You can see where I’m going with this. The implicit philosophy here is that scientific “belief” is inseverable, and that if Einstein (one of our holiest prophets) can be questioned, surely everything falls apart! Just as we tore away from the impure Faith, now the scientists are questioning themselves. Surely the schism of Science is close at hand, and with it the fall of this pernicious heresy….
They really, really don’t get it. They never even tried to understand us. The idea that not onlycan our ideas be severable — but that they must — that it is intrinsic to everything scientists do that everyone, no matter how laudable, can be questioned, can be debated, can be flat out wrong… it’s so far away from how shamans have operated throughout history that they never made the leap, not through all their schooling. To them, we’re just competition.
– a comment by Catfish N. Cod
Forget “left-versus-right.” Or even arguments over taxes. The centerpiece of our current Phase Three of the American Civil War is the all-out campaign to discredit science.
Elsewhere I show that the War on Science is part of a much wider effort to destroy public trust in every “smartypants caste” — from school teachers, journalists, medical doctors and attorneys to professors, civil servants and skilled labor. (Name a center of intellect that’s exempt!) But nowhere is it more relentless than by savaging the one group in society that’s unarguably among the smartest and best educated.
It’s having the intended effects. Chew on this. Thirty years ago, in the era of Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, 40% of U.S. scientists were Republicans. Today that fraction has plummeted to around 6%. Can you blame them?
Why is this happening? I go into it elsewhere — the underlying motive for a campaign that will leave only one elite standing. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that everybody has this thing backward. Scientists are not being undermined in order to argue against Human Generated Climate Change (HGCC). Rather, the whole HGCC imbroglio serves as a central rallying point in the campaign against science.
== The latest salvo ==
Trust the once-credible — now murdochian — mouthpiece called the Wall Street Journal to publish a sophistry-drenched festival of talking points. Five Truths about Climate Change by Robert Bryce.
Yep, call it “truth.” The Far Left spent years devaluing that once-proud word on a hundred university campuses, in their own version of a War on Science. Now the Entire Right — not just the far-fringe — completes the devaluation of “truth” down to Orwellian levels. Take this sampler from Bryce.
“The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Urk! Gurggle (*strangling sounds*) — I must let someone else answer this. This cartoon from Sci- ?nce! will make you both laugh and sob for your civilization.