Apparently nobody remembers that on the leading edge of this covid-19 thing, the scientists… Including Anthony Fauci… The latest darling of the Democrat party… Was telling us that to shut down travel to and from China was racist and not scientific. Wasn’t it Nancy Pelosi who was telling everybody that we should all go down to Chinatown and have dinner? They even went so far as to, in the mainstream media, remove the name “Wuhan” from the virus. You see these news organizations want to do business in china. So, too, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
But let’s stick to the use of science for just a moment.
Let’s see… are these the same scientists that tell us that by 1980 the seas will be boiling?
Or, are they the same scientist who told us back in the 70s that the oceans would be frozen by now… In both those cases The cure was succumb to the government’s demand that we stop driving large automobiles?
Is this the same science that tells us that leeches are a medical tool?
Is this the same science that tells us that black people are inherently inferior, and human weeds to be expunged from the planet?
Are these the same scientists who told us that Thalidomide was safe? *
You see the fact of the matter is “science” has gotten it wrong so many times that they’ve actually gotten it wrong more than they’ve gotten it right.
There’s even a few scientists out there that are saying exactly that, but unfortunately for the most part, we can’t even get them to use the now hackneyed phrase “mistakes were made”.
Meanwhile, businesses get shut down, lives ruined, energy costs go through the ceiling and we find ourselves with an ever more powerful government… (And in case you haven’t noticed, every time we are urged to believe the science, what we’re really being asked to do is turn increasing portions of our life and increasing power over to politicians who simply put our nuts sciences but simply are seeking power for themselves.)
At the bottom line, is the idea that for the most part, “science” is over educated, inaccurate guesswork, and is, often as not, politically or financially motivated, or, frankly, motivated by the lust for being famous and seeing your name in the headlines.
And then of course government gets into the act, putting the force of law and government behind the guesswork …which of course does nothing but amplify the problems.
Consider the intrusions to your daily life. Using science as a shield, government can now dictate to you what kind of car you should drive, what kind of light bulb you can use, how much water your toilet can hold, what kind of food you can’t eat, how much power you are appliances can consume, how much hot water your appliances can consume and so on. All in the name of science, and all of it in the name of improving your lot, which of course it doesn’t. It turns out as we’ve said here many times that ethanol does nothing to reduce air pollution although it does increase the cost of driving an automobile and it also tends to damage engines and exhaust systems. Just one more example.
So then we come to the aforementioned Wuhan virus. Despite the number of flip flops on the so-called scientific facts of the case, we are, by force of law, compelled not to live our lives. Many of us, as a result of government again using science as a shield, have not been working in months.
The one thing about Donald Trump’s presidency that the Democrats couldn’t argue with was the wild economic success… until that is China released its Wuhan virus on the world. and so businesses get shut down the economy gets basically crippled and our national debt gets ever higher. (And we’re supposed to ignore the idea that China greatly preferred Mr Trump’s opposition being the White House)
And that reminds us that there’s the election to consider. We’ve all known since square one that mail in voting is an excellent opportunity for fraudsters but we waive the magic wand of science and suddenly we have record numbers of mail in votes many of which turn out to have been printed in China.
How very convenient.
There are some I suppose who want me to be generous and suggest that the scientists and the government hacks are well intentioned. It’s all to make us safe, and protect us from harm and it’s for the greater good, so we’re told.
Leaving aside the list of construction materials for the road to hell, I think I’ll let CS Lewis address this one:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
… All of which rings quite true… in this case, the very phrase “believe the science” denotes an attitude of. “If you don’t, you’re an imbecile.”
That, of course, is part and parcel of the ‘anti-intellectual” charge that we hear so often from the same crowd. The prevailing attitude appears to be that we should be taking the word of our betters and not questioning it because after all they are, well, better than us.
That attitude however, would seem to suggest that there is a limit to human knowledge and that varies from person to person.
But here’s the thing…. What if the limits of human understanding are inherent to the guys in the white lab coats as well as the supposed country bumpkins?
Now, I’m sure there are those who will view this as staunchly anti-science, as if I’m attacking their religion. Which, in more than one way, I suppose I am. The elevation of science to a religion would certainly explain the attitude of some that science and government are both infallible and omnipotent. Thus the phrase “science knows”.
The problem of course, is that science is a process not an omnipotent being. And therefore, science doesn’t know a damn thing.
Science a process employed by fallible human beings, mortals all, and there are cognitive limits on every human being which need to be accounted for in this discussion, as well as emotional political and monetary motivations for pursuing a particular scientific tack, any and all of which pollute that process and any results that it might come up with.
And before I leave you, allow me to point up that every time, without any exception at all, politics and science get cross-linked, it benefits big government and its proponents.
