Stop Believing in Science. Science is not a religion. It doesn’t offer virtue or certainty.

Front Page Magazine ^ | Fri May 22, 2020 | Daniel Greenfield

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The alchemists and astrologists who were the distant ancestors of modern science believed in a world of absolute truths. Uncovering the right formula, searching the sweep of sky, offered total control over the otherwise mysterious forces of the universe. Our current knowledge of the way that things are tells us that while the universe may have absolute realities, our understanding of them will never be so.

Quantum indeterminacy has left us with a universe in which the drive to know is constrained by our search for knowledge. Existence seems to be built to challenge our hubris, forcing us to think about our flaws, limiting us to dimensions and points in time, and asking us to accept what we cannot know.

The universe is not a machine that we can take apart and rebuild. It is built to be partly unknowable.

And the more we study the universe, the more we understand the importance of the observer. Science is not the genius jumping out of his bath, shouting, “Eureka”, and running through the streets, without the benefit of his cloak, to jot down the formula: it’s the ability to defy the variability of the universe by achieving the intended results, and replicating them over and over again by different observers.

[AndyJackson]

Trust science, not scientists.

Trust nothing. A good scientist is skeptical of everything until he has personally verified it. He submits every statement of fact, every advanced theory to careful scrutiny and compares it to what he knows or what he can determine from common sense.

[dp0622]

you’re welcome :)

I guess in the theory of every possible outcome, EVERYTHING that happened until in the universe was the same except I typed “thanks’ instead of “your welcome”

blows the mind :)

[Gene Eric]

>> Science has nothing to do with believing in something or not believing in something.

Science is inevitably a function of failure where the potential & rare benefit requires convincing reproducibility of an acceptable outcome. So perhaps we end up believing the scientific exceptions we can see with our own eyes...

[ifinnegan]

Note I said believe in.

In.

[Gene Eric]

>> Science is never centered around politics.

History tells a different story.

[JudgemAll]

Things like Climate Change and even Covid19 have become fabricated voodoo fetishes endowed with all kinds of opinions by witch doctors exploiting the American and world tribe.

It is disgusting. Atheism is a full blown religious cult.

[Gene Eric]

Agreed

[AndyJackson]

Science is never centered around politics...History tells a different story.

Science is not what politicians say it is. It is a philosophy about understanding the natural world.

There are a lot of perversions brought about by people, many of whom are scientists and many of whom are politicians. But that isn't science. It's just human fallibility.

Moreover, there is no sense trying to "listen to the science." Science says nothing. It is utterly silent, and if anyone claims to say, science told me this, they should be locked up in the looney bin for hearing voices. Scientists on the other hand say a lot. Most of it is BS like it is from any fallible human, which, save our Redeemer, we all are.

[stuckincali]

science is not a form of anything, it is its own discipline.

Government is emotion, deceit and power. Science has often overcome bad government since government needs money and arms.

And it as at times overcome religions, that tried to stifle scientific discovery in the name of superstitions.

[stuckincali]

if you are referring to the current “emergency posers” abuses in the “pandemic” I agree

[BwanaNdege]

“It doesn’t offer virtue or certainty.”

You’d never guess that from the pronouncements of the MSM Learned Commentators, nor the Late Night Snidely Whiplashes of Liberalism.

After all, “The Science is Settled!” tm

I like most of Greenfield’s writings, but beg to differ. The proponents of “Science” in today’s popular culture fairly scream of the Virtue and Certainty of ‘Science’.

http://bostonreview.net/steven-shapin-scientism-virtue

“Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.”

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

So, Science Guru Sagan was Certain that there can be no Certainty?

Of course, by now, he knows just how wrong he was.

[DesertRhino]

In 1789, the founders were more accurate than science when it came to the best course of action to take.

I cannot think of a single moment in US history when liberty would have been better served by putting scientists in charge.
They gave us phrenology, eugenics, separate but equal, forced sterilization, the high carb diet, partially hydrogenated oil to replace butter, radium water to drink as a tonic, thalidomide, a new ice age, global warming, climate change, Y2k, Dioxin, Sagan predicted the Kuwait oil fires would burn for years, etc etc.

They should never hold the reigns of power.

And ironically, anyone who claims to rule in the name of science, is always the bad guy.

[stuckincali]

it’s no longer the 1800s. Sorry. Not a good use of history to prove point about modern day. look at the inventions and weaponry and communications and technology in the last 140 years. Science has been beneficial in a million ways. If politicians refuse to use science then we will loose out to our enemies.

[Gene Eric]

>> It is a philosophy about understanding the natural world.

I figured you were aiming strictly for the dedicated, daily grind related to honest research, creativity, discovery, etc — which of course is real science in practice. But to add the aspect of philosophy is intriguing in that my view of mathematics is exactly that — a philosophy of virtually indisputable truisms.

To a limited degree, I’ve studied the history of math. I learned about its practical origins as far as we can tell, and also learned about the recurring controversy that plagued the discipline since the Babylonian era. Mathematicians also suffered political consequences & whims. Physics was the very latent afterthought despite the head injuries the Romans must have suffered. Why not study the gravitational effects of the keystone?

If you were to say: Math is political, I’d disagree. Well... we’re currently suffering from Common Core, so I might offer exceptions — though, I get the ass-backwards nature of Common Core math.

Science as a discipline is a different animal than both physics & math. Science is the undisciplined process that is inevitably subject to the availability of both resources and time — an unfortunate but real complication. And for that reason, Science is effectively politically driven.

[Hiryusan]

True scientists say ‘I have verified through experimentation that...’ after having done so.

Politicians pretending to be scientists say ‘follow the science’, the science is settled, ‘ I believe...’, etc. to convince others of whatever absurd assertion they want others to believe at a given moment.

[Stepan12]

The science changes and some scientist may be incompetent, such as Fauci.

[Stepan12]

All those french scientists said thst Pastuer was wrong.

[ronnie raygun]

Science is presented for consumption by scientists who are paid by grants from the government. What ever the governments flavor of the day is, so is the flavor of the scientists. Climate change comes to mind

[AppyPappy]

Science is a fact until it isn’t.

Example: Pluto was a planet until it wasn’t.

A person born with one X and one Y chromosome is a male until they are not.

[Louis Foxwell]

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

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