John Cornyn, Republican Senator from Texas, writes:
> could we have a good faith discussion about the uses and abuses of "modeling" to predict the future?
I feel like Republican national leadership, which includes Cornyn, has not acted in good faith since the Clinton administration.
The entire Ken Starr investigation seems to have been a large smear of both Clintons, with a gloss of "principles" to get the media to repeat it endlessly. Yes, Bill Clinton committed perjury. But that was subsequent to a very long, apparently politically motivated investigation of a lot of other stuff that turned up nothing.
The N Benghazi Inquiries seems to have been conducted to smear Hillary Clinton, again with a gloss of "principle" to get the media to repeat Republican claims uncritically.
The entire Republican Tea Party seems to have been a propaganda effort to capitalize on Obama's race.
McConnell seems to have kept the Obama administration from doing anything effective about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
You can dispute these things on some technical grounds, but there's nothing other than "bad faith" that explains all of them.
So why should anyone try to have a "good faith" discussion with Cornyn about scientific models? Beyond that, what models are we going to delve into? Biological/epidemiological only? Thermodynamics? Mechanics of materials? These latter 2 topics are filled with models, and they work reasonably well, allowing modern engineering. I think Cornyn isn't really even acting in good faith asking for a "good faith" discussion of scientific models.
I feel like Republican national leadership, which includes Cornyn, has not acted in good faith since the Clinton administration.
The entire Ken Starr investigation seems to have been a large smear of both Clintons, with a gloss of "principles" to get the media to repeat it endlessly. Yes, Bill Clinton committed perjury. But that was subsequent to a very long, apparently politically motivated investigation of a lot of other stuff that turned up nothing.
The N Benghazi Inquiries seems to have been conducted to smear Hillary Clinton, again with a gloss of "principle" to get the media to repeat Republican claims uncritically.
The entire Republican Tea Party seems to have been a propaganda effort to capitalize on Obama's race.
McConnell seems to have kept the Obama administration from doing anything effective about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
You can dispute these things on some technical grounds, but there's nothing other than "bad faith" that explains all of them.
So why should anyone try to have a "good faith" discussion with Cornyn about scientific models? Beyond that, what models are we going to delve into? Biological/epidemiological only? Thermodynamics? Mechanics of materials? These latter 2 topics are filled with models, and they work reasonably well, allowing modern engineering. I think Cornyn isn't really even acting in good faith asking for a "good faith" discussion of scientific models.