How Expert Worship Is Ruining Science

 From American Mind:

What is science? Has it changed from past to present? Is it still working? The coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight on the question of science as a whole and biology and drug research in particular.

Now, the popular narrative is that if only we listened to the scientists, we would have prevented this, presumably contrasting scientists against “politicians” and perhaps some un-specified “non-expert” others. The pandemic is happening against a completely unprecedented backdrop of censorship of what seems to me like normal-people discussion about the effects of different drugs and therapies.

The CEO of YouTube has specifically said that the platform would block people suggesting vitamin C has beneficial effects on helping one recover from coronavirus. This is, of course, done “in the name of” science, because everything ought to be done in the name of science in the West.

My current view is that large numbers of fields which are considered “scientific” in the West are a complete mess and lack the essential feature of what it means to be a science in the first place.

So, let’s go back to first principles here. What is a science? If we look at the field of science as a mechanistic process that takes some inputs and produces outputs, what are those inputs and outputs? Let’s take one the of the most classic examples of this: Newton’s theory of gravity. (Read more.)

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