"Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavour that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world"
Science is not knowledge.
Science is not a profession.
Science is not a 'thing" it is a process.
Science's only products are hypotheses, opinions, guesses, every single one of which is wrong.
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
Socrates.
Every great teacher, in every area of life says "Show where I am wrong. Don't take my word for it."
The motto of England’s Royal Society, founded in 1660, is “Nullius in verba”: “Take nobody’s word for it.”
Universities have morphed from places of education, to places of learning.
Technicons for parrots.
Hundreds of thousands of 'graduates' who can remember everything but have never had a single thought.
To protect their revenue streams, they have turned their guesses into pronouncements and created a new religion, "SCIENCE".
A cult for the brainless who can no longer stomach the idea that the earth was formed 5,650 years ago by an old man with a beard.
William should not use the word science but always refer to "scientism".
It demeans the reader as well as the writer to conflate the two.
To misquote Orwell, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their language.”
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." -- George Orwell, 1984
So, to correct the headline and make sense of the article, "Scientism is the problem".
Once wymyn were allowed to bring emotion into science, it was all over. The social “sciences” bled into the hard sciences in ridiculous ways. And honestly, feminist adjacent male scientists are as much to blame for allowing it in the pursuit of accolades, publishing and, let’s be honest, a shot at hooking up.
A politician asks the scientist if he would endorse “climate change” for a million dollars, and the scientist says, Sure!” The politician says, “How about a thousand dollars?” The scientist says, “Do you think my integrity is for sale?” The politician grins as he replies, “We’ve already established that you’re integrity is for sale (i.e. you’re a prostitute), now we’re just negotiating the price.
You can say that science did devolve into politics, but that’s different from saying that its essence is political. I think the postmodernists claim the later, but you have only argued the former. I still don’t think they are right.
Yesterday, I went to the grocery store and to Costco. In the approximately 30 minutes I was in the grocery store, I counted 12 people wearing a mask. Every one of them was an elderly female. In the 40 minutes I was in Costco (a great deal of this time was spent in the checkout line) I counted 17 people wearing a mask. Every one of them was an elderly female except for one elderly male who was pushing the cart for his elderly, and masked, wife. While driving back and forth, I saw 3 people wearing a mask while they were driving, each were alone, and one person wearing a mask while riding a bike. I couldn't tell the sex of the car drivers, but the bike rider was a male in, at a guess, his 30's. By elderly female, I mean waaay up in their 70's and beyond. It's just nuts and I really feel sorry for them.
I hate to agree, but the evidence suggests you (and they) were correct. I don't think it HAD to be that way, and I don't think all is lost, in the sense that reality ALWAYS re-asserts itself, its just how much damage gets done in the mean time. As an engineer, empiricist and a pragmatist, I deal in reality every day and I make things work, and I still see that most people still live in the real world. Apart from the academics, and the cultural (clueless) elites. My general concern is this, and I can see that it IS happening: https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/
This is the first time in history when women play a dominate roll in most institutions, and also the first time in history when there are so many childless women of child bearing age.
Hormones and sense feelings that ought to be put into offspring, I'm afraid are the cause of many pathologies in our present day. The patriarchy really wasn't all that bad after all. It needed adjustment, but now we are in many places a matriarchal dominate system, and lonely unhappy women trying to be mothers without children.
As in Book of Judges, Devorah had to lead Israel when the men failed to lead. And under the Maccabees the one queen almost destroyed the nation and led to the eventual conquest by Rome. One major reason for the greatness, longevity and continuing influence of Roman civilization is that no woman was ever permitted to rule. Rome had only male rulers.
See https://aetherczar.substack.com/, Hanz G Schantz' substack, especially the recent guest article on Oliver Heaviside and his relations with the Royal Society, for a classic example of the political nature of science.
It is not a new thing. There was no golden age when it wasn't, and never will be.
What there is are parts of the cycle where pragmatic people have their hands on the levers of power, and parts of the cycle where cynical fabulists have their hands on the levers of power.
It is plain which part of the cycle we are now in. It will take some kind of mass die-off or otherwise humiliating disaster for the cycle to change back to a pragmatist phase. Interestingly, the success of the pragmatists lays the ground for their loss of power to the fabulists, while the failures of the fabulists lays the ground for their loss of power to the pragmatists.
... and so on, up the yin yang, as the saying goes.
It's also interesting that the po-mo crusaders cast science as nothing more than a tool of power and control and then say - with astounding gall and lack of self-awareness - that therefore THEY must control it.
It reminded me of some Utah state employees I met at a conference who said that the State concluded that alcohol and tobacco were too sinful and dangerous to be sold by private interests, so only the State can sell them there.
Post modernists are all about power, unfortunately for science that's where much resided. Because they think in terms of power being the only true force in nature, post modernists have no qualms about using power to meet whatever ends they deem worthy. Unfortunately scientists depend on funding for most research, universities too. And post moderns know money is power.
I'm glad I'm not a scientist but a mere engineer. It's still good to be an engineer. We have a low tolerance for b-sht and like the work. Seldom is an engineer bound to any post modernist baloney. Yes we'll work on building systems for green energy, but if it gets to the point where it's either immoral/unethicial/unsafe/ect we as a group will call it out. We all hate the DEI b-sht corporate trys to cram down our throats daily, especially black engineers. What engineer worth his or her salt wants to be known as a DEI hire!?
When only the happy few went to universities it was no issue that most people do not and cannot think. Now that the masses attend universities it has become a problem, possibly the biggest problem of our age. It can be argued that knowledge acquired without a struggle isn't worthy of the name, that it is mere compliance with a system of propositions.
The reason people will never learn to think, least of all at institutions of "higher" education, is simple. Thinking begins at a very early age, when it will make a child feel different from both his tutors and his peers. To think is to be engaged in a battle. No two battles are the same. In that early phase the child either summons up the courage to BE different or caves in. The latter category will do well at universities.
"Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavour that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world"
Science is not knowledge.
Science is not a profession.
Science is not a 'thing" it is a process.
Science's only products are hypotheses, opinions, guesses, every single one of which is wrong.
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
Socrates.
Every great teacher, in every area of life says "Show where I am wrong. Don't take my word for it."
The motto of England’s Royal Society, founded in 1660, is “Nullius in verba”: “Take nobody’s word for it.”
Universities have morphed from places of education, to places of learning.
Technicons for parrots.
Hundreds of thousands of 'graduates' who can remember everything but have never had a single thought.
To protect their revenue streams, they have turned their guesses into pronouncements and created a new religion, "SCIENCE".
A cult for the brainless who can no longer stomach the idea that the earth was formed 5,650 years ago by an old man with a beard.
William should not use the word science but always refer to "scientism".
It demeans the reader as well as the writer to conflate the two.
To misquote Orwell, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their language.”
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." -- George Orwell, 1984
So, to correct the headline and make sense of the article, "Scientism is the problem".
Once wymyn were allowed to bring emotion into science, it was all over. The social “sciences” bled into the hard sciences in ridiculous ways. And honestly, feminist adjacent male scientists are as much to blame for allowing it in the pursuit of accolades, publishing and, let’s be honest, a shot at hooking up.
A politician asks the scientist if he would endorse “climate change” for a million dollars, and the scientist says, Sure!” The politician says, “How about a thousand dollars?” The scientist says, “Do you think my integrity is for sale?” The politician grins as he replies, “We’ve already established that you’re integrity is for sale (i.e. you’re a prostitute), now we’re just negotiating the price.
(Old joke but still applies!)
You can say that science did devolve into politics, but that’s different from saying that its essence is political. I think the postmodernists claim the later, but you have only argued the former. I still don’t think they are right.
So, it turns out that scientists are fallible human beings after all, and not dispassionate thinking machines devoted solely to fact.
On some levels, they win because it works.
Yesterday, I went to the grocery store and to Costco. In the approximately 30 minutes I was in the grocery store, I counted 12 people wearing a mask. Every one of them was an elderly female. In the 40 minutes I was in Costco (a great deal of this time was spent in the checkout line) I counted 17 people wearing a mask. Every one of them was an elderly female except for one elderly male who was pushing the cart for his elderly, and masked, wife. While driving back and forth, I saw 3 people wearing a mask while they were driving, each were alone, and one person wearing a mask while riding a bike. I couldn't tell the sex of the car drivers, but the bike rider was a male in, at a guess, his 30's. By elderly female, I mean waaay up in their 70's and beyond. It's just nuts and I really feel sorry for them.
Well said.
I notice James Corbett sprung a bit of a comic coverage of the state of peer review hoaxing.
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/trust-the-computer-generated-gobbledygook
William,
Despite my deep loathing of postmodernism, I have to day your diagnosis that they were right, in the context of science, to be very true.
It seems to me that this - the power play - was not always so in the field of science. Was it postmodernism that changed that? Or what? And when?
Regardless, it is a disaster. For science, and for trust in science.
I hate to agree, but the evidence suggests you (and they) were correct. I don't think it HAD to be that way, and I don't think all is lost, in the sense that reality ALWAYS re-asserts itself, its just how much damage gets done in the mean time. As an engineer, empiricist and a pragmatist, I deal in reality every day and I make things work, and I still see that most people still live in the real world. Apart from the academics, and the cultural (clueless) elites. My general concern is this, and I can see that it IS happening: https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/
Is it just me or is there a strong estrogen smell coming out of the science expertocracy these days
It is not just you and it has been going on for decades. It seems that many prefer half-baked scholarship to uninspired motherhood.
This is the first time in history when women play a dominate roll in most institutions, and also the first time in history when there are so many childless women of child bearing age.
Hormones and sense feelings that ought to be put into offspring, I'm afraid are the cause of many pathologies in our present day. The patriarchy really wasn't all that bad after all. It needed adjustment, but now we are in many places a matriarchal dominate system, and lonely unhappy women trying to be mothers without children.
As in Book of Judges, Devorah had to lead Israel when the men failed to lead. And under the Maccabees the one queen almost destroyed the nation and led to the eventual conquest by Rome. One major reason for the greatness, longevity and continuing influence of Roman civilization is that no woman was ever permitted to rule. Rome had only male rulers.
“Hersterical”—I already quoted you (with attribution). 😀
See https://aetherczar.substack.com/, Hanz G Schantz' substack, especially the recent guest article on Oliver Heaviside and his relations with the Royal Society, for a classic example of the political nature of science.
It is not a new thing. There was no golden age when it wasn't, and never will be.
What there is are parts of the cycle where pragmatic people have their hands on the levers of power, and parts of the cycle where cynical fabulists have their hands on the levers of power.
It is plain which part of the cycle we are now in. It will take some kind of mass die-off or otherwise humiliating disaster for the cycle to change back to a pragmatist phase. Interestingly, the success of the pragmatists lays the ground for their loss of power to the fabulists, while the failures of the fabulists lays the ground for their loss of power to the pragmatists.
... and so on, up the yin yang, as the saying goes.
C'est la vie.
It's also interesting that the po-mo crusaders cast science as nothing more than a tool of power and control and then say - with astounding gall and lack of self-awareness - that therefore THEY must control it.
It reminded me of some Utah state employees I met at a conference who said that the State concluded that alcohol and tobacco were too sinful and dangerous to be sold by private interests, so only the State can sell them there.
Post modernists are all about power, unfortunately for science that's where much resided. Because they think in terms of power being the only true force in nature, post modernists have no qualms about using power to meet whatever ends they deem worthy. Unfortunately scientists depend on funding for most research, universities too. And post moderns know money is power.
I'm glad I'm not a scientist but a mere engineer. It's still good to be an engineer. We have a low tolerance for b-sht and like the work. Seldom is an engineer bound to any post modernist baloney. Yes we'll work on building systems for green energy, but if it gets to the point where it's either immoral/unethicial/unsafe/ect we as a group will call it out. We all hate the DEI b-sht corporate trys to cram down our throats daily, especially black engineers. What engineer worth his or her salt wants to be known as a DEI hire!?
Refreshing piece.
When only the happy few went to universities it was no issue that most people do not and cannot think. Now that the masses attend universities it has become a problem, possibly the biggest problem of our age. It can be argued that knowledge acquired without a struggle isn't worthy of the name, that it is mere compliance with a system of propositions.
The reason people will never learn to think, least of all at institutions of "higher" education, is simple. Thinking begins at a very early age, when it will make a child feel different from both his tutors and his peers. To think is to be engaged in a battle. No two battles are the same. In that early phase the child either summons up the courage to BE different or caves in. The latter category will do well at universities.
William, might you share a link to the Cochran review please?
And, this post nails so many things. Good work.