Wait…isn’t that even closer than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when any number of mistakes or misunderstandings or botched orders or technology glitches could have set off a nuclear war? And haven’t there been many other close calls involving near nuclear disasters, many of which were averted by moral luck? Remember when Stanislav Petrov, “The Man Who Saved the World,” disobeyed orders when a malfunctioning early warning system in the Soviet Union indicated a missile attack from the United States had been launched? No?  He was sure it was a sensor malfunction and refused to report it to superiors because he was sure they would have launched a retaliatory strike. There have probably been many other instances we don’t know about.

Prof. Glenn Reynolds, writing in 2023, observed, “If they were honest, then the clock, which was introduced back during the Cold War when things were vastly more dangerous, would now be set at something like 9AM. But it’s just a PR gadget and has no actual connection with reality.” Bingo.

Ethics Alarms has metaphorically spat on The Doomsday Clock several times. In 2022, the Washington Free Beacon wrote that it raised “questions about the practices of an institution several legacy media outlets refer to as scientific.” Ya think? There is no science involved whatsoever, just fear-mongering and blatant propaganda. Yet the mainstream news media bites like eager trout at an attractive lure every time these hacks issue a press release. In 2022 the doom scientists announced that they wouldn’t move the clock forward, even though President Biden’s ventriloquists were openly talking about World War III, Russian president Vladimir Putin had put his nuclear arsenal on “high alert,” and NATO had mobilized its response force for the first time since its inception. Putin had pronounced the West’s sanctions stemming from his invasion of Ukraine as acts of war. So why was the clock frozen in place?

Here are some clues: The Clock first claimed we came the closest ever to nuclear Armageddon in 1953, when the U.S. tested the hydrogen bomb. The scientists consulted their slide rules and a Ouija Board and moved the clock to two minutes to midnight then.

[Note: Eisenhower, a Republican, was President. But as commenter Diego Garcia pointed out in 2022, we were probably as close as we’ve ever been to nuclear war in early December, 1950, when a Democrat was President. Our forces in Korea were being beaten, and President Truman was under a pressure to nuke Red China. Harry refused, Ridgway took over, and rallied our troops.]

Later test ban treaties moved the clock back a completely arbitrary 12 minutes to midnight until President Kennedy, a Democrats, signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, and the time was set back further yet. The Clock edged closer to “doomsday” again when Nixon, another scary Republican, was elected, though it was set back because the scientists liked “detente.” Reagan’s tough talk had the scientists nervous again, though the Gipper’s words and threat of a new arms race brought down the USSR and the Iron Curtain. When Obama sold out Israel and gave them back billions to fund terrorism again for an empty promise not to use nuclear weapons against Israel until Democrats had won a lot of elections, the Clock was also turned back a bit

See any pattern there? This is a partisan fear-mongering gimmick. If there isn’t a specific looming nuclear disaster to freak out over, then the danger is Republican Presidencies and climate change. “Failures in climate action” is one of the reasons cited for the Clock’s advance this time. Ironic that they would choose the coldest January the U.S. has had in 150 years to make that argument, no? Especially since the same scientists conflate weather events with climate whenever it suits their agendas…

Another reason for the “closer than ever” setting, four seconds past last year’s record? “The rise of autocracy”! In other words, Donald Trump is President. Three times in Trump’s first term, when no new wars were started, the doomsayers advanced the clock. Then, during Demented Joe’s four years, the second hand was steady as a rock. It was scientifically determined, apparently, that it’s safest to have a Presidency run by unelected, woke, “inclusive” Democratic bureaucrats. I don’t understand that, but they’re scientists.

In 2017 I had written that the Clock was useless, a ridiculous stunt designed to get undeserved publicity from partisan news organizations. At the end of the 2022 post, authored as the Hunan virus freak-out was finally coming to a close, I corrected that assessment and concluded my comments by contradicting myself, because the Doomsday Clock is quite useful after all. That verdict seems appropriate still:

“The Clock explains a lot. It explains why blindly following the dictates of politically-motivated scientists who cannot keep their policy agendas from warping their judgment and research is irresponsible and incompetent. It shows us, or should, why “Follow the science!” is disingenuous and cynical, since scientists don’t follow the science with enough integrity to be trusted.

“It demonstrates why allowing politicians to shut down the U.S. economy and society, mask our children and take giant steps toward totalitarian government based on the pronouncements of confused medical researchers was idiotic, and why policies to ameliorate a theoretical climate change Armageddon that scientists have been just as bad at projecting as a nuclear one is equally foolish.

“So thank-you, Atomic Scientists! And thank-you, Ridiculous Doomsday Clock! You have shown us exactly how much we can trust science, if only we pay attention.”