Today, I’d like to turn a bit philosophical and address the question: Who owns science?
In an ideal world, the public owns it. And in the U.S., where the taxpayers pay for almost all of the scientific research, the public certainly should own it.
But in reality, the answer is much more complicated. We must, first and foremost, consider who controls the information.
A recent article I came across argues the academic-government-industrial elites control modern science in the same way the church controlled religious dogma during the Middle Ages. And I agree.
I don’t believe science is an immutable set of settled facts that we must defend at all costs in the name of some version of “truth.” Good scientists continuously question, probe, and critique “known” facts.
Yet many scientists treat current theories and findings (using their limited tools and even more limited scientific model or paradigm) as absolute law. They treat these theories as if they descended from some celestial authority carved on stone tablets.
As more of modern society is encouraged to reject organized religion, this kind of scientific fundamentalism has become the new standard for discerning existential truth. Today, these thoroughly modern thinkers worship at the feet of science. But they don’t realize they’ve just replaced one form of blind faith for another.
There’s a term for this type of approach to science It’s called “scientism.”
Scientism doesn’t question, quest, challenge, change, investigate, or observe. Instead, it governs behaviors. Through mandates if necessary.
Scientism also promotes “settled laws” of science. In other words, they believe certain scientific “facts” or theories can’t be (or shouldn’t be) changed or contested.
But scientific “law” can, does, and should change over time.
For example, at one point, the idea that the Earth was flat was a settled law. Then, in ancient Greece, Eratosthenes questioned the concept of a flat Earth. And he conducted a few simple experiments proving the Earth was round. And voila–scientific “law” changed. Of course, it took almost 2,000 years for most of the world to realize and accept the new “law.”
The U.S. government plays a big part in the regression away from science and toward to scientism.
In fact, over the past generation, it seems government bureaucrats have bought off good scientists, so they’ve set themselves up as supreme judge and jury of all scientific facts. Of course, these bureaucratic, quasi-government groups have recently been shown dead wrong about diet, cholesterol, fats, foods, salt, vitamin D, other nutrients, and many, many drugs.
I’ve noticed quite a few other hysterical reactions lately from the scientism crowd. Take the complicated case of Dr. Mehmet Oz, for example.
Without a doubt, he showed terrible judgment in individual cases. But he made a long journey from being a heart surgeon to becoming an advocate for natural and nutritional approaches to health and healing. And I know he took the trouble to learn from my own medical textbooks.
Now–critics want Dr. Oz removed from his post at Columbia University. It’s like an old-style inquisition.
Another example of scientism occurred after the measles outbreak in Disneyland. Scientism seized the moment by pushing drastic legislation in states across the country to remove all parental choice about vaccinations.
Ironically, the same politically correct, pseudo-science crowd insists everyone at any age should always have a choice when it comes to any and all aspects of reproductive health. But they want to deny choice when it comes to injecting infants with ever more toxic vaccines, many of which are questionable according to science.
If vaccines really work, then they should protect the people who have them. Therefore, the vaccine-happy crowd should have the decency to leave other families alone who choose to seek the advantages of a healthy immune system through natural immunity.
Plus–why is the vaccine crowd so focused on parents who make a conscious choice not to vaccine? What about all the unvaccinated, undocumented immigrants who flood our borders?
Disneyland–the supposed “source” of the measles outbreak–is perilously close to a porous border over which pour thousands of unvaccinated, undocumented people and diseases. The measles outbreak in California could have very easily started among this crowd. But in the press, we only heard about the “selfish” parents who take unvaccinated children to Disneyland
Scientism is a real danger. It squashes those who question, ponder, and provoke. Fortunately, I’ve always been a free thinker. Maybe it’s just the old scientist in me.
Stay tuned to my Daily Dispatch and Insiders’ Cures newsletter. I’ll keep writing it as I see it. Even if it’s provocative and unpopular, I’ll continue to bring you the truth behind the headlines.