ANGELA WHEELER: Another Climate Activist Trojan Horse Gets Exposed

ANGELA WHEELER: Another Climate Activist Trojan Horse Gets Exposed

by | Apr 28, 2026 | Opinion

By Angela Wheeler |

A new edition of a science education manual for judges departs “sharply” from a “longstanding tradition of neutrality,” say three of America’s most distinguished physicists in a letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Writing in an open letter to Justice Roberts were Drs. Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, William Happer of Princeton University and Steven Koonin of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Roberts is chairman of the Federal Judicial Center, publisher of the Fourth Edition of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” whose new chapter on “How Science Works” the letter writers want to be removed.

For decades, the Reference Manual has served as an essential guide for more than 3,000 federal judges and countless state jurists. Cited in over 1,700 judicial opinions, it has helped courts distinguish reliable science from speculation. Its strength has been a commitment to describing how science operates according to the tenets of the 300-year-old scientific method, avoiding political considerations and a drift into pseudoscience.

The letter’s authors, with more than 600 peer-reviewed publications among them, bring unparalleled expertise to the issue. Their concern centers on the replacement of the late David Goodstein’s respected chapter with an overwritten, intellectually deficient 65-page version.

The new chapter’s lead author is philosopher Michael Weisberg, who had a prominent role as a diplomat at United Nations climate proceedings, where he advocated financial payments to small island nations purportedly threatened by a warming planet. The appearance of conflict with his authoring supposedly neutral guidance on scientific evidence is unmistakable — especially in the context of climate litigation involving trillions of dollars in potential liabilities.

The substantive problems are even more serious. Where Goodstein, once a California Institute of Technology physics professor, emphasized the scientific method —generating hypotheses and testing them with data — the new chapter dismisses the scientific method as a “myth.” It elevates “scientific consensus” and “widespread acceptance” as the highest form of certainty, transforming inquiry into a popularity contest.

This inverts the traditional practice of science. As Nobel laureate Richard Feynman observed, the key to science is comparing predictions directly with observation: “If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.”

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993), the Supreme Court made the same point: Scientific knowledge must be derived by testing hypotheses against reality. Goodstein’s earlier edition said, “Data are the coin of the realm in science,” and theories must make new predictions that can be falsified or verified. Consensus, by contrast, is a sociological phenomenon.

As Michael Crichton famously warned, “If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.” History bears this out. Popular “consensus” on plate tectonics, causes of disease and 20th-century fears of global cooling were overturned by evidence, not votes.

Further revealing the chapter’s activist inclinations is its opening citation of Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s “Merchants of Doubt,” a book that insists there is “zero argument among actual scientists” about catastrophic climate change — a claim countered by mountains of real-world data.

Labeling credentialed dissenters as outside “actual science” has no place in an educational document for judges. Science advances by challenging prevailing views with data, not by enforcing community norms.

The Federal Judicial Center wisely withdrew a chapter on climate science from the manual after 27 state attorneys general documented its conflicts and unsupported claims. Yet the “How Science Works” chapter, written largely to support that now-removed material, remains.

With more than 1,000 climate-related cases pending in state and federal courts, judges deserve guidance rooted in empirical rigor. Lindzen, Happer and Koonin are correct. The Center should promptly withdraw the new chapter and restore Goodstein’s earlier version, which captured the essence of scientific reasoning in language accessible to readers without the scientific background that most jurists lack.

They should also direct the National Academy of Sciences to withdraw both chapters from its version of the Manual. Maintaining the integrity of judicial guidance on science is not a partisan issue.

Justice Roberts and the Federal Judicial Center have an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to neutrality and restore confidence in the Manual. In an age when science is increasingly politicized, maintaining rigorous standards for what counts as scientific evidence in court is vital.

The credibility of the American judicial system requires nothing less.

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Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Angela Wheeler is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. She is a cum laude graduate of Emporia State University, Kansas, where she studied communication, with additional biology and pre-medicine coursework.

Affirmative Action Ruling Stirs Reaction From Arizona Politicos

Affirmative Action Ruling Stirs Reaction From Arizona Politicos

by | Jul 13, 2023 | News

By Daniel Stefanski |

The U.S. Supreme Court saved one of the biggest opinions of the term for its second-to-last day, and its decision triggered reactions on both sides of the aisle in Arizona.

When the nation’s high court handed down its highly anticipated ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, it made a significant correction in the standards for admissions systems used by public universities around the United States. The Court held that race-based standards in Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs “violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Writing for the majority coalition of the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts stated, “…the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual – not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

The historic decision by the Supreme Court, drew reactions from Arizona’s politicians on both side of the aisle.

In response to an inquiry from AZ Free News, Senate President Warren Petersen replied, “This is a great decision for the fight against discrimination. The highest court in the land agreed with Martin Luther King Jr. in that you should not be judged by the color of your skin. An individual should be considered for college admissions based on academics, experience, qualifications and character—not by race. I’m thrilled this ruling will bring some sanity back to institutions of higher learning.”

Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope told AZ Free News, “SCOTUS made the right decision today. As the proud son of a Mexican American mother and a white father of German ancestry, our family always knew that we should be judged on our character and not our color. We’re all Americans and we all share a responsibility in keeping this country free of racism & bigotry.”

Democrats, however, took issue with the Court’s ruling. Senate Democratic Leader Mitzi Epstein released a statement after the opinion’s revelation, saying, “Affirmative Action has never been about jumping to the front of the line without any merit. It has been about providing a ladder of equity to help those who have faced adversity in education, the workplace, housing, and every aspect of American life. Affirmative Action has been about providing opportunities for students who are Black and Brown to attend colleges, and for college students to live, love and learn among diverse peers. The same people celebrating this bad Court decision have been actively trying to whitewash history and walk America back to the book-burning past. SCOTUS did not rule against legacy admissions, employee and family recommendations, and grandiose donor admissions. The Court ruled to allow favoritism, but not favoritism for those who have faced racist obstacles. The Court ruled for the favored to get more favors, just as Republican politicians have pushed ways for the rich to get richer, and for the powerful to get more power.”

Democrat Representative Analise Ortiz called the Court’s opinion “devastating,” adding that “this ruling upholds white supremacy in higher education and the workforce. Simultaneously, the efforts to privatize K-12 education and drain public schools of funding achieve the same end. We must fight back to ensure racial equity in education.”

Kimberly Yee, the State’s Republican Treasurer, also weighed in on the news of the day, writing, “I applaud the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to keep merit, character and academic achievement the center point of college admissions. The American Dream is attained by putting in the honest, hard work. No one should be able to cut ahead of the line in the name of affirmative action, based on the color of their skin. This decision upholds the core Constitutional principle that no institution in America is allowed to discriminate based on race.”

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.