Thursday, 9 September 2021
A conglomerate that has no name
Tablet has an interesting pandemic piece by John P.A. Ioannidis. It is well worth reading the whole thing as it is both measured and damning.
Honest, continuous questioning and exploration of alternative paths are indispensable for good science. In the authoritarian (as opposed to participatory) version of public health, these activities were seen as treason and desertion. The dominant narrative became that “we are at war.” When at war, everyone has to follow orders. If a platoon is ordered to go right and some soldiers explore maneuvering to the left, they are shot as deserters. Scientific skepticism had to be shot, no questions asked. The orders were clear.
Who gave these orders? Who decided that his or her opinion, expertise, and conflicts should be in charge? It was not a single person, not a crazy general or a despicable politician or a dictator, even if political interference in science did happen—massively so. It was all of us, a conglomerate that has no name and no face: a mesh and mess of half-cooked evidence; frenzied and partisan media promoting parachute journalism and pack coverage; the proliferation of pseudonymous and eponymous social media personas which led even serious scientists to become unrestrained, wild-beast avatars of themselves, spitting massive quantities of inanity and nonsense; poorly regulated industry and technology companies flexing their brain and marketing power; and common people afflicted by the protracted crisis. All swim in a mixture of some good intentions, some excellent thinking, and some splendid scientific successes, but also of conflicts, political polarization, fear, panic, hatred, divisiveness, fake news, censorship, inequalities, racism, and chronic and acute societal dysfunction.
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5 comments:
I'm beginning to think that science can only thrive under conditions of authoritarianism and deference. Science has taken over from religion as the way we make sense of the world, but you can't have a priestly caste when discourse is democratised.
That last sentence says it all.
Sam - maybe science taking over from religion was the cause of its problems. It attracts too many duds and bandwagon riders and seems to have lost most of the excitement which comes from probing the unknown.
Jannie - it does, although there is a social class element too, the upper middle class clubs where attitudes are formed and reinforced.
“we are part and parcel of a living planetary organism. Each of us is a cell, a perceptive nervous unit of the Earth. You, as cosmic and earth cells are part of a vast evolutionary phenomenon… we have now a world brain which determines what can be dangerous or mortal for the planet: the United Nations and innumberable (sic) groups and networks around the world”.
This is the gospel according to the late Dr Robert Muller, who became Assistant Secretary General to the UN.
It is also the gospel now accepted by ( amongst many others) the official hierarchies of Christian churches ( the Pope and the Archbishops of York and Canterbury to name but three) as supplementary to or even replacing previous doctrine.
For further details see www.campaignforanindependentbritain.org.uk and the article “ Snakes in the grass and wolves in sheep’s clothing”.
Edward - it's an extreme collectivist point of view and what always puzzles me is why those who subscribe to it cannot see that it is purely political. Maybe they don't see it, but thanks for the link, I've bookmarked it for later.
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