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| Intro...the rationale before the facts: |
When I write an article, essay, or commentary, my selection
of the title usually comes after the words are re-read and something will
usually perk my tired old brain into thinking something that will get the
potential reader’s attention…sometimes not very successful. Then again, I can sometimes read someone else’s
one-liner and I can gather all the information the writer wishes to express
without reading all the ifs, ands, buts… That is the essence of a great
headline! Some writers have a line buried
somewhere in their commentary that begs the question, “Why didn’t I think of
that?”
The following article has one of those one-liners, but
first let me express a few thoughts. Bruce
Walker writes an excellent anti-left wing…let me rephrase that; a positive
right wing editorial concerning the destructive measures the left has exhibited
regarding modern day science. Real
science deals in facts whereas the left’s version of science deals with a
desired outcome regardless of the facts.
Climate change is one such example…and I won’t get into any argument with
that because there is no argument; the climate has been changing since day one,
and will continue to change to the last day.
The left has no rational thought concerning the science of climate
change…their rationale is based solely on the fact that if they can tax the
individual for climate matters what will it matter; they will have more control
over individuals (society, if you will).
Which leads me to Bruce’s one-liner buried in his last paragraph, “All of those factors are present in leftism
today; every issue is political, honesty is nonexistent, and power is
everything.” Now why didn’t I
think of that…it summarizes the left and they have no argument to dispute the
fact! ~ Norman E. Hooben
How the Left Is
Destroying Science
Science is a process for
finding truth in our material world. The blossoming of science occurred
in Medieval Europe and continued to flourish until the early part of the last
century, almost exclusively in the Western world. This was not coincidental.
The combination of the
ancient Greek desire for free inquiry combined with the Judeo-Christian belief
in an orderly universe and, most vitally, the Judeo-Christian primary value of
honesty created in poor, small Europe explosions in thought that the old, rich
empires of the East could not achieve.
It is also not an
accident that the overwhelming majority of early great scientists were either
among a small pool of ancient Greeks – essentially Pythagoras, Archimedes, and
Euclid – or among especially devout Medieval Christians – (Friar) Roger Bacon,
(Bishop) Jean Buridan, (Bishop) Robert Grosseteste, (Father) Nicolai
Copernicus, and (Canon) Galileo.
Because these profoundly
devout Christians considered physics and mathematics simply another
manifestation of a holy and ordered Creation, they never worshipped
science. Lying was a sin, and lying about the nature of the world was a
particularly serious sin, because it knowingly concealed the true nature of the
world.
Within the Medieval
university was that same sort of freedom and mutual respect that had never
existed before except in the academy of Plato. As with the academy, the medieval
university had schools of thought and different interpretations of what
phenomena meant. This was science.
Scientism, on the other
hand, is a vile misology that arose at the end of the nineteenth century and
has infected those processes intended to discover the truth about our world
ever since. The most evil and dishonest regimes in modern history – Nazi
Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China – were all utterly and passionately
devoted to whatever pseudo-science was needed to support the party.
Often these regimes
cranked out huge numbers of physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and related
hard science disciplines, but it is not the quantity of trained scientists, but
the quality of their environment that matters. We were afraid, at the
beginning of the Cold War, that the hordes of physicists and engineers that the
Soviet Union turned out would leave America behind. In fact, science did
much better under the tsars than the Soviets.
Scientism is ossified
and reactionary. There are never schools of thought, for example, in
scientistic regimes. Honesty and integrity cannot survive, because honest
inquiry is always punished and because the atheism at the heart of regimes of
this sort means that there is no moral restraint regarding experiments,
observation and the presentation of other explanations for data.
The left has pushed us
farther and farther away from science and toward scientism. When our
attorney general seriously ponders criminal prosecution against scientists who
challenge the prevailing orthodoxy of man-made global warming, when
universities drive out scientists who question global warming, when the state
rewrites historic temperature data so that the revised data conforms to global
warming, when the "proof" of global warming consists of what a
certain percentages of scientists support, then scientism as supplanted
science.
Why has this
happened? First, everything today is political, including science.
Second, treating the Judeo-Christian religious tradition as poppycock means
that the vital check on dishonesty that comes from fear of a morally serious
God is nonexistent in the minds of many scientists. Third, as the lust
for power overwhelms all decent human instincts and scientism becomes a very
simple path to power, the aim of seeking truth fades and then dies.
All of those factors are
present in leftism today; every issue is political, honesty is nonexistent, and
power is everything. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we are sliding into a
new Dark Age. This grim fact is something many of us feel about modern
life. Those toxins in cognition and integrity that are the heart of
leftism have infected many other areas of life and are strangling science to
death. That is precisely what the left wants.
