The Political Abuse of Science

American Thinker.com ^ | September 24, 2017 | Anthony J. DeBlasi

[Kaslin]

It has always bothered me that while science cannot explain things like hate and love, good and bad, and many of the most important things in human life, it is used as “authority” for meddling in human affairs. The impulse to explain everything with science has generated a group of pseudoscientists that provide a great tool to power hawkers for their agendas.

When I first heard the term “social science,” for example, I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. We all know – has it been forgotten? – that there is no science for that which science cannot define, the case with almost everything important associated with being human. That politics and fake science have been partners for a long time is no secret. That their illicit relationship is hardly recognized is inexcusable. Enthralled by science, as the public for good reason tends to be, a majority are prone to accept any nonsense in the name of science.

The great successes achieved by scientists have unfortunately given science a prestige and an authority beyond its unquestionable utility. That so many lean on science for their take on just about everything should bother us all since it promotes a confidence in a way of thinking and a way of acting that continually shuts more doors than it opens – a fact recognized by science professionals who fully appreciate their craft and its connection to reality and accept its limitations.

It is important to see that the reduction of human reality to bits of data stuffed in mathematical packets – aping scientific practice – forms a line to lunacy.

[onedoug]

I love mathematics and physics and the "science" that derives from them.
I also love Torah, and the balance it gives me to inquire.

[Paladin2]

Social Science = Social Justice

100% emotional “thinking”

[sparklite2]

The great successes achieved by scientists have unfortunately given science a prestige and an authority

---

You want to live in a society untouched by the advances of science, that’s fine. The jungles of Brazil won’t last forever, though.

[Bob]

As I read it, the author is referring to the misuse of science’s prestige and authority by treating “social sciences” as if they were real science.

[sparklite2]

I agree that anything with ‘social’ in it isn’t science.

[sparklite2]

Bob, I reread the article, preparing to eat a little crow. Then I saw this --- thanks but no thanks.

"[S]ociologists and songwriters among them − still think of the real world as being material.

"It is a false notion. How, to sharpen the point, does “matter” arrange itself into hummingbirds, rainbows, smiles, recipes for soup, instructions for safety in an emergency . . . and so on, and so forth? Given the (im)possiblity, such a world would be a huge, dead heap."

[Impy]

Abuse? I’d call it rape.

Science proves all lib talking points, they say,

[hinckley buzzard]

"Science" as a term is generally understood to refer to a set of methods, not a subject matter. It would be perfectly feasible to have a valid "social science," using sound methods, appropriate inferential statistics, and intellectual integrity. We have only splinters of that at this time, and it generally doesn't make the popular press. Instead what we mostly have is a pastiche of politically biased pseudoscience masquerading as real science, dedicated to demagoging an ignorant public.