True science is a wonderful method to gain facts about the physical world. Scientism, which in its bastardized popular form boils down to falsely pretending that one’s position on an issue is mandated by science, has as much scientific validity as calling out a shaman to wave about his magic sticks to chase away evil spirits. Science as a method of arriving at facts, yes. Science as a substitute religion or a political battering ram, no. When someone says the science is settled, a statement in spirit anathema to the scientific method, on a matter of current controversy, you can usually assume that you are hearing scientism preached.
https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcatturd2%2Fstatus%2F1428716975757348873&widget=Tweet
https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/19/psychiatrist-sally-satel-very-concerned-about-critical-race-theory-infiltrating-mental-health-care/
You think there is even one person on the University of Vermont’s board who would put a resolution on the table to shut down the counselor education program? One Republican state legislator to suggest that insurance and labor law be amended to that there are no 3d party financiers of this quackery? One to suggest the licensing board be shut down?
People don’t want to hear the boring truth anymore. Blame it on the era of constant stimulation and who-screams-the-loudest to be heard. Hedonism rules.
The logo for IEEE, https://ethw.org/Archives:Evolution_of_the_IEEE_Logo
, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.. depicts a triangle and arrows representing electrical and magnetic forces in the conventional “right-hand rule” relationship. No one actually knows why that relationship exists, but it does. This means that every electrical, electronic and radio device we have operates on demonstrative theory, not settled science.
I’ll shortly be publishing a series of articles on what science is all about. What people don’t know is the history of science, how many times old theories and constructs (the caloric theory of heat, the ether as a medium for transmission of electromagnetic waves, … ) have been supplanted or supplemented by new theories AND, most importantly, new data.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants, arrogantly holding our cell phones high, never bothering to look at the stars as children, with eyes of wonder, in a universe so vast no-one-knows how big it is.
The Verdict of History is this:
Without the Papacy there would be no Catholic Church….
Without the Catholic Church there would be no Christianity…
Without Christianity there would be no Science….
If science is an understanding of how our world works then there is no such thing as settled science. We will never fully understand how our world works to the point where we cease to investigate. The problem I think is when theories which don’t have enough evidence to make them true, still get peddled because the research cannot answer the question. It’s human nature to want to settle on answers however that’s not always possible because our current ability to answer the question is limited to our resources at the time. What we knew about Covid a year ago is not what we know about Covid now and not what we will know about Covid in a years time and so forth…
good point Ezabelle; science unlike dogma or other articles of faith, changes.
Nearly every scientific professional organization participated in ShutDownSTEM. What clearer signal could be sent to indicate that they care more about politics than science?
RH, the problem is that professional scientific organizations are usually run by “those who can’t (fill in the blank), administer,” which is to say those with BS science degrees or some science courses who have taken BA or management studies. It’s the deep state all over. I suspect this to be true for the American Physical Society and for those AAS.