House of Eratosthenes

The word “science” packs a powerful appeal of attraction for those who wouldn’t know science if it kicked ’em square in the nuts. The appeal is that you can’t argue with it — it’s science. But the way it achieves that exalted status, is by way of methods that are oppositional to the life-view and wiring of those who lust after that status, for their own ideas, most feverishly. Real science doesn’t want to “win.” It constantly questions itself, looks for ways to demolish itself.

The “phony science bullies,” of course, don’t do that…

Step 1: Develop a quasi-religious belief in a particular point of view (e.g. that human-caused emissions are causing dangerous climate change);

Step 2: Convince yourself that you are morally and intellectually superior to those who hold a different view, since your view is naturally “right” and “good”, and the other is “evil” and “bad”;

Step 3: Look for ways to caricature, demean, ostracise and ridicule your ideological opponents whilst at all times avoiding any rational discussion of the subject matter in dispute; …

Hat tip to Robert at Small Dead Animals.

One of the best ways, I’ve found, to figure out if you’re looking at classical, real science or modern, phony science is to figure out how it values the concept of the Anathema. Is the information refined in a positive way, with each new scrap examined with an honest desire to learn whatever can be learned — or negatively, with only the definition fortified by way of rejecting whatever doesn’t fit into it? Real science starts with the raw data, proceeding toward the conclusion; therefore, whatever starts with the conclusion and sluices out the information based on that stencil-template, is not real science. People have a perfect right to call it that, but it doesn’t make it so.

Another way to differentiate between the real and the phony is to look at the product, and see how it is treated from within the process that made it. Is it a Bible of some kind? Real science doesn’t have “bibles.” It certainly does write down a lot of stuff; but always, always, always in pencil. Conclusions are tentative by their very nature. This calls out the modern phony stuff most effectively against the backdrop of politics, in which people naturally seek to assert the finality of their conclusions, and as a consequence constantly state things as emphatically as they possibly can. This catchphrase of “science,” with little to no actual scientific reasoning behind it, has unfortunately been wielded often lately as a sort of cudgel in support of that effort.

Politics is politics; science is science. Them two are different things.

Another reason the left likes “science,” I think, is because this is one of the few issues where they feel they’ve got the facts on their side. (The key word being, of course, feel). No, Virginia, the facts don’t have a liberal bias, and liberals themselves know this very well. They can’t but know it — there is, after all, a century’s worth of evidence from all corners of the globe that socialism doesn’t fucking work. Which rather puts a damper on their claims to be big fans of logic and reason.

There are, however, very eggheady people with PhDs in real subjects who natter on about Global Weather. Maybe the entire history of the last hundred years is against us, but history’s written by the victors, right? Also, patriarchy. But “climate change,” now… you’ve got to do math for that.

Anecdotes aren’t data, of course, but this fits in nicely with my observation that, of my acquaintances, those most deeply invested in Global Weather work in the softest, gitchy-gooiest fields. They’re liberal arts majors to a man, and often the barmier liberal arts at that. They can’t figure the tip on a restaurant bill without a cheat sheet and a calculator, but they’re dead certain they know the future weather patterns of the entire planet. Because science.
- Severian | 06/05/2013 @ 09:57
[…] HERE’S YOUR Phony Science in Eight Steps … […]
- Steynian 472nd | Free Canuckistan! | 06/07/2013 @ 16:04

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Phony Science in Eight StepsWednesday, June 5th, 2013

Phony Science in Eight Steps
Wednesday, June 5th, 2013