Philosophical Musings

Philosophical Musings

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Fake Science

You've heard of 'Fake News', this is about fake science. There are many who use the name of 'science' to promote an ideological agenda. They are not producing scientific evidence, or arguments, or anything that even resembles Real Science, which follows the scientific method, but agenda driven propaganda, shrouded in pseudo scientific terms to fool people & dazzle them with obfuscating terminology. Let us examine some of the traits of this Fake Science trend, & the basis that it is built upon.

1. Mandated Conformity. Instead of producing facts & evidence, & letting them compel a conclusion, the fake science advocates prefer to mandate belief in their decrees, & pretend the facts support their position. It is contrary to the scientific method & open inquiry.
2. Appeal to Authority. Fake Science believers have a pool of experts that they appeal to, based on credentials, rather than facts or evidence.
3. Bandwagon Fallacy. Instead of science, they claim, 'Everyone who is smart knows this is true'. It is a claim of universal knowledge, when the facts have not even been presented.
4. Poison the well. Any criticism of the facts, data, or conclusions from the Fake Scientists is met with an attack & discredit for the source of the criticism. The points of science or reason are not addressed, but the source is attacked to try to discredit it.
5. Ad Hominem. This is a favorite tactic of the Fake Science crowd.. they do not reply to any reason or facts, but deflect with name calling & insults to the critic of their pet belief, whatever it is.
6. Other logical fallacies. False equivalence, straw men, begging the question, circular reasoning, & just about any fallacy you can name is used by the Fake Scientists, instead of reason & scientific methodology.
7. Fake Data. For the fake scientists, the agenda is all important, not Discovery, or building upon the human knowledge base. Data is manipulated, faked, contrived & declared, with no examination allowed, & no criticism permitted.
8. Indoctrination. The agendas of the Fake Scientists are not driven by reason or facts, but by propaganda & forced indoctrination. Progressive indoctrination centers & every human institution that is controlled by the Fake Science adherents promote their propaganda with religious zeal.
9. Propaganda. Make the lie big, tell it often & loudly, & eventually people will believe it.

Fake science is the New Science of the day. In the dark ages, this kind of science was the status quo, & it took a revolution, beginning with Copernicus then built upon by Kepler, Newton, and many others that saw the birth of modern science, empiricism, & the Age of Reason. It reached a pinnacle in WW2, where technology & science seemed almost magical, & changed the world with dazzling displays of technological derring do. Machines could fly. Huge monuments to Man's Power were built everywhere, & the Ability of Man seemed limitless. Knowledge & science were worshiped like a god.

But since that era, we have slowly been 'devolving' as a society (in America, at least) to put technology in a sacred realm, where only the high priests could go. It was the holy of holies, where the common man could not go, & it is blasphemy for him to dare to challenge the decrees of the Elite Knowledge Keepers, who know all things, & should be trusted to care for him.

Here are a few of the Fake Science Beliefs of the day:

1. Global Warming. This is actually the poster child for Fake Science. It meets all the criteria: agenda driven, ridicule for any critics, ad hominem, contrived data, mandated belief, & relentless indoctrination.
2. A woman can do what she pleases with her body. This ignores the scientific evidence of a unique, individual human being growing inside the woman, which is the mammalian way of reproduction. The new person is no long 'a part of the woman's body', but a new life, growing inside her. It is fake science to claim it is a 'blob of tissue', or other orwellian redefinitions.
3. Evolution is settled science, & is proven to be the origin of man. This is flawed in every way, & is also Fake Science. There is NO evidence that this is even possible, much less that it DID happen. It is merely an indoctrinated belief
4. Guns kill people. Statistics are given, from juggled data sets, & deceptive studies, to try to demonize the firearm, which is also a great deterrent for evildoers. But only the negatives are presented, to try to promote a false perception, & to promote a phony narrative.
5. White people are evil. The race obsessed, divisive left is constantly revising history, promoting false narratives of 'white privilege,' 'black lives matter', & other hysteria based racist memes. It is not supported by facts or reality, but is a phony narrative, used to instigate violence, sedition, & division in society.
6. A nation should have open borders. This is historically & logistically false & impossible. Any nation that has any attraction to immigration must have some kind of orderly system for immigrants. Open borders only create chaos, crime, & overload the system. The reasoning & arguments for it are completely irrational, fallacious, & based on deceptive data.
7. If you are low on money, just print some more. This is the absurd belief that monetary policy should be based on decree, rather than production. But all decreed money does is devalue, as inflation eats up the wealth of the working man, & transfers it to the ruling elite.
8. Govt can enable everyone to live off of everybody else. This is the 'Great Fiction' that Bastiat wrote of, & ignores the more basic problems of production of food & other necessities, which 'govt' cannot produce. Only working people create the necessities of life.
9. America is evil. America is the only successful experiment in self rule, in the history of man. Those who hate it as a system usually suggest some kind of marxist solution, which has a terrible record for the common man, for rights, opportunity, prosperity, or anything else.
10. You can be what you want to be. This ignores scientific reality. It pretends that biological reality is somehow a choice, or an option you can make at any time in your life. But it ignores the genetic & biological reality of gender.
11. Love Trumps Hate. This is a favorite slogan of the progressive left, which they demonstrate by rioting, burning cars, & committing acts of violence on those who disagree with them. It is merely orwellian 'New speak', which redefines reality with opposite terms.
12. Islam is the religion of peace. This is also demonstrated, almost daily, with suicide bombers, attacks on civilians, & terrorist attacks, with the left constantly defending them while attacking other beliefs as 'bigoted'. 

There are many more, & i could go on. These are all sacred tenets of faith, in the religion of Progressivism. Almost all progressives hold to all of these, all at once, with little departure from the mandated belief system. These are not based on reason, facts, or empirical evidence, but mandated, indoctrinated propaganda. The American culture has turned from an empirical view of reality, with freedom of belief, to one of fantasy, mandates, & indoctrination.

Unless there is another cultural revolution in America, & unless empiricism & scientific methodology returns to its rightful place as an arbiter of knowledge, we will continue down the slide of madness & folly, where truth becomes a lie, & lies become 'truth.' It is a return to the dark ages, where Fake Science originated.

I'm looking forward to a revival of scientific inquiry.. it usually happens, after a period of mandated conformity by the status quo. A few bold heretics will post a controversial study, or make a shocking claim that rocks the Fake Science world. Like Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, & others, the Truth of some sacred cow of the institutional status quo will be examined more critically, & it will eventually crumble under that scrutiny. I'm actually shocked, that something like the ToE and AGW has been going on for so long, in our alleged 'scientific' culture. It just goes to show that science is no more immune from human manipulations than anything else. The ruling elite have been doing it for centuries, if not millennia, & will likely continue into the future. The fantasy belief that we are somehow immune to this, because we are at the pinnacle of human knowledge, is charmingly naive, absurdly arrogant, & dangerously ignorant.

Science, or scientific methodology, is not tasked with explaining the mysteries of the universe for philosophical comfort. Facts, evidence, & Truth are the goals, not offering alternative explanations for unknown mysteries that are beyond the realm of scientific methodology. Evolution has become a religion.. a belief system, with NO scientific basis. For the true scientist, exposing flaws, & critically examining the claims are the main tasks. Attempting to prop up a worldview, or cater to a belief system has NO PLACE in scientific endeavor. Yet that is what Fake Science is all about. Truth & Facts are not sought, but validation for some hare brained 'theory'.

They are propagandists.. ideologically driven beliefs are all they have. There is NO EVIDENCE that 'species change over time, in the basic genetic structure. The only 'changes' that occur are on the micro level, or in mere variability. The postulation that organisms can move easily between one genetic structure to another is not possible, from anything we know today. That is 'Fake Science', that indoctrinates this belief system into people as though it were 'settled science'. It is not. It is not even science. It is a religious belief.

I know there are not many scientifically minded people out there. Most people are content to leave that to the 'experts'. So they 'trust' them, believing them to be conflict free, & sincere seekers of scientific truth. But these are human beings, & as such, are subject to the same biases, prejudices, & self interests as anyone else. Anybody involved in the realm of research knows this.

I like this quote, from 1961, about the increasing conflict of govt funding & scientific research. It should be obvious, & how many people have been up in arms over the years over some phony report from 'govt scientists', telling us to chill & trust them, they are the 'smart ones', & have everything under control. DDT? It's safe, they assured us. Nuclear testing? Not a problem.. just rattles the windows, some. Margarine vs butter. Cigarettes. GMOs. Coffee. Sugar. Coal. Nuclear power. Name your controversy, & there was a govt funded study taking whichever side the ruling or moneyed, or academic elite preferred. It is the classic case of mixing politics with science, & it has always been a problem. Whenever you take science away from individual pursuit, or bind it under some institutional directives, you get Fake Science. Oh, they may come up with a few solutions, using technology in some way, but seldom does govt funded research bring anything radical to the knowledge base. They may build on it, some, but they do not do breakthroughs.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

The bolds are mine, & the quote is from Eisenhower, 1961. It is interesting to me how little things change. This could have easily been someone speaking to the current problems with scientific research, & the conflict of money, influence, & agenda.

Fake Science is real. It has been with us forever, & it takes skeptical, keen eyed critics to see through the bluff & arrogance of the elite, to continue the holy curiosity of inquiry.

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