One of the words that I’ve learned to hate during my time in higher education is the word “evidence-based.”

It’s basically a flag for intellectual-yet-idiot modern shortsighted rootless science, for values of “evidence” that mean only peer-reviewed scientific studies published under governmental agency oversight after 1900.

Thousands of years of folk medicine? Nah.

Hundreds of similar personal anecdotes? Nope.

Logic applied to physiology? Not possible.

“Evidence-based” medicine will probably help you in the short term, but it’s likely to mess you up in the long term.

It’s a fallacy that we can know everything about a natural system and control all inputs and outputs with no unintended consequences.

That’s why I love that “evidence-based” is one of the words banned from the CDC’s budget proposal this year.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered. […]

The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to CDC’s partners and to Congress, the analyst said. The president’s budget for 2019 is expected to be released in early February. The budget blueprint is generally shaped to reflect an administration’s priorities.

It’s only the budget, so it helps set the direction for what the priorities of the CDC are. I also find it interesting that the concept of “evidence-based” is not banned, just the phrase.

As we’re rounding out the first year of the Trump presidency, it’s heartening to see some good changes roll out to ancillary institutions.

Still gotta build that wall, tho.