Using Science to Promote an Agenda, Then and Now: A Comparison

For almost two years, as COVID-19 and its variants have ravaged the world, we have been told we must “follow the science” if we are to rid ourselves of this dreadful disease. The problem is, as scientists have learned more, the science has changed. So, it is never really “science” we are given, but a hypothesis.

How Science Works

This is how science works. However, the word “science” is powerful, and is often taken to mean “the world’s greatest scientific minds have agreed on a consensus…” even though the scientific method is built on the phrase, “as far as we know” (because there is always more to learn) and scientists assume that consensus, by design, will change.

For example, COVID-19 cases are much higher in states where people are less inclined to get vaccinated, suggesting that increased vaccinations are the proper course of action. Yet, those who oppose vaccines worry that pharmaceutical companies have not properly vetted the vaccines. It will take years to see if there are any wide-spread, long-lasting, damaging side-effects.

If there are long-term repercussions, that information will add to our scientific knowledge, and we will, ideally, act accordingly.

The Political Component

However, there always seems to be a political component, as the Left and the Right can find experts to support their respective agendas. Because we would like to believe that our leadership would never lie to us, we sometimes blindly do as we are told, believing the information provided by leaders quoting “the science” (not necessarily actual information gleaned from the scientific method) is an undeniable fact.

Using “The Science” To Justify Inhumanity

The same kind of political manipulation played a role in the 1920s. Federal and state governments faced a dilemma when they tried to keep communism out of the United States, limit immigration from parts of the world they considered undesirable, and institute population control among U.S. citizens who they thought to be a burden on society.

How could a country that said “all men are created equal” pass laws to accomplish these ends?

How could they force sterilization on their citizens?

How could the elites of that era live with themselves, knowing they were destroying the lives of so many just to maintain a way of life they wanted to hold on to?

The answer was simple: they promoted eugenics as “the science,” although they knew it was not at all supported by actual science.

Once this happened, politicians could justify their actions, for you can never argue with “the science.”

So justified, the federal and state governments in the United States passed laws for which Nazis would be tried as war criminals twenty years later. People allowed themselves to be subjected to testing and sterilization because “the science” told them they were inferior. You can never argue with “the science.”

The Warren Commission and the Misuse of Science

This brings us to the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Warren Commission also used the trappings of science to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK by himself. Yes, the government then had an agenda, and turned to “the science” to support its findings.

The autopsy revealed a back wound without an exit, and later it was determined the bullet had to have exited Kennedy’s throat for Oswald to have been the lone gunman. So they concluded it was normal for a wound to close after a bullet had passed through the body, which was and is ridiculous.

The Warren Commission later determined that the same wound was too low on the President’s back to allow the “magic bullet” to enter John Connally’s body at the proper angle. They raised the bullet hole after the fact, even though the autopsy doctors and the FBI agent’s notes who were present concurred that the wound was lower.

The autopsy doctors also missed a wound at the front of JFK’s throat because a tracheotomy had been done at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where the doctors said it was an entry wound. It was not a problem. The Warren Commission concluded the doctors were wrong, and it was an exit wound. They had to make “the science” fit.

Meanwhile, Life magazine’s December 6, 1963 article stated, “the 8mm (Zapruder) film shows the President turning his body far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is exposed - toward the sniper’s nest - just before he clutches it.”

It was a lie. Kennedy never waved to anyone, and did not face the sniper’s nest, but the Zapruder film was locked away then and would remain so until the late 1960s. So this was unchallenged.

Healthy Skepticism

I’ll have more to cover on the autopsy in the future. For now, the above is sufficient to support my point:

When our government tells us to follow “the science,” we should be skeptical, because it may be a smokescreen to promote an agenda they want us to believe.

It was done in 1963 to convince the world one man had assassinated JFK, even though the evidence pointed toward a conspiracy. “The science” and actual science are not the same.