Posted on 09/06/2022 7:01:10 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
Here’s a paradox. Over the past two-and-a-half years, a cadre of senior politicians and their “expert” advisors across the world have successfully promoted a series of controversial public policies by claiming they’re based on “the science” rather than a particular moral or ideological vision. I’m thinking of lockdowns and net zero in particular. Yet at the same time, this group has engaged in behavior that has undermined public confidence in science. Why appeal to the authority of science to win support for a series of politically contentious policies — and then diminish its authority?
(Excerpt) Read more at spectatorworld.com ...
“the science”
Just two words, taking their place in history with “fact checkers”, etc.
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I posted all of that earlier today. Add “research”.
RE “You can read the whole thing here if you like:” THANKS!!!
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It’s at least as old as the Pope forcing Galileo to admit the Sun circled the Earth...
It started long before that. When food processors began processing wheat (stripping it of nutrients), laws were passed requiring some nutrients be added back in. That is when the food, and eventually the drug industry to go to war against the science of vitamins and minerals.
Once government stink is on something via government money it is forever a welfare program which exists to grow itself and beg for more money.
It’s been like this for a very long time. Case in point, “global warming”.
When there is an “approved” narrative, then your research results damn well better support the narrative if you want to receive any more grant funding.
What we are seeing is just an increase of areas which have official narratives.
True. It affects so-called NGOs, too, which are not so non-governmental ever since the government started handing out grants to them.
Sometimes it mainly results in more taxpayer dollars down a rathole. Classic case in point being MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). Once the organization’s goals were met and the desired legislation enacted the founder wanted to downsize it to watchdog status (make sure legislation stayed in place) and disagreed with the changing focus of the organization. Other members who wanted to keep the government $ rolling in to pay their salaries disagreed. They are still there, putting their paychecks in the bank, while the founder is not.
Other times, it contributes to the politicization of the NGO, including humanitarian and human rights organizations. And we all know how some charities have to follow whacky government rules and regulations to keep their government $ coming in, from homeless shelters to food pantries to you-name-it.
Knowledge in general has been political with governments refusing to acknowledge fact simply because it does not fit with their view of how things should be.
But it is not just politics but the personalities of the people who are trying, sometimes with the best will in the world, to advance. You have the grand old men of science and no one wants to point out to them that while their ideas were great at the time and mostly right they got this or that wrong.
And acolytes of the grand old men try to hush up the young whippersnappers who point out error.
Which leads to things advancing by way of tombstones.
That is funny!
Conway Zirkle was a science historian; he had quite a bit to say about the corruption of science by politics.
(Leo Alexander was a psychiatrist who worked with the Nuremberg tribunals; he wrote an article called “Medical science under dictatorship” that was published in the July 14 1949 edition of the NEJM; in it he gives a very graphic description of what happens when medicine is corrupted by politics. He died in 1984 and before he died he said the intellectual climate was like the 1920’s — before the killing started.)
I confess I’ve not read Zirkle or even heard of him, but I’ll look him up. I’ll look up Alexander, too. Thank you for the tips. My own humble thoughts, not so learned, follow:
Well, I can see why Alexander would say that, as the Eugenics Movement had come into its evil fullness in 1920s Germany. It enjoyed some popularity here as well (think Margaret Sanger), and resulted in the forcible sterilization of certain groups. And in a number of other countries. Social Darwinism also played a part, as well as Neo-MalthusianIsm. (I am leaving out all the other factors that contributed to the Holocaust and other Nazi horrors, as we’re only discussing the perversion and politicization of science here.)
Worldwide shock and horror at the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes revealed during the Nuremberg trials stopped the Eugenics Movement in its tracks, although forcible sterilization of “defectives” continued in many countries including our own. Then Neo-Malthusianism began creeping back and was even taught in public schools beginning in the 1969s. Paul Erlich’s Population Bomb made a big splash in 1968. Norman Borlaug (who, unlike Erlich, was a Real Scientist and humanitarian) quietly worked to help the world feed itself and Erlich’s dire predictions never came true. Still, Neo-Malthusianism continues to be popular even as fertility rates have sunk to dire levels in most of t!he world.
Some wonder if glimmers the old Eugenics Movement are returning with the “designer baby” aspect of IVF and with women shopping sperm bank catalogs picking and choosing the various traits they desire in their offspring. Many, many unborn babies are aborted after prenatal tests show genetic defects (even though these tests are not always accurate or the defects severe).
Certainly, the commodification of children has already gone far in our society. If an unborn baby is wanted, he is allowed to live; if she is unwanted, usually not. Gay men rent the wombs of impoverished women in developing countries. Single women and lesbian couples shop the sperm banks. No longer is a baby a precious gift from God.
Despite many excellent, long-term studies proving that children do best when raised by both biological parents whose relationship is cemented by marriage, we ignore the science and champion single motherhood, same sex couple parenting, easy no-fault divorce, etc. We know that children crave their biological parents, yet we dismiss that knowledge. It’s all about what adults want now, nevermind what children need.
Now, bowing to the transgender fad, doctors mutilate confused children and laws not only allow it but sometimes enforce it in some countries, including our own.
The apocalyptic man-made disaster and climate predictions became popular starting in the late 1960s, and by the first Earth Day, had proliferated into quite a list. None came true, by nevermind, they came up with more predictions.
And now we see what we see. Madness gaining ground and science progressively politicized. The same people who worship science as a sort of god are the same ones who wish to bend it to their distorted apocalyptic fantasies or hedonistic desires. The sane among us know science is but a tool, an exceedingly fine tool, but still a tool. One that must be used respectfully and carefully if it is to serve us well.
Sadly, madness appears to be winning out over sanity these days :(
Every facet of life has been politicized. Name one area of daily life that isn’t?
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