By Jo Nova
For most of our lives, scientists have been among the most trusted community leaders. But not any more.
For nearly fifty years, more than four out of ten Americans said they had a “great deal of confidence” in the people running our institutions of science. This was the strongest possible answer people could give. But all that has changed in the last few years with public opinion on science now splitting along political lines. Faith in the institutions of science has collapsed among conservative voters.
The goodwill, the trust and esteem built by things like The Manhattan Project and the Moonshot carried on for decades, but when Covid arrived, and science was the number one public topic of debate, many scientists sat silent on the sidelines. The lab leak theory came and went and then turned out to have been true all along. When ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine could have saved lives, scientists said nothing. When vaccines were sold as “safe and effective”, researchers who knew there were risks, sat on their hands. When borders could have been shut to stop bioweapons, Trump was left on his own. When universities failed the nation, scientists mostly sided with the academics.
The price for spineless silence is that now among Republicans, half the confidence is gone. It was the greatest hour of need, and scientists were missing in action. Wait til the public finds out about climate science…
It’s a remarkable fall among conservative voters in the US: dropping from 45% in 2018 to just 22% in 2022 who still “have a great deal of confidence” in the scientific community.
Major declines in the public’s confidence in science in the wake of the pandemic
June 15, 2023
While Democrats were more likely than Republicans to trust science before the pandemic, what was a 10% point gap in 2018 is now a 31% gap between different groups of voters. During the pandemic Democrat voters briefly became more confident in the scientific community, but that returned to the baseline the following year. The fall in Republican faith shows no sign of leveling off.
It’s hard to believe the effects of this will not translate to other areas like climate change. Once people have admitted scientists can be politicized, bought, blind, or wrong on one topic, it’s hard to see how “Trust the Science” rings true in any other arena.
The General Social Survey was started in 1972, is run by NORC at the University of Chicago every year, and surveyed 3,500 people in 2022.
For fifty years, science was trusted
While faith in medicine, education and “the press” had been eroding over the last fifty years, science had maintained its position. The latest collapse in trust is a marked change from the long term steady trend line.
Faith in medicine also fell, and a partisan gap emerged:
While Democrats confidence in medical institutions did not change, Republicans saying they had a great deal of confidence dropped from 40% to 26%. For most of the years of the survey there was no political divide. This is a new phenomenon.
Confidence in the media, which was almost non-existent, still fell:
It’s been more than 20 years since Republican voters had as much confidence in the media as Democrats.
What happened in 2017? Presumably the bump in democratic faith in the media was due to the election of Donald Trump and partisan attacks on him.
All in all, it’s a sad, sad story when the nations institutions are not worthy of trust, and are so obviously politicized.
Survey details:
The General Social Survey has been conducted since 1972 by NORC at the University of Chicago. Sample sizes for each year’s survey vary from about 1,500 to about 4,000 adults, with margins of error falling between plus or minus 2 percentage points and plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The most recent survey was conducted May 5 through December 20, 2022, and includes interviews with 3,544 American adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points. More information about the 2022 GSS is available here: https://gss.norc.org/Get-The-Data
There is nothing wrong with science or the scientific method, but the politicisation and ultimately corruption of science that has caused the damage.
Science becomes politicised and corrupt when it becomes dependent upon government (i.e. taxpayer) funding and is used to fulfil ideological objectives of ignorant, stupid and morally and financially corrupt politicians.
Normally, the processes of free speech would serve as a corrective force to expose lies and corruption but free speech has been suppressed by the Left who dominate most legacy and social media and who are terrified of alternative opinions not in accord with the Official Narrative and actively suppress them, sometimes using slander, libel and lawfare, and increasingly with violence.
President Eisenhower warned about government funding of science in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. Excerpt:
It’s interesting and alarming that only nominal conservatives are sceptical and aware of the corruption of science not the Left (Democrats). It goes to show you their general lack of awareness and critical thought processes.
561
Politics and science should not mix
When they do, the result is ‘The Science’, which is really just political science. The scientific method goes out the window and is replaced by narrative control and bureaucratic ass-covering.
420
Put more plainly, if you mix science and politics all you end up with is more politics.
280
I don’t recall the quote, but it looks more like 1980s or later than 1961. If he said that in 1961 he was a long way ahead of his time.
The warning that I did see was about the military industrial complex.
In my view science needs no justification. It justifies itself.
What matters is how the science is applied.
90
“I tried to follow the science and it led me nowhere
…so I followed the money and it led me to the science”
“In my view science needs no justification. It justifies itself.”
Yeah, Gates the eugenicist thinks much the same way!!
Science is experimentation, observation and analysis….
ALL of which must be justified to prove what is being done is worthwhile or all you are engaging in is Alchemy
10
When science is politicized it becomes religion. And we know from history that religion and state should not be combined.
30
One of the problems is the mix of scientists and bureaucrats. They have different ideas.
The scientist tries things, sometimes seeing possible success.
The bureaucrat assumes that success is real and pushes funding and end dates (as a success for the bureaucrat).
From C. Northcote Parkinson in 1959 where he instanced a rocket being programmed along with a launch date attended by politicians etc. When the scientist realised there were problems, no-one wanted to know because all preparations had been set in stone.
I wonder whether he was thinking of the R100/R101 case in the UK in 1930? The R100 was buit by a commecial firm (Vickers) with experience, checking and fixing problems along the way. It went through trials and then flew to Canada (& USA) and back again with only minor mishaps (hot food not available for a day on the way back) before the Public built (Air Ministry with many political interference e.g. diesel engines (as it would be used in hot regimes where petrol was considered a fire risk) then only British engines wanted although the German aeronatical ones were lighter. Then an extra engine was installed because they couldn’t operate in reverse (more weight added). Then the airframe was extended to increase the lift. All this while under the deadline of the Minister wanting to fly to India for a Conference. The R101 left at the last minute apparently with an air worthiness Certificate which no-one (afterwards) knew nothing about. It crashed with great loss of life in northern France. After the Inquiry which didn’t blame anyone the “logical” decision was to scrap the successful R100.
130
WELL YOU & I are in the doghouse! .. poll-more-brexit-reversals-on-the-horizon
And reading through the comments there, better to keep quiet, or? Sums up an Industry and its Population.
00
Do the people on the left ever criticise the ideology of the government? I cannot recall the last time I heard a leftie arguing for a change in government policy, they supported Pfizer’s Covid policies without question, corporations firing people for not getting stabbed and they appear to support the current wars; lefties supporting corporations and wars! Weird. You have to wonder whether they have lost all their abilities to think or whether they are so insecure in their dependence on their right-thinking ecosystem that they simply refuse to think just in case they come up with an original thought – a thought not sourced from their media outlet of choice – and are canceled by their peers.
In six months time they will be denying it all, like they did pretending that they always knew the Covid vaccines did not work but took them anyway to show solidarity in times of need and to benefit from a less traumatic stay in hospital, were that to be needed. The “less traumatic stay in hospital” lies replaced the “you will never catch covid” lie and came from the same people, yet they refuse to accept such analysis. Weird. There must be something in the water.
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Lefties criticize government policy all the time … when a conservative is in office.
The same is true of conservatives when a leftist is in power.
Sadly, the tribalization of politics has led to people ‘picking sides’ and never admitting when ‘their side’ screws up or when the ‘other side’ gets something right.
Personally, I say a pox on both their houses. There is not one whit of difference between the ‘teams’ other than empty rhetoric and culture wars. They both govern the same way, with no regard for the will of the unwashed masses.
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Steve
The tribalism is all one way, from the Left. And the Liberal party i count as leftists.
Conservatives are far more accommodating (too accommodating) than the left and it is their failure to realise the extremely dangerous threat that the Left poses to our world and way of life that has lead us into this mess, as much as it is the Left driving the bus off the cliff.
30
“In six months time they will be denying it all,”
They are already. The FDA declared that it did not prevent anybody from doing anything. It has no power to.
Well, somebody did. And the FDA were not far away with fingers in the pie.
120
The left are tribal. Individually they suffer harshly if they stray from the official policy statements of their leaders. The leaders? Those with institutional power over others, or just frank muscle, financial or brute force, eg unions, academia in Universities. They are willing to wield force regardless of consequences. They have ideological beliefs not to be tampered with. For the left there is no ‘free speech’, except on their own terms eg the ALP. The left is almost more merciless on its own strays than it is for the non left, and it goes on for life.
80
It’s interesting that in America before the 2020 elections, the left were strongly against the covid vaccines. Both Joe and Kamala said they would never get the jab. After the election they mandated it.
Trump recommended that people get vaccinated, and he himself did, but said people should be free to refuse and there should not be vax passports, or vax visas, or mandates.
30
Quadrant: ‘The Curious Tale of Hydroxychloroquine’
31-05-2023
The discipline of medicine has changed. Its traditional cohesion and leadership have fractured into multiple disconnected specialty groups, allowing powerful commercial and political forces to increase control over both structure and function of medical practice. The COVID era burst through boundaries long taken for granted.
THE curious tale of HCQ is a story of tension between a narrative to protect pharmaceutical interests, and science. It should never have happened because long established clinical practice involves informed consent and decisions based on what may work within the doctor-patient relationship. This includes judicious use of off-label drugs of known safety and mechanism of action.
The “Curious Tale of HCQ in the COVID Era” raises questions about how best to make clinical decisions for our patients. Traditional Australian confidence in the doctor-patient relationship, and science, have served us well. We should be careful to defend and strengthen them.
The WHO has an important role in monitoring disease, providing advice and coordinating programmes that otherwise are beyond local resources. However, these essential activities must not conflict with sovereign authorities in domains equipped with quality health services based on local knowledge, strong science infrastructure and a tradition of medical practise based on personal responsibility.
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The Free Press :
U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say
‘People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.’
By Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD
July 14, 2022
“It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”
As one NIH scientist told us: “There’s a silence, an unwillingness for agency scientists to say anything. Even though they know that some of what’s being said out of the agency is absurd.”
That was a theme we heard over and over again—people felt like they couldn’t speak freely, even internally within their agencies. “You get labeled based on what you say. If you talk about it you will suffer, I’m convinced,” an FDA staffer told us. Another person at that agency added: “If you speak honestly, you get treated differently.”
And so they remain quiet, speaking to each other in private or in text groups on Signal.
An official at the FDA put it this way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”
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Quadrant: ‘Ivermectin: ‘Chemists Come Between Doctor and Patient’
31-08-2021
Quadrant: ‘A Sad and Shameful Day for Australian Medicine’
13-09-2021
The evidence that IVM is safe and effective in both preventing and treating early (pre-hospital) COVID-19 is overwhelming, as has been laid out in four Quadrant articles published through 2021. Despite this evidence, every artifice has been used to quash IVM’s use and to do so in unprecedented fashion. The causes for the suppression include political agendas, pressures from pharmaceutical companies, ideology and breakdown in medical communication.
…… Molnupiravir, which comes with no clear clinical benefit noted from what are incomplete studies. The US government has bought millions of doses at $1000 per dose. Whose interests are being protected?
on YouTube:
‘Video Shows Crying Toddler at New York Daycare Forced to Wear Face Mask’
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‘Fact Sheet for Patients And Caregivers Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Of LAGEVRIO™ (molnupiravir) capsules For Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’
For individuals who are sexually active with partners who are able to become pregnant:
It is not known if LAGEVRIO can affect sperm. While the risk is regarded as low, animal studies to fully assess the potential for LAGEVRIO to affect the babies of males treated with LAGEVRIO have not been completed. A reliable method of birth control (contraception) should be used consistently and correctly during treatment with LAGEVRIO and for at least 3 months after the last dose.
The risk to sperm beyond 3 months is not known. Studies to understand the risk to sperm beyond 3 months are ongoing. Talk to your healthcare provider about reliable birth control methods. Talk to your healthcare provider if you have questions or concerns about how LAGEVRIO may affect sperm.
(one could say: at least they are ‘honest’ about this fact…)
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I lost an unfinished post somewhere here. Start again.
Thank you Catherine for putting that information up front. I had seen some of it. Good stuff, and now is a good time to be highlighting it. The FDA is denying it banned anybody or anything. It is good that they should be fearing the future so.
Just this morning I emailed some excerpts from Dr Russell Blaylock’s article in Surgical Neurological International 22nd April 2022 to our local federal MHR. Which, for those who haven’t seen it, is here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/pdf/SNI-13-167.pdf
20
Catherine – I see the same problems as you, but I differ on the cause. To my mind the problem is not that “The discipline of medicine has changed. Its traditional cohesion and leadership have fractured into multiple disconnected specialty groups” but that all of medicine has been gathered under a single bureaucratic regime, and that (as always happens with bureaucracies) this bureaucratic regime now looks after itself first and foremost and no longer supports the people it is supposed to support (the general public, patients, and the health system).
It’s all covered in Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy – briefly:
In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:
– those who are dedicated to the goals of the organization.
– those who are dedicated to the organization itself.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization.
150
Mike
It has got so bad in many branches of govt where they are now self sustaining without any need to achieve the goals that they should be kicking. My wife worked in health for years, on the front line as a nurse and midwife. She was always angry at the huge numbers of educators, managers and others who lived in their own world, attending meetings, formulating policies and otherwise doing virtually nothing that would assist her and her colleagues (or the patients…)
I could, with my managerial skills and knowing what I know about health, literally remove 50% of the workforce at her hospital and it would run better than it runs now. And others more skilled in that area could do even better.
We need to basically just shutdown whole areas of govt and let the private sector provide the services in many cases.
20
Problem is that what claims to be science isnt. If it doesnt follow the scientific method it isnt science.
The majority of those that claim to be scientists are not. They dont use the scientific method when they play computer games(models), nor are statistitians (epidemiologists, geographers,sociologists etc etc) scientists.
Science isnt the problem: not using the scientific method is. Bullshitting you are a scientist is the problem (a la Mickey mouse Mann).
20
If we could make Fauci walk the streets with a sandwich sign saying, “My Bad”, then my opinion of medical science might tick up a point or two. All the way to three. And I had a full measure of respect for doctors, seems like long ago now.
200
Part of the problem is that doctors were warned that they had to follow the official line or be deregistered. It would take a very brave person to throw away a medical career that way.
60
” Wait til the public finds out about climate science… ”
I find it interesting when children learn Santa and the Tooth Fairy are bogus, most adjust easily and carry on with the false narratives with their younger siblings and friends. There doesn’t seem to be a loss of confidence with parents and other adults.
Yet when adults learn they are being lied to the result is usually much different. [Religious beliefs of all persuasions seem to be an outlier in this sense.]
When masks were in demand by medical types but were short, they said you don’t need masks. When this lie was revealed — rather than the actual reason — who wasn’t ticked off?
Next: members of the ClimateCult™ are de facto religious types so lies or truth seem not to matter.
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Religion is different because ‘faith’ is an inherent part of the belief system of all religions. So when someone asserts something religious and asks you to accept it without proof, that is just part of what it means to have faith.
But science is the antithesis of faith. It’s entire premise is to question established dogma and try to disprove it. So when appeals to authority are made in science, and are later proven to be wrong, people begin to question whether the foundation of the entire institution is rotten.
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I don’t see science as anti faith. In my mind science rules.
The Christian religions that I am familiar with coped very poorly with advances in science over the last 500 years. The most destructive issue was creation v natural selection. For me it’s simple. Natural Selection is a tool of Creation. It is for Creation that I need an explanation.
Wherever you went in the world, even in the most primitive societies, they had some form of religion. In every case religion served two functions.
1: To explain the unexplainable. Which often called on faith, and
2: To develop a set of rules for the management of human society.
61
I didn’t say science was anti-faith. I said it was the antithesis of faith, meaning it is the opposite of faith. Science takes nothing on faith, while religion is based entirely on faith. That doesn’t mean scientists can’t have faith. The test of a first-rate intelligence is being able to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. Some of the greatest scientists in history were men of faith, but they didn’t let their faith in God creep into their scientific work.
30
Steve, I can’t say I agree with your statement ….” It’s [science] entire premise is to question established dogma and try to disprove it”. What you are describing is a process science uses to reach a goal.
I see science as a quest to understand and seek the truth about nature at all levels and all spheres. In some sense that is what religion is about – trying to making sense of a world that has huge unknowns and vast enigmas. And providing a roadmap to get to happiness. It seems, unfortunately that the religions have set a roadmap and a group of beliefs that are locked in time and not open to growing personal experiences.
10
A very different time, perhaps, but Galileo was a man of strong faith. He’s not the only one, but certainly one of the most famous.
Religion and competent science are not mutually exclusive.
50
The Left have also created a huge misunderstanding and done huge damage to science and the scientific method by their continual pronouncements of nonsense such as:
Apart from that the Left heavily promote lies as scientific and engineering fact such as that humans are responsible for supposed global warming, wind power is the cheapest form.of electricity generation, covid vaccines are fully effective and safe or a man can become a woman.
On top of that, of course, is the general dumbing-down of the education system which makes young people profoundly ignorant of evidence-based science and lacking in general knowledge overall.
400
Fauci is doing the credibility of Science about as much good as Langton and Burney are doing the yes vote.
250
I lost ‘faith’ in scientists soon after I began working with them decades ago, and saw the corruption, incompetence and bias at first hand. That’s not to say it was everywhere, just that I came to realise that scientists were humans too, subject to all the foibles that other humans are. They do not deserve unquestioning respect.
But a widespread fall in faith among the wider community is worrying in a far more sinister way than just ‘belief’. Coming alongside the death of religious faith and ever-more division among society, it foreshadows a future where we have no guiding principles and no ‘bedrock’ upon which a functioning society can operate. If none of us can trust ANYBODY else, nor consult a moral compass, where will that leave us? It will be a form of anarchy.
And, of course, because it is in our nature as humans to desire strong leadership and guidance, somebody or something will fill the vacuum …
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Steve
Sounds as if you have had more experience than me, but I have worked in R&D in both the US and here in AU. Generally those I work and worked with in the private sector have been pretty good. Those who produce little or cannot follow through generally have been removed.
My area has been in food and product development. And, at this stage anyway, food safety and labelling are well covered. Companies do not want to poison their customers and even small incidents are very well investigated and learnt from.
Contrast this with my limited exposure to the public sector, with no commercial motivation and the woke now in charge. Here the incompetent can remain in place forever and politics has taken over. And as we saw with covid, they simply don’t care if mass numbers are sickened, maimed or killed, as long as the ideology is right.
280
One recent classic example is the Queensland DNA laboratory where thousands of samples were untested. A new broom and perhaps some crimes will be solved. Government run and funded research is always going to be suspect these days viz a viz the CSIRO and BoM. There are instances where science and engineering are not allowed to fail because the financial repercussions are so dire. Government science is immune from retribution so is not to be trusted.
160
There IS a commercial imperative in play within government-funded research PoB, because most are to some degree dependent on external (i.e. non-government) funding to match their internal funds. My roles covered firstly technology commercialisation, secondly what was called ‘business development’ (actually sales, i.e. securing funding) and lastly business management, which was an attempt to build some client-focused rigour in project management and delivery.
In those roles I saw a lot of naked greed and totally unrealistic expectations on the part of scientists in pursuit of money from anywhere and everywhere they could get it. Their behaviour in seeking prestige and fame came a close second. Those who possessed a realistic impression of their own value (and what their discoveries were worth) were few and far between; I enjoyed working with that type.
You would be surprised to learn how many public sector scientists expect to be paid small fortunes for the most mediocre IP. They also refuse to accept that building a sellotape-and-string bench prototype, which only works on alternate Tuesdays, completes the exercise. When they hand it over to lowly engineers to turn it into a product, they think that’s the easy and cheap part.
Another observation I would make is that the leadership of the agency in question really couldn’t care less what the general public thought about what they did. The only thing that mattered was having a good relationship with the relevant government ministers.
I would recommend anybody wondering what life is like within the CSIRO to watch the brilliant BBC satire called ‘W1A’. It was supposed to be self-deprecating skit about the BBC itself, but I found it uncannily accurate in describing how our own institutions operate, too.
170
“They also refuse to accept that building a sellotape-and-string bench prototype, which only works on alternate Tuesdays, completes the exercise.”
Sorry, meant to say:
They also STRONGLY BELIEVE that building a sellotape-and-string bench prototype, which only works on alternate Tuesdays, completes the exercise
90
Neat.
🙂
50
Many years ago not long after graduation I worked in a research lab of a large multinational and the first thing I learned even back then was “Never ever stand between a research scientist and funding for their project” They will literally do whatever it takes and without any morals whatsoever to secure more than their share of funding. I left without any respect for scientists.
90
US politics is becoming increasingly partisan and the US right becoming increasing anti-establishment and anti-science in its rhetoric.
Globally, public confidence of scientists and the scientific process is increasing: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/science/scientist-trust-poll.html
246
As usual, any pronouncement from the Left is the opposite of the truth. It is the Left who are anti-science as explained above (“settled science”, “science by consensus”, really?) but the Right and fellow rational thinkers have lost faith in a corrupted scientific establishment, not science and reason itself.
411
You don’t know enough to state that the scientific establishment is corrupt, a Dunning-Kruger effect is more likely.
You really should read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. You are advocating a paradigm shift without supplying evidence or mechanism.
331
>”You really should read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn”
And the criticisms?
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
Criticisms
120
Anyone for 97%?
60
Corruption takes many forms, some of which do not involve brown paper envelopes. Some years ago I had a conversation with one of the scientists who recently got the Alimonti paper retracted. In a science context, “corrupt” is a description that fits that person because in our conversation they said that they used research to promote a political agenda (banning coal), which they would continue to promote even if ‘the science turns out to be wrong’. This corruption is clearly widespread. The scientific establishment is demonstrating a form of corruption by its silence.
200
>”You don’t know enough to state that the scientific establishment is corrupt”
The Wolf and the Lamb — Alimonti et al. 2022
I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published — Brown et al. 2023
Climate Scientists Subverted Peer Review — Climategate 2009
More ?
131
More ?
CIA Whistleblower Exposes Agency’s Action to Manipulate COVID-19 Origin Investigation, Offers “Significant Monetary Incentive” to Discredit Wuhan Lab Theory
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/cia-whistleblower-exposes-agencys-attempt-manipulate-covid-19/
And,
“Significant Monetary Incentive” = bribe.
101
More ?
Dr. Robert Redfield Comes Clean On Government Censorship
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dr-robert-redfield-comes-clean-government-censorship
After these statements, as Vanity Fair reported, “death threats flooded his inbox,” some from prominent scientists.
30
More ?
Florida professor dismissed over FAKE research data that puts Whites and conservatives in a bad light
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-09-14-florida-professor-dismissed-over-fake-research-data.html
A prominent criminology professor, who purportedly demonstrated the systemic nature of racism in American law enforcement and society, has been dismissed from his position for fabricating data, resulting in the retraction of his studies.
30
Kuhn was Eurocentric and gives no credit to China’s independent achievements.
“Only the civilizations that descend from Hellenic Greece have possessed more than the most rudimentary science. The bulk of scientific knowledge is a product of Europe…No other place and time has supported the very special communities from which scientific productivity comes.”
42
While I have the floor, how do these Chinese scientific discoveries fit in with Kuhn’s paradigm shift?
Paper Making 105 A.C.
Movable Type Printing 960-1279 AD.
Gunpowder 1000 A.D.
Compass 1100 A.D.
Alcohol 2000 BC－1600 BC.
Mechanical Clock 725 A.D.
Tea Production 2,737 BC.
Silk 6,000 years ago.
50
Aren’t Kuhn’s paradigm shifts about theoretical explanations? Did the Chinese explain the behaviour of gunpowder in terms of collision theory, breaking/making chemical bonds, activation energies etc? Did they even have any concept of atoms.
Are your examples more technological than scientific?
The big paradigm shift was from Newtonian to quantum mechanics.
80
You should read Robert G. Temple, China, Land of Discouvery based most on research of Joseph Needham.
First steel came from China too, using two-way bellows
https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu01se/uu01se0u.htm
50
I take back my Eurocentric slur.
‘The ancient Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus recorded the concept of the atomos, an indivisible building block of matter, as early as the 5th century BCE.
‘The idea of an indivisible particle was further elaborated upon and explored by a number of scientists and philosophers, including Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Lavoisier, and Dalton.
‘John Dalton, an English chemist and meteorologist, is credited with the first modern atomic theory based on his experiments with atmospheric gases.’ (UEN)
11
Also, alcohol was invented 5400 to 5000 BC in Hajji Firuz Tepe in Iran.
00
Mr. Simon: So, Mr. Maddison doesn’t know enough on one point, but you know enough to say, with absolute confidence, “globally” confidence in doctors is up??!! Did this “global” measurement include confidence over the oceans and at the poles, or did you infill that “data”? You do realize that, when you jump in like this with some “global” obfuscation, we know the article is over the target?
70
Wake up Simon, you are projecting.
Its the Left with their “the science” approach, where consensus and ideology rule that are the huge problem here.
350
Yep, I reckon that will get Simon about 50 red thumbs today. Good job mate.
190
Simon, that is utter rubbish. Confirmation bias. Idiocy. Projection. Mental Illness.
The US political voter base is trending Marxist, absent a full turn Conservative. Except for the 80% who aren’t.
Why are you so afraid of individual liberty and thought? The leftist loons have produced nothing of value, ever.
Wanting to “be left alone” isn’t a psychotic break. Leftist/Marxist/Progressive/Liberalism IS.
Nobody needs your twisted guidance. Or that of your kin. Be kind and be quiet, that’s all you can ever contribute.
Nobody on my doorstep who thinks as you do, will be welcome. So that’s the way it is. G’day.
91
>”The US political voter base is trending Marxist”
How Cultural Marxism Threatens the United States—and How Americans Can Fight It
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/how-cultural-marxism-threatens-the-united-states-and-how-americans-can-fight
[Extensive report]
“Unless Marxist thought is defeated again, today’s cultural Marxists will achieve what the Soviet Union never could: the subjugation of the United States to a totalitarian, soul-destroying ideology.”
“Education. Universities today have almost completely succumbed to the ideology imposed by those who have followed the cultural Marxist pioneers of the 1980s.”
Also,
Climate eugenics
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/climate_eugenics.html
“Today we are in the throes of another false theory — i.e., climate change and all of its ugly ramifications. In fact, the parallels between climate change and eugenics are downright ominous. The first person to recognize these ominous parallels and candidly discuss them was the late Dr. Michael Crichton in his 2004 book State of Fear. (At the time, Crichton genuinely feared publishing State of Fear, worrying that the book’s theme, which challenged climate change dogma, could get him killed.)”
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>”…today’s cultural Marxists will achieve what the Soviet Union never could: the subjugation of the United States to a totalitarian, soul-destroying ideology”
Mission Accomplished, no?
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That’s the biggest reason some Yanks (myself included) are talking seriously about secession — — i.e., the “Red” states (largely conservative, Constitutionalists) should secede from the District of Columbia (D.C.) and the “Blue” states (very socialistic, communistic, totalitarian …), leaving them to their own devices.
The sticking point is that the separation has to be 100% complete — — financial, economic, political, and social. Likely not achievable, but I see few viable alternatives.
I’m open to suggestions.
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“Globally, public confidence of scientists and the scientific process is increasing:”
Honestly simon, where do you keep dredging this junk from.
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It’s post-modernism, the philosophical basis of the modern Left.
There Is no such thing as objective reality.
They all have their own “personal truth”.
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In programmers lingo:
Echo “Simon post” >/dev/null 😆
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An interesting “big picture” analysis that opens up new ways of assessing where society is heading and where changes are needed.
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If associated press (AP) is admitting this its damage control . Its way worse than that . We know that they know but are spinning it . Reality trumps postmodernism .
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Surprised that confidence in military leadership has risen post Afghanistan withdrawal , vax mandate exclusions and turning the armed forces into a diversity circus.
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Science, meh. Too many people mistake engineering for science anyway.
Scientists are people who believe the universe has no cause and that the complexity of life was just luck. Then with their other mouth they tell you about ’cause and effect’, and ‘repeatability’. Science is essentially a philosophy – a way of understanding the world. It has become post-Modern like other fields of philosophy that have given up on absolutes. It is engineering and trade craft that build useful things, not so much science. Good scientific examination is useful to engineering (eg. Boyle’s Law = steam engine), but the decay of science as a philosophy was quite predictable from Modernism.
For me it was the medical field that took the biggest credibility hit. Doctors and hospitals playing along with the mask and vacc nonsense, overstating the severity of outcomes, shutting sick people out of general practices, and sacking the only people who displayed a bit of sense; I consider it to be an industry of quacks now.
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For me, the big mistake was to allow the “A” into STEM to make it into STE(A)M.
They reckoned a STEM student would say “I am not creative” – so we must add Art to fix that.
But with that came a major loss of focus on critical analysis and first principles.
Creatively communicating STEM concepts has become more important than any actual development within STEM.
Lying and tricks are rewarded far greater than true discovery.
The just-add-science circus will always appeal to gullible folks like any traditional circus has.
… but its appeal wanes and they then move to another town to find more suckers.
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Her is a great example of the correlation between trust in science can be shown,
1. USA low trust – most deaths from coronavirus (per capita)
2. China high trust – least deaths from coronavirus (per capita)
Sources- this post, pew research centre, our world in data
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Peter, you actually believe Chinese Government figures, the only source of data for that country?
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And you also believe United States government figures?
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More so than a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship, absolutely!
US figures are likely overstated and Chicomm figures likely understated.
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David >”More so than a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship, absolutely!”
I suggest USA is well on the way to that too.
Case in point: the J6 prisoners.
American Gulag – https://americangulag.org/
Torture and Abuse: DC Officials Place Jan. 6 Prisoners in DC Gulag Back on COVID Lockdown, Solitary Confinement Starting Today!
BREAKING: TYRANNY TAKES HOLD IN AMERICA! Reporter Owen Shroyer Sentenced to 60 DAYS IN PRISON for Speech Crimes! – DOJ Says “Shroyer Helped Create January 6” Through his Speech!
HEARTBREAKING: Mother and Son Sentenced to Almost Five Years in Prison for Walking Through Open Door at US Capitol – Mugshots Included
Biden Prosecutors Tell J6 Political Prisoner Jake Lang He Will Be Detained Indefinitely Without Trial – October Jan 6 Trial Canceled Due to Supreme Court Case! And They Just Arrested His Star Witness
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Is this not brutal ?
UPDATE: J6 Prisoner Beaten and Blinded by Guards Now Being Pressured NOT TO SPEAK to Gateway Pundit After Recent Interview – Feds Tell His Wife She Can’t Speak to Him Anymore
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Good grief.
They must have felt very confident that their actions would never be punished.
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Have visited both the USA and China in the last few years, I would say that they are on a par for “brutal, totalitarian dictatorship”
Banning books – pretty much equal
Surveillance – pretty much equal
Homicides – one sided to the USA
Sense of safety when walking the street – depending on the street, but China felt much safer
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They are both on the brink of becoming failed states?
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China is a candidate.
‘Decreased legitimacy — Overall trust in the government and its ability diminishes, both domestically among the state’s citizens and internationally among other states.’ (WPR)
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He will believe anything that fits “the message” du jour
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Sorry David, I accidently red ticked you …
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Where did you get that from?
The US figures are on par with the UK and western Europe.
See https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
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what is you point? on your link the USA is still number 1 for deaths, china is with the tail enders.
Remember, the post is about how little Republicans believe in Science, and scientists, yet have the most deaths from Covid.
So does that help?
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Not really, no.
You claimed the US had the highest deaths per capita, the link I provided and many others show the per capita US figures are similar to the UK. In my opinion, both countries fared poorly.
A moderately high per capita death rate and a large population are going to put it very high in the rankings for total deaths. If you had specified total deaths originally, there would have been no cause to query your source.
If you just confused total deaths with per capita death rate, we all make mistakes.
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Mr. Fitzroy: Thanks for explaining it to us, you’ll make great strides in regaining our trust by citing numbers that rely on the people who lied from the start of this.
The funniest part is that you rely on the least scientific folks extant. And you are so generous to let us laugh at you! Thanks again.
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Not only the institution of science lost a lot of esteem during COVID. but most other institutions as well. That list would include the universities, military, police, government, medicine, media, unions and many other representative bodies. Many of which this article lists. There is also the effect of the higher up you go in these institutions, the more likely you are being conned by dodgy science. Maybe even brainwashed.
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The war against science is illustrated by two items I just heard on Their ABC (Australia) radio 621kHz in Melbournistan.
1) People are now feeding cats, obligate carnivores, vegan diets.
2) The Biden Maladministration is setting up a department at NASA to study UFOs, now known as UAP.
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We looked after my sons cat while he ( and his wife) were overseas for 4 weeks. We were advised the cat is really fussy- it wont eat the “normal” brand of cat food, she likes the fancy stuff. Sure I said, no worries. Withheld food from the cat for a day and a bit, offered her plain old Whiskas dry food. Devoured it within seconds. If cats ( or pets in general) are hungry enough they will eat anything, which would include vegan food, I suspect.
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My 12 years in the SES gave me many opportunities to ‘rescue’ cats from trees.
Although we tried to placate the human customer by attempting (sometimes successfully) to remove the cat from the tree, my first response was “I have never seen a cat skeleton in a tree. It will come down when hungry”.
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Exactly so!
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It’s surprising that cats even recognise vegan foods as food. It would require the correct odours to be added.
On the other hand, the big cats would be quite happy with a diet of vegans.
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I dunno, I reckon they would find vegans as objectionable as the rest of us, giving them indigestion.
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Faith, trust and confidence in our big institutions: Science, the Media, Government and Medicine have been eroded because they ceased to be servants of the people, let us down badly and turned into the opposition. For many refuseniks who suffered the past vaxx mandates, lockdowns and other totalitarian persecutions there is now varying degrees of PTSD, where trust is a luxury and suspicion is the default position.
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You forgot the most troubling of all. The one which is supposed to hold all the others to account if necessary: the justice system.
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Mostly ‘scientists’ today won’t ask why,
Or consensus dare not falsify,
Being too problematic,
With the mood so dogmatic,
They just keep their heads down and comply.
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I find it surprising that 37% of people still have faith in the Medical Scientific leaders while it’s that group that is the most corrupt (even more so than the Climate Science cult) as they are strong enough to drive their own revenue streams by cajoling/bullying/intimidating/lobbying government to achieve their desired outcomes or else… I guess in our heart of hearts we still want to believe we can have 100% trust when we go see the doctor and we extrapolate from there into the wider Medical industry…
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USA: State, local governments ban COVID-19 mandates
‘We’re not going to do a lot of the foolish things that were done’
Several state and local governments are placing bans on COVID-19 mandates as media and government operatives create renewed alarm over the virus.
Arkansas is the latest state to ban COVID restrictions. On Monday the state’s Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee approved a bill prohibiting vaccine mandates across all state and local entities including schools, reported the Arkansas Times.
“[Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders] was very clear that we do not want [vaccine mandates] across our state,” Arkansas Senator Joshua Bryant told the committee. “She’s been very proactive to allow choice when it comes to vaccine mandates.”
The decision came five days after South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster posted a video to social media saying the state refuses to implement “foolish” policies like forced masking and lockdowns.
“Lockdowns were a mistake,” McMaster declared in a press conference. “A lot of the information that was presented and the opinions that were presented from official sources were in error and caused damage.”
McMaster was referring to conclusive scientific evidence that lockdowns and school closures wrought vast, irrevocable damage with no effect on mortality rates. The destructive effect on children has so far been too great to assess.
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/09/11/senate-committee-approves-bill-to-ban-covid-vaccine-mandates-at-state-and-local-entities
Mindless fear losing ground to reality?
Now for the mindless “mask-up” Greens here…
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But will they also ban ballot harvesting? Funny how as 2024 approaches the fear merchants are back.
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‘All in all, it’s a sad, sad story when the nations institutions are not worthy of trust, and are so obviously politicized.’
China and the US have a lot in common at the moment.
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Seems like the global population has split into Left/Right brain hemisphere rule.
By Left/Right I don’t mean politics, but perception.
There seem to be ‘normies’ that think everything is fine, and the trouble is being caused by the non-conformists.
The ‘normies’ think that JoNova blogophites are standing in they way of saving the planet.
It’s like in my Blue dominated US state, the normies blame all the failures of the charity state on the hand full of Republicans that cling to their seats.
This is the ‘structural’ bigotry to which the constantly refer.
This is one of the central cult symptoms.
It was the same with Mao and witches.
Our failure to achieve Utopia, perfect weather, and PhD for every child, is because there are impure heretics in our midst.
Hence we must create a ‘Misinformation Governance Board’.
But we all know it’s the fault of the internet.
We can not allow the peasants to conspire with each other.
And poison ‘our’ dream with their theories.
We are being forced by their non-compliance to build ‘Resilience Centers’.
https://tottnews.com/2021/12/07/revealed-australian-quarantine-camp-locations/
https://www.resiliencecorps.org.au/
Only heretics would complain about the the production of new bricks for the road to Utopia.
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You just explained the whole history of Socialism.
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During the pandemic and with the climate hoax the good name of science and scientists was and is cynically exploited by second-raters to impose a political agenda.
Those chickens are now coming home to roost.
The up-side of it will be that societal support for the funding gravy train will substantially decrease.
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I used to be a physicist, and I believe in science. But not in what passes as science these days. Climatology is probably the worst offender, closely followed by a coronavirus science. The first one stole my savings, and the second one is attempting to kill me. I surely dislike the modern trend to redefine the meaning of words, be it “science”, “free speech”, or “marriage”. Soon the Constitution itself will mean something completely different.
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