the Cry Wolf Project make their stated goal not the testing of their hypotheses, but to “undermine the credibility and arguments” of those critics that would test them, they forfeit any claim of “scholarly integrity.” They have become evangelicals for their own ideology, not academics, and the letters by their names give them no more qualification in the field of politics than a ministerial credential qualifies a priest to pilot the space shuttle.

More here

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here