Science is disappearing from science.
Many folks may view my posts as anti-science when in fact what I am against is the massive use of federal funds to skew scientific research.
The ideological censorship is a major issue.
Another (less discussed) but equally important issue is that the use of federal grants narrows the vision of science so it just confirms existing paradigms.
Anything “out of the box” becomes unfundable which means that true scientific progress gets crippled.
Scientists are always tempted to ignore outlying data that does not fit with their hypotheses, and of course the more established they are the greater their defense of existing paradigms since their reputations are often based on them.
They are also tempted to “fudge” data to make sure it meets the “goals” of the grants.
Then there is the peer pressure to conform or be considered a “kook”.
The result is group-think that can easily devolve into stupidity.
“Follow the science” these days often means obey or starve.
“Science is disappearing from science.”
Naw, its just political science now.
Science is disappearing from science.
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As a conservative Christian and a retired scientist, I am thoroughly disgusted with the cancer that is liberalism. 40 years ago politics in science was unheard of. I received an MS in physics in the late ‘80s but it almost didn’t happen when my advisor found out I was a Christian. My mistake was writing to the editor of my college in support of the power of prayer. My letter was published, then the harassment and intimidation began. But I fought for my degree and won.
Six years later I pursued a PhD in computational physics. I was taking a class in astrophysical hydrodynamics and my advisor was teaching. He stomped into class one evening ranting about a debate between a Creationist (Intelligent Design, ID) and a Darwinist. The Darwinist lost the debate and my advisor called the ID supporter a snake oil salesman. I studied Intelligent Design and concluded that Darwinism demonstrated many weaknesses as a solid scientific theory. I asked my advisor a simple question, where did the first self-replicating RNA molecule come from? He was pissed and mumbled something about the class was not the proper forum to debate. I watched my PhD fly out of the window that night.
But if I had it to do over again I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I have always encouraged a lively debate regarding a wide variety of issues, even if it was a CLM, a Career Limiting Move.
While working for NOAA I openly challenged the idea that carbon dioxide was a pollutant and argued that a war on fossil fuels was unnecessary. I found myself alone because my coworkers were afraid to participate. So I took on the entire Climate Forum and challenged them to disprove my argument. The responses were surprisingly weak, a genuine lack of critical thinking. Even the moderator was wrong about CO2 emissions in the U.S., lowest since the early ‘90s because of conversion from coal to natural gas at most of our utilities.
The powers-that-be tried to get me fired by writing to my supervisor. He reviewed my posts and concluded that I was free to continue the debate. Finally the other side gave up. But I was placed on a blacklist and was robbed out of a promotion. The government does engage in prohibitive work practices and the EEOC process is non-existent. I am happily retired but I did my best as a public servant to serve in the best interests of the people, not to serve the powers-that-be and their greedy money game.
The powers-that-be harass and retaliate if anybody disagrees with the group-think. The scientific community is hopelessly corrupted by the pursuit of money, at the expense of science. I’ve watched in despair as liberalism has crept from academia to the scientific community, to all branches of government and most recently, into the medical community; even into our public schools.
The scientific method used to be testing a theory with experiment. Every theory makes predictions. If the theory does not match observations, it is wrong. But no, let’s change the observations to fit the theory. And while we are at it, let us change history, revise the past. The government has become decidedly anti-Christian, anti-conservative and anti-science. Feynman said it best, science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts. Only God’s intervention can save us from the increasing madness.