Excellent stuff. I've been trying to hammer this into my colleagues' heads for several years now, regarding topics such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and anthropogenic global warming. These have been moralized as beyond question, and colleagues frequently bemoan the growing "anti-science" attitude of the public. They don't like it when I tell them they have no one to blame but themselves. There have been too many scandals, too many examples of scientists bending the truth for money, fame, or politics, and too many people who have gotten hurt as a result.
Several years ago, I attended a grad student workshop with a Nature editor. During the Q&A he brought up a study that had asked scientists across various disciplines, using an anonymous survey, how often they'd faked their data. By far the worst discipline was biomed. I asked the editor what the real fraction was, in his professional opinion, given that of course not every respondent to such a survey can be expected to be answer with full candour. He guessed about 1/3. So is biomed even science anymore? I responded. There was an awkward silence at that.
I'm not sure what the answer is to this situation. The ranks of scientific professionals (I hesitate to call them scientists in most cases) are filled with a certain kind of timid conformist who sees science not as a quest for knowledge but a tool for social status and an excuse to moralize. Looking at the current generation of graduate students, they seem even worse in this respect than my own contemporaries ... and it was not long ago that I was in grad school. The institutions seem quite unrecoverable at this point, and the downwards trajectory in the reliability, utility, and consequently public trust in established science looks like it will only acceletate.
"...filled with a certain kind of timid conformist who sees science not as a quest for knowledge but a tool for social status and an excuse to moralize."
John, not "excuse" byt rather they feel it is a fuggin DUTY, one expected of them and they had better out-moralize the crowd or they won't stand out. The level of conceit is hard to fathom.
There is no way this can be sustained. I see the deterioration in my own field more and more. Basically, it is a Maoist struggle hampster wheel.
John, I fear that if science (medicine) can overlook the sins of Ancel Keys for 40 years and make pariahs out of anyone with alternate inquiries, we cannot hope that current crop of activists care much about science's standing. They think their mission is to effect social change which makes them nothing other than critical theory adherents. I am generalizing, of course.
Indeed. Which is what makes COVID a hidden blessing. Seeing the great and good lie so infamously and shamelessly has led to many asking what else they were lied to about. As it turns out, the answer is: a great deal.
We created and subsidized an "academic market," albeit a mutant one since the GI Bill, with 5 crab claws and 6 teets. The myriad incentives and biases in this market moves the invisible hand (claw) of this beast without any centralized conspiracy. Unlike a real market, there are few consequences to the idiots who lie, cheat, fail time and again. So they never learn harsh enough lessons to change. All who tried to sell "new Coke" or Olestra, or Jamie Oliver got hammered. This bunch doesn't learn that way. They have a safety net, or did anyway. The only way to improve this is to incentivize dissenting inquiry. If they think they can get a grant by studying how masks DO NOT WORK, you can bet your bippy proposals will come flying.
Jun 26, 2023·edited Jun 26, 2023Liked by David C. Ronquillo
Physicists (I am one myself) are no better. In terms of total economic impact, "climate change mitigation" will exceed COVID-19.
It's also a fact that the incoming APS president pushed masks, physics conferences had vaccine mandates like everyone else, and prominent physicists don't question anything despite having the intellectual ability to do so. Lots of brilliant physicists signed the letter to keep funding EcoHealth. https://nlcampaigns.org/NL_letter_final.html
I am constantly disappointed by even people I consider very intelligent who blindly accept that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is man-made and an imminent danger to the earth and human civilization. When 97% of scientists, most of whom know nothing about climate science, agree on anything, you know it's time for questioning. Yet they won't, largely because they don't want to be ridiculed and have their careers ruined. This is anti-science and yes, the knee-jerk reaction to "climate change" will far exceed the destruction wrought by the covid pandemic response.
The smart ones know that the talk about global warming amounts to fear mongering, but they think it's for a good cause. Resource conservation, a political loser, is what they really want. So they push another noble lie. http://www.mainaudeclaration.org/
To say nothing of Chanda Prescodd-Weinstein using her intersectionality weaponized identities to terrify the APS into withdrawing their pro forma congratulatory message to President Trump upon his inauguration. The politicization of STEM runs deep.
See also the Geoff Marcy affair in astronomy, e.g.:
There is a toxic brew of brainwashed careerism among the rank-and-file and secret Malthusianism among physics leaders that keeps the field aligned with Democrats. I think the big prizes (Breakthrough, Nobel, MacArthur) are also captured.
Jun 26, 2023·edited Jun 26, 2023Liked by David C. Ronquillo
Great introductory piece. It was a suggestion from the excellent Helen Dale and was well-worth the time. Thanks additionally for all of the citations, as many reflexively demand "sources" as soon as they're presented with information that challenges their currently-held beliefs. Looking forward to more work from you, David.
As you stated at the beginning of your article, the scientific method involves a “search for truth” which requires; Freedom of inquiry; Disdain for dogma; Skepticism; and Candid debate. However, “Science” has abandoned the scientific method and become a “Religion” with its Dogma and Clergy of “Experts” that are not to be questioned. Whether it is Fauci claiming that he is “Science” and conspiring to silence his critics, or the Climate Change cult and their followers claiming that the “science has been settled” and any dissenting voices are “Science Deniers.” I applaud you for writing this article, but the problem is not limited to the medical scientists, all scientists are to blame for letting this happen.
One problem, perhaps THE problem, is that scientists themselves don't know much about "science" itself. We learn our field, sure, but few of us can articulate or even understand the uses and differences between induction, abduction, deduction. My field, geology, is really an abductive science; very very rarely can we test hypotheses with experiments. Sure, I know geology, but was I trained as a natural philosopher? No, other than what I have learned myself through classical studies. So basically each science is taught as a VOCATION and no doubt Biomed is the worst in this regard.
Ask any young scientist this: Have you read Bacon's Novum Organum? That book, after all, is the very pillar on which all of western science sits. The scientist well likely say, no, of course. They probably have not even read Feynman's great work or even Sagan's, Dragons of Eden (he is a big atheistic, pinko meathead, but the book was good).
Good stuff, I will be attacking the STEM disease myself soon. No masks needed.
The medical profession was divorced from "science" for many years before covid. Covid just brought more awareness to their lack of scientific rigour. Go to any medical doctor, and ask them how berberine (a plant extract) compares to metformin for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. They will refuse to answer and refuse to research the issue. They will tell you that berberine is not scientifically proven, but, according to their own scientific methodologies (which can be disputed, but that is another story), berberine IS proven to be both safer and more effective than metformin. For some utterly unscientific reason, any scientific research into food extracts is deemed unscientific, even though all this research has met the requirements to publish on pub med and in other medical journals. (See Greenmedinfo for a front end that enables searches on scientific research into the healing properties of food products). So how can doctors justify ignoring this research and refuse to support any medical treatment that is not supplied by the drug companies? But they do and they have for decades. They were already on this very unscientific pathway long before covid, and for those of us aware of this, their betrayal over covid has come as no surprise. They have always and will always do what the drug companies tell them to do. They were never "scientists" in the first place. So it is a good thing that this has now become visible to many more people.
Humility is the highest Christian virtue, the gateway to the rest, in the history of Christian ascetic understanding. Christ repeatedly sought to teach this. In the context here, it allows us to be in touch with reality even if we have to "bear a little shame" to do so (in the words of some modern Orthodox saints and theologians; note that is "little" as opposed to "toxic")
This is an excellent article that points out key problems with current epistemic uncertainty, scientific integrity and attempts at totalitarian control of knowledge. Of course, it is a crisis of knowledge. It is a consequence of the lack of trust caused by the abuse of trust implied by the greed principle of the neoliberal capitalist economy. The problem surfaces because of the obscene concentration of economic wealth in the hands of a small number of people and their frantic attempts to assert control at a time of a global power shift.
I find it quite an amusing coincidence that the issues discussed (knowledge, trust), focusing on hypocrisy and arrogance in conclusions, and even the cover image (Anatomy Class) correspond to my article published around the same time. The difference is that my writing frames the problem from the standpoint of cosmopolitan ideology, ethics and political economy.
Sadly, those who have purposefully deceived the public will never apologize or accept that they were so dreadfully inaccurate in most everything they espoused. Their egos are too voluminous and/or their politics too fervently controlled by political bias.
Excellent stuff. I've been trying to hammer this into my colleagues' heads for several years now, regarding topics such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and anthropogenic global warming. These have been moralized as beyond question, and colleagues frequently bemoan the growing "anti-science" attitude of the public. They don't like it when I tell them they have no one to blame but themselves. There have been too many scandals, too many examples of scientists bending the truth for money, fame, or politics, and too many people who have gotten hurt as a result.
Several years ago, I attended a grad student workshop with a Nature editor. During the Q&A he brought up a study that had asked scientists across various disciplines, using an anonymous survey, how often they'd faked their data. By far the worst discipline was biomed. I asked the editor what the real fraction was, in his professional opinion, given that of course not every respondent to such a survey can be expected to be answer with full candour. He guessed about 1/3. So is biomed even science anymore? I responded. There was an awkward silence at that.
I'm not sure what the answer is to this situation. The ranks of scientific professionals (I hesitate to call them scientists in most cases) are filled with a certain kind of timid conformist who sees science not as a quest for knowledge but a tool for social status and an excuse to moralize. Looking at the current generation of graduate students, they seem even worse in this respect than my own contemporaries ... and it was not long ago that I was in grad school. The institutions seem quite unrecoverable at this point, and the downwards trajectory in the reliability, utility, and consequently public trust in established science looks like it will only acceletate.
So glad you enjoyed it, John! 🙏
"...filled with a certain kind of timid conformist who sees science not as a quest for knowledge but a tool for social status and an excuse to moralize."
John, not "excuse" byt rather they feel it is a fuggin DUTY, one expected of them and they had better out-moralize the crowd or they won't stand out. The level of conceit is hard to fathom.
There is no way this can be sustained. I see the deterioration in my own field more and more. Basically, it is a Maoist struggle hampster wheel.
You're right, that is exactly how they see it. It blinds them to the long term corrosion of science's standing which that behavior results in.
John, I fear that if science (medicine) can overlook the sins of Ancel Keys for 40 years and make pariahs out of anyone with alternate inquiries, we cannot hope that current crop of activists care much about science's standing. They think their mission is to effect social change which makes them nothing other than critical theory adherents. I am generalizing, of course.
Indeed. Which is what makes COVID a hidden blessing. Seeing the great and good lie so infamously and shamelessly has led to many asking what else they were lied to about. As it turns out, the answer is: a great deal.
It WAS a blessing in a way, wasn't it? I know it is uncouth to cite one's own work on these threads, but I wrote about this using an example from baseball: https://heapcoup.substack.com/p/dips-showed-us-we-are-all-dipshs
Forgive me, Mr. Ronquillo!
We created and subsidized an "academic market," albeit a mutant one since the GI Bill, with 5 crab claws and 6 teets. The myriad incentives and biases in this market moves the invisible hand (claw) of this beast without any centralized conspiracy. Unlike a real market, there are few consequences to the idiots who lie, cheat, fail time and again. So they never learn harsh enough lessons to change. All who tried to sell "new Coke" or Olestra, or Jamie Oliver got hammered. This bunch doesn't learn that way. They have a safety net, or did anyway. The only way to improve this is to incentivize dissenting inquiry. If they think they can get a grant by studying how masks DO NOT WORK, you can bet your bippy proposals will come flying.
Physicists (I am one myself) are no better. In terms of total economic impact, "climate change mitigation" will exceed COVID-19.
It's also a fact that the incoming APS president pushed masks, physics conferences had vaccine mandates like everyone else, and prominent physicists don't question anything despite having the intellectual ability to do so. Lots of brilliant physicists signed the letter to keep funding EcoHealth. https://nlcampaigns.org/NL_letter_final.html
Remember these UIUC professors? https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hard-lessons-of-modeling-the-coronavirus-pandemic-20210128/
The APS has certainly caved to various ritualistic expectations.
I am constantly disappointed by even people I consider very intelligent who blindly accept that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is man-made and an imminent danger to the earth and human civilization. When 97% of scientists, most of whom know nothing about climate science, agree on anything, you know it's time for questioning. Yet they won't, largely because they don't want to be ridiculed and have their careers ruined. This is anti-science and yes, the knee-jerk reaction to "climate change" will far exceed the destruction wrought by the covid pandemic response.
The smart ones know that the talk about global warming amounts to fear mongering, but they think it's for a good cause. Resource conservation, a political loser, is what they really want. So they push another noble lie. http://www.mainaudeclaration.org/
To say nothing of Chanda Prescodd-Weinstein using her intersectionality weaponized identities to terrify the APS into withdrawing their pro forma congratulatory message to President Trump upon his inauguration. The politicization of STEM runs deep.
See also the Geoff Marcy affair in astronomy, e.g.:
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/a-testimony-of-guilt-by-association
There is a toxic brew of brainwashed careerism among the rank-and-file and secret Malthusianism among physics leaders that keeps the field aligned with Democrats. I think the big prizes (Breakthrough, Nobel, MacArthur) are also captured.
This is sensationally good. Restacked.
So glad you liked it, Helen! 🙏
Great introductory piece. It was a suggestion from the excellent Helen Dale and was well-worth the time. Thanks additionally for all of the citations, as many reflexively demand "sources" as soon as they're presented with information that challenges their currently-held beliefs. Looking forward to more work from you, David.
Thank you, Devin. Glad you enjoyed it!
As you stated at the beginning of your article, the scientific method involves a “search for truth” which requires; Freedom of inquiry; Disdain for dogma; Skepticism; and Candid debate. However, “Science” has abandoned the scientific method and become a “Religion” with its Dogma and Clergy of “Experts” that are not to be questioned. Whether it is Fauci claiming that he is “Science” and conspiring to silence his critics, or the Climate Change cult and their followers claiming that the “science has been settled” and any dissenting voices are “Science Deniers.” I applaud you for writing this article, but the problem is not limited to the medical scientists, all scientists are to blame for letting this happen.
Brilliant article and loved all the quotes.
One problem, perhaps THE problem, is that scientists themselves don't know much about "science" itself. We learn our field, sure, but few of us can articulate or even understand the uses and differences between induction, abduction, deduction. My field, geology, is really an abductive science; very very rarely can we test hypotheses with experiments. Sure, I know geology, but was I trained as a natural philosopher? No, other than what I have learned myself through classical studies. So basically each science is taught as a VOCATION and no doubt Biomed is the worst in this regard.
Ask any young scientist this: Have you read Bacon's Novum Organum? That book, after all, is the very pillar on which all of western science sits. The scientist well likely say, no, of course. They probably have not even read Feynman's great work or even Sagan's, Dragons of Eden (he is a big atheistic, pinko meathead, but the book was good).
Good stuff, I will be attacking the STEM disease myself soon. No masks needed.
Climate science is almost identically flawed / corrupted / susceptible to political manipulation as medical science.
It's also pushed hard by the physics community.
Very apt. I am skeptical of everything that comes from mainstream science and media.
The medical profession was divorced from "science" for many years before covid. Covid just brought more awareness to their lack of scientific rigour. Go to any medical doctor, and ask them how berberine (a plant extract) compares to metformin for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. They will refuse to answer and refuse to research the issue. They will tell you that berberine is not scientifically proven, but, according to their own scientific methodologies (which can be disputed, but that is another story), berberine IS proven to be both safer and more effective than metformin. For some utterly unscientific reason, any scientific research into food extracts is deemed unscientific, even though all this research has met the requirements to publish on pub med and in other medical journals. (See Greenmedinfo for a front end that enables searches on scientific research into the healing properties of food products). So how can doctors justify ignoring this research and refuse to support any medical treatment that is not supplied by the drug companies? But they do and they have for decades. They were already on this very unscientific pathway long before covid, and for those of us aware of this, their betrayal over covid has come as no surprise. They have always and will always do what the drug companies tell them to do. They were never "scientists" in the first place. So it is a good thing that this has now become visible to many more people.
Humility is the highest Christian virtue, the gateway to the rest, in the history of Christian ascetic understanding. Christ repeatedly sought to teach this. In the context here, it allows us to be in touch with reality even if we have to "bear a little shame" to do so (in the words of some modern Orthodox saints and theologians; note that is "little" as opposed to "toxic")
This is an excellent article that points out key problems with current epistemic uncertainty, scientific integrity and attempts at totalitarian control of knowledge. Of course, it is a crisis of knowledge. It is a consequence of the lack of trust caused by the abuse of trust implied by the greed principle of the neoliberal capitalist economy. The problem surfaces because of the obscene concentration of economic wealth in the hands of a small number of people and their frantic attempts to assert control at a time of a global power shift.
I find it quite an amusing coincidence that the issues discussed (knowledge, trust), focusing on hypocrisy and arrogance in conclusions, and even the cover image (Anatomy Class) correspond to my article published around the same time. The difference is that my writing frames the problem from the standpoint of cosmopolitan ideology, ethics and political economy.
Sadly, those who have purposefully deceived the public will never apologize or accept that they were so dreadfully inaccurate in most everything they espoused. Their egos are too voluminous and/or their politics too fervently controlled by political bias.
Nice but come back when you have named names.
We all know the names: everyone and anyone who has been permitted to speak in the mainstream media for the past three years.