It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Democrats believe that science is key to winning in 2020, and that they are attempting to position presidential candidate Joe Biden as the candidate of “science.”

On September 2, a group of Nobel Prize winners who were organized by the Democrats endorsed the politician in an open letter, citing Biden’s “willingness to listen to experts” and his “deep appreciation for using science to find solutions.”

Throughout the Democratic National Convention, party leaders were preaching about Biden’s alleged scientific acumen. Former first lady Michelle Obama said, “He will tell the truth and trust science.” Senator Bernie Sanders endeavored to juxtapose Biden with President Trump, saying, “…by rejecting science, [Trump] has put our lives and health in jeopardy.” Former President Barack Obama said, “…our ability to work together to solve big problems…depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.”

In August, Biden himself tweeted: “Now more than ever, we need a president who believes in science.”

Yet when it pertains to human development, Biden’s “science” is seriously flawed. Biden’s personal and public policy positions about abortion are not based upon or guided by science, facts and subject matter experts; they are based upon a glaring scientific fallacy — the notion that when a human life starts is a mystery — thus contradicting the politician’s purported scientific proclivity and exposing Biden’s candidacy as a great travesty of science as well as a detriment to humanity.

Indeed, his science fiction is contributing to the destruction of human beings and preventing ethically and legally valid informed consent.

Despite Biden’s misconception, science knows when a human life starts. There is a scientific consensus on this matter, and there has been one for a long time. Since the advent of the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development in 1942 (notably, the same year that Biden was born), the world has known that a new, whole, individual, living human being begins to exist at the start of the biological process of fertilization.

This objective scientific fact is documented as Carnegie Stage 1a in the Carnegie Chart and has been continually documented, verified and refined for the past nearly 80 years by FIPAT, the international committee on human embryology, the only science that specializes in when a human life starts.

Still, for decades, “pro-science” Biden has professed that the science is not settled and that while he would not impose his religious views on “equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews,” he personally “accepts the Catholic Church’s judgement.” Since when would theologians of any religion be consulted for such a specifically biological issue when they have no such academic expertise to determine the objective scientific facts of when the physical material dimension of a human being — an individual member of the human species — normally begins?

Biden’s abortion policies also demonstrate his dedication to science denial about this vital issue. Despite Roe’s long-debunked claim that when a human life begins is an unresolved matter, Biden continues to believe in Roe v. Wade. Rather than listening to the scientific experts, seeking and acknowledging the scientific facts, and ensuring that U.S public policies and laws about abortion correspond to scientific and medical advancements and objective science reality, Biden’s abortion agenda centers on enshrining and expanding upon a decision that is itself scientifically invalid (and was nearly 50 years ago too).

Worse, Biden recently sanctified his pro-abortion/anti-science platform by choosing running mate Kamala Harris, the most radically pro-abortion candidate ever to run on a presidential ticket. Harris has even promised to block state abortion laws that she thinks violate Roe v. Wade, effectively preventing states from advancing scientifically accurate laws about human development.

In short, Biden continues to reject what is arguably the most profound, fundamental biological fact about our own species to establish his own arbitrary starting point(s) for a human life, that are the most politically expedient. In terms of formulating abortion policy, Biden values science denial, not science.

Abortion ultimately comes down to the scientific answer to one question: “When does a human being begin to exist?” The science changes everything and the science is clear. The accurate biological facts demonstrate that a human embryo or a human fetus is a real human being with a truly human nature. It is not a mystery or a subjective personal matter, as Biden claims. It is an objective, empirical scientific fact documented by the scientific method.  As such, everyone should know this fact as a matter of basic scientific literacy, and all presidents should know this fact as a matter of duty (e.g., defending the Constitutional guarantee of due process for all individuals, incorporating this fact into public policies and laws).

Contra the Democratic Party’s emphatic assertions that Joe Biden is the science candidate, his gross scientific illiteracy (willful or otherwise) regarding human reproduction and human development is indisputable. And Biden’s refusal to use the accurate objective facts of the science of human embryology to determine abortion policy is out of step with science and poses an existential threat to humankind.

Brooke Stanton is the CEO of Contend Projects and Christiane West is the organization’s Head of Partnerships. Contend is a registered 501(c)(3) science education organization spreading the basic, accurate scientific facts about when a human life starts and the biological science of human embryology.