Jan 21 2008
The Watering Down of Science
Science was first attributed to the early Greeks but in truth it has a timeless element that was born in man’s first efforts to make tools. The Greeks had the advantage of being at the beginning of written History through Herodotus. Science is the history lesson of mankind’s processes of creation. In its very form it is set up against creationist myths and religious dogmas, which underlies the period that came to be known as the dark ages. A period that threw away theories such as the roundness of the earth and the practice of primitive democracy for government which used a type of lottery system reminiscent of our current and random selection of jury panels. Also much of early Greek mathematics was saved by the Persians from early Christian Roman book burning.
However science itself could never be still born and the need for better battling weapons and conditions or in the improvement of domestic appliances and tools for artistry.
It was always in the theatre of ideas that put religious ideas under suspicion, that the Inquisition and the authorities in general reacted, usually with torture and recantations, if not death.
Of course, this had changed dramatically by 1932. Here is the physicist Max Planck
“..Formerly it was only religion, especially in its doctrinal and moral systems was the object of skeptical attack. Then the iconoclast began to shatter ideals and principles that had hitherto been accepted in the province of art. Now he has invaded the temple of science. There is scarcely a scientific axiom that is not nowadays denied by somebody. And at the same time almost any nonsensical theory may be put forward in the name of science would be almost sure to find to find believers and disciples somewhere or other.” (Where is Science Going?)
Today science has become reduced to its technological achievements and those axioms pertaining to its success in the most part for popular science manuals. Whereas there are many fields in which science has become an ideological tool.
There many theories that are merely projections from known data that are now accepted as fact, these include “big bang” theory , “string theory” ,”alternative universe” ,and “dark matter” theories. These projections seek to answer unexplained questions that science by its temporal or natural limits is unable to cope with at present.
Nevertheless they have no more real existence than fairy tales.
Official science is short of answers on a few major questions, these include the twin tower collapse, the disappearance of the bees, anti-global warming theory, and in the field of economy, how to view the recession.
Science on the whole needs to reclaim itself, as a world viewpoint opposed to ideology, as a protector of global interests, that defies corporate power and its impingements on national democracies and economies including the insane investment in massive military hardware.
The inane impartiality of little garden minded scientists is a condition for global catastrophe. Science may begin at home but it must not end there.
