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I don’t want to dunk publicly for what was said at an academic conference. But people, there is no point analyzing the Major Questions Doctrine separate from the billionaire capture of the Supreme Court. We don’t need to take Gorsuch’s doctrinal moves seriously!!!

The Made-Up Questions Doctrine is a toggle switch invented by justices with billionaire patrons to advance a pro-billionaire political agenda. Anyone who ignores that and analyzes it only doctrinally is the mark. Leonard Leo and his donors were targeting you. And it worked.

And this matters for US science because scientists are also tempted to engage only on scientific issues with people like RFK and Kratzios, and that is folly. We have to discuss the junk science alongside their political agenda and the donors’ goals.

Watching con law people talk about the made-up questions doctrine or Biden’s “overreach” seriously gives me bad flashes of a future where scientists discuss junk science seriously. We now know the playbook; we can’t let them run it. A lot was at stake in law and a lot is at stake in science.

Case in point

“The Court’s confidence… A confidence borne more of power and will rather than reason and knowledge” - Andrea Katz I just had to quote this, due to enthusiastic endorsement

Ok Andrea Katz’s talk is so awesome I will do a whole thread on it later

Adding: the work lawyers and legal historians are doing on executive power is highly useful and I’m glad they’re doing it. There are just a few people on the right making doctrinal arguments divorced from power and that’s the path to junk science and bad-faith endless discussion