Intolerance and Censorship to Skeptics and Contrary Data or Conclusions

in Deep Dives4 years ago (edited)

The science is settled. Period. Don't debate it. Debate is not allowed. Don't doubt it. Doubt is not allowed. Don't question it. Questions are not allowed. Data that contradicts the "settled consensus" doesn't matter. How dare you put out alternate hypotheses and theories.


Source

That's where things are at in society. And that's not science. That's dogma. That's a religion. That's the religion of scientism where only the holy priests of "experts" with "authority" which conforms to the desired conclusion are the ones that are allowed to be heard. The others will be silenced and shamed, no matter how accurate their counter claims are.

"Settled science" is a contradictory to the open pursuit of truth. If a hypothesis/theory is false, then let it be shown to be false, rather than silenced and censored. Free inquiry needs to be promoted and encouraged, no matter how "offensive" it may be. Ideas or conclusions that are unpopular can be right, while the widely supported position can be wrong.

Peter St. Onge speaks on this in a recent Mises Wire, and how science is not some rigid ivory tower that never falters, but a malformed mutating beast that grows, gets cut off, stitched back together and survives to better represent the truth of reality:

This implies there is no such thing as “settled science”—the phrase itself is contrary to the scientific method. In reality, science is not some billion-dollar gleaming palace in Bethesda, rather it’s a gnarled mutant sewer rat that takes all comers because it’s been burned, cut, run over, crushed, run through the wood chipper, and survived. That ugly beast is our salvation, not the gleaming palace where we bow down to whichever random guy has the biggest degree in the room.

Take for example the process of blood transfusions. This was discovered in the 1600s, but banned for a century due to the hegemony of the "settled" scientific "consensus" of the medical establishment at the time. Other better ways of dong things were squashed in favor of sticking with what was believe to be the only way, as well as bad methods like blood letting being held onto and objections to those methods ignored and demonized.

We have a strong cancel culture emerging where people who question newly mounted orthodoxy around an alleged "settled consensus" are cast down from their positions or investigated for daring to question the dogma. It's happening in academia, media, medicine and science. The unpopular voices are being silenced in order to enshrine some narrative that can't dare be questioned.

Contra-consensus or counter-popular hypothesis and theories should be allowed to be formulated by anyone, and tested out to bear their soundness. It's not the domain of the sanctioned and licensed experts to hold the reigns or being allowed to speak and maintain their job. Anyone can challenge a claim. If it's wrong, show it to be wrong. Groupthink and censorship is being championed instead of real scientific inquiry and debate.

New knowledge has long faced ridicule from the central core of established "settled science". But that new knowledge often comes from outside the sanctioned insiders that defend their position. Francis Bacon promoted the skeptics who question what we're told is the settled science:

The industry of artificers maketh some small improvement of things invented; and chance sometimes in experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to light one effect of nature before unknown. (In Praise of Knowledge, vol. 1, [1740] 1850)

Society needs to revise it's current path of intolerance for critics and skeptics of whatever social flavor is passing itself off as "settled" and holy doctrine. Be it the climate science, pandemic science, "social science" of institutional racism or any other problem that comes next. Open transparent debate is needed. Keep true scientific inquiry alive. This "spirit" is direly needed now with the censorship around COVID-19 information and discussions.

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Sadly, we see the road we are on well in our history. Hordes of bootlickers parrot what they're told until violent repression of contrary narratives results in millions of dead. Decades later the truth is begrudgingly allowed out, and no recompense is ever accounted to either the murdered or the murderers. Tens of millions lie in their graves for not joining the ravening herds of collective thinkers in the 20th Century.

Newton enabled the orbits of the planets to be understood when he published his theory of gravity. It was proved well by the motions of the travellers around our sun, and for centuries it was 'settled science' - until it was proved wrong.

Now Einsteinian physics is 'settled science'. But, it will be proved wrong too.

Science never proves anything, except wrong. Science as a method can only disprove theories, no matter how well a theory seems to explain a phenomenon, or how long it's stood, it is not proven right. It just hasn't been proven wrong yet.

That's all science can do.

Murderous mobs are coming for heretics soon. For some, they have already come, though their promoters, the enemedia, do not yet trumpet their bloody victories over lynching victims.

They will soon.

When they come, be ready.

Science never proves anything, except wrong. Science as a method can only disprove theories, no matter how well a theory seems to explain a phenomenon, or how long it's stood, it is not proven right. It just hasn't been proven wrong yet.

This is the most accurate definition of science I've come across.

Well something is proven right for the level of knowledge supported by observations about what it's trying to demonstrate. Then better observations/testing can prove it wrong, or off and not 100% accurate, but generally accurate, etc. Proving something wrong can even turn out to be wrong since it's also based on testing and observation. Strong evidence leads to a generalized conclusions of proof about something, but yes semantically it's often not "100% proof" since ya never know what else can be demonstrated/detected/measured at some later date.

"Proving something wrong can even turn out to be wrong..."

My father maintains that he once thought he was wrong, but turned out to be wrong about that, so has been right all along. ;)

If it's settled, it's not science!
A great book by Carl Sagan is "Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark" (1995). In it, he wrote:

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

It sounded ridiculous at the time, but 25 years later, here we are.

Yeah the coronaphobia is like a mass hypnosis into obedience to authorities cloaked in alleged science while other scientists object to what is being done in the name of science.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.

In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.

In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.

Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.

The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

  • Michael Crichton.

Excellent quote. Thank you for adding that :)

This is by far one of the best posts I have ever read on Hive and before that Steem. I cannot tell you how much I agree with your points here. RE-BLOGGED!

"The unpopular voices are being silenced in order to enshrine some narrative that can't dare be questioned."

This is what is happening with many issues right now (and historically) with the United States. The government is pushing narratives about covid and many of the protests happening right now. Trump has fired any Scientist or medical expert that doesn't say what he wants them to say or conclude. Perfect examples of what you are displaying here.

"The science is settled. Period. Don't debate it. Debate is not allowed. Don't doubt it. Doubt is not allowed. Don't question it. Questions are not allowed. Data that contradicts the "settled consensus" doesn't matter. How dare you put out alternate hypotheses and theories... That's where things are at in society. And that's not science. That's dogma. That's a religion. That's the religion of scientism where only the holy priests of "experts" with "authority" which conforms to the desired conclusion are the ones that are allowed to be heard. The others will be silenced and shamed, no matter how accurate their counter claims are."

The only reason I would not believe that the above is a direct quote form Tronald Dump, is that the text is too intelligently crafted for him to speak. Otherwise it is exactly what he demonstrates. Great job on the Rainbow Dragon Design btw! I absolutely love what @KennysKitchen and yourself have crafted with that logo! Awesome everything my friend!

Thanks for the feedback. Some people don't like information becoming popular that they don't agree with. It's happening on Hive too.

Glad you like the rainbow dragon banner ;)

It is certainly also happening on Hive as well, I already experienced some of that... and here is a little more attached to this thread. For some reason your reply of

"...Some people don't like information becoming popular that they don't agree with. It's happening on Hive too."

was downvoted by an account called iflagtrash.... does anyone else see the irony in that? Woa...

Also your article was flagged by that account, which considering the content is also on that level of irony.

CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN: Men can never be free, because they're weak, corrupt, worthless and restless. The people believe in authority, they've grown tired of waiting for miracle or mystery.

Science is their religion,

no greater explanation exists for them. They must never believe any differently if the project is to go forward.

X-Files S03 / E24

Anyways, this is amazing...

"We control the disease by controlling the information"

Hehe, fiction has a nice way of mirroring some poignant parts of reality ;)

It is good idea. Government should take action about this. your thinking is awesome.

No... government shouldn't take action, government needs to get the hell out of controlling everything.

Open transparent debate is needed.

We need to promote CIVIL DEBATE.

Click to watch 30 seconds,