September 08, 2021
What is Science?
This from Dr. Roy Spencer
Yes, we should "trust science", but the trouble is that science which impacts public policy is mostly performed by government-funded scientists, and is almost always politically influenced. Since science is almost always uncertain, it is prone to being bent in the direction of what politicians want.
Should We Trust Science?
Tim adds:
And what constitutes "Science"? Is it a consensus? Which scientists are defining what is Science? The way it works is the ones the media promote and the government employs are the ones determining what is Science and what is not.
I would point out that most scientists in the age of Galileo believed in the Ptolemaic view that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Copernicanism was not a slam dunk in terms of science at the time; it kept epicycles, for instance, although there were fewer needed. It wasn't until Tycho Brahe determined that planetary orbits were eliptical that Copernicanism was pretty much shown to be true.
The media and government funding of Science has a built-in bias. It would be like the Church being the sole determinant on the emerging science during the day. The Left so often cites Galileo as "proof" of the corruption of Christendom, but in reality it was Christendom that advanced the notion of Heliocentrism (Copernicus was a Catholic priest, after all.)
What we are seeing now is the triumph of the new Inquisition, unwilling to allow the heretical views of skeptics to be aired. It is exactly what the Left claimed the Church did, only they are more effective with electronic media to back them.
BTW What happened to Galileo was quite tame for the era. In fact, the Church was investigating the theory and was unwilling to blindly take Galileo's word for it. Galileo was a citizen of the Papal States and an employee of the Church and was asked to teach Copernicanism as a theory and not as fact. Galileo refused to do that, in violation of both the law of the land and his employer's orders. Normally he would have been burned at the stake as a hereetic but he was given a very light house arrest.
Yes, we should "trust science", but the trouble is that science which impacts public policy is mostly performed by government-funded scientists, and is almost always politically influenced. Since science is almost always uncertain, it is prone to being bent in the direction of what politicians want.
Should We Trust Science?
Tim adds:
And what constitutes "Science"? Is it a consensus? Which scientists are defining what is Science? The way it works is the ones the media promote and the government employs are the ones determining what is Science and what is not.
I would point out that most scientists in the age of Galileo believed in the Ptolemaic view that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Copernicanism was not a slam dunk in terms of science at the time; it kept epicycles, for instance, although there were fewer needed. It wasn't until Tycho Brahe determined that planetary orbits were eliptical that Copernicanism was pretty much shown to be true.
The media and government funding of Science has a built-in bias. It would be like the Church being the sole determinant on the emerging science during the day. The Left so often cites Galileo as "proof" of the corruption of Christendom, but in reality it was Christendom that advanced the notion of Heliocentrism (Copernicus was a Catholic priest, after all.)
What we are seeing now is the triumph of the new Inquisition, unwilling to allow the heretical views of skeptics to be aired. It is exactly what the Left claimed the Church did, only they are more effective with electronic media to back them.
BTW What happened to Galileo was quite tame for the era. In fact, the Church was investigating the theory and was unwilling to blindly take Galileo's word for it. Galileo was a citizen of the Papal States and an employee of the Church and was asked to teach Copernicanism as a theory and not as fact. Galileo refused to do that, in violation of both the law of the land and his employer's orders. Normally he would have been burned at the stake as a hereetic but he was given a very light house arrest.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:35 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 368 words, total size 2 kb.
1
Good article. Dr. Spencer always comes through. No, science certainly isn't consensus -- it's generally more the lack of it, at least at first. It took quite awhile for Einstein's Theory of Relativity to be accepted; before that, consensus was against it.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at September 08, 2021 09:50 AM (9/UYM)
2
Exactly right Dana. Most people thought Einstein was just a quack when he proposed it. And remember, he won the Nobel Prize for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, not Relativity. (Einstein had four potential Nobel winning papers, a true intellectual titan.)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at September 09, 2021 06:55 AM (8laC8)
24kb generated in CPU 0.2244, elapsed 0.2661 seconds.
37 queries taking 0.2515 seconds, 186 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
37 queries taking 0.2515 seconds, 186 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
