A mostly peaceful rant
Today’s post by the inestimable Joel Smalley got me thinking. Joel does have a knack of using a hammer and, avoiding swollen thumbs, hitting the nail dead-on. Here’s the graphic at the end of Joel’s article.
In a lovely Christmas present (published 25th December 2020) the Times gave space to a defence of the world’s most accurate modeller. Describing himself as “mostly right” the guy who can’t even get his stuff correct within a couple of orders of magnitude was obviously using the same definition of the word “mostly” that was applied to certain well-known protests after the death of Saint George.
It’s the same use of the word when we describe the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima as a mostly peaceful flyover by a B-29.
The headline, purportedly a quote of the sadly irrepressible Fergie, is fascinating.
People don’t agree with lockdown and try to undermine the scientists
In case Imperial College’s most famous buffoon didn’t get the memo :
IT IS THE WHOLE FUCKING JOB OF SCIENTISTS TO TRY TO UNDERMINE SCIENTISTS
Or at least that used to be the case back in the days when, in our blissful ignorance, we didn’t realise that the scientific method was just some dastardly tool invented by white supremacists for oppressing the noble folk of colour. On the left here you can see how the Smithsonian explained the appalling toxic effects of whiteness.
On the right here you can see that awful European white supremacist, Ibn al-Haytham, the first guy to state (and use) the scientific method in the 10th century (approx). But I suppose we should say those pesky lack of colour people merely appropriated the idea. The bastards.
Obviously no self-respecting person of colour would ever dream of using the scientific method today. At least according to the racist drivel promoted by the Smithsonian.
I really fucking hate this trend towards the racialization of everything. It’s important where it’s important and racism (proper racism not this wanky “power + prejudice” crap that has been foisted on us by certain morons) is definitely an absolute abhorrence - not to mention being dumber than a box of rocks.
In my view those pressing for the “decolonization” of science should themselves be de-colonized - and given an enema the size and power of a friggin fire hose. We could probably make them less full of shit with this simple measure.
The scientific method, for me, stands as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. It’s a beautifully simple idea, and extraordinarily powerful. Ibn al-Haytham was known in Renaissance Europe as “the Father of Optics” because of the wonderful optical experiments he did and ideas he came up with, but he should really more properly be known as the Father of Science.
No “trusting the experts” for our Arabian genius - it’s something he would have been disgusted by. No crying about “undermining” scientists - because it’s what he was all about - attempting to undermine the prevailing wisdom.
Ibn al-Haytham well-understood that the only way to get to the truth was to allow rigorous questioning. The truth wasn’t dispensed from some official organization, nor did it drip from the rhetorical oozings of those considered reputable. The truth was a thing that could only be revealed by hacking away at the crap that wasn’t right - in the same way a sculptor takes a block of stone and chips away all the bits that don’t fit.
There is no “science” as such - there is only the scientific method. What we know as “science” is merely provisional - our current best approximation to the truth. If you don’t attack science you’re not doing science. Even when they work entirely within some prevailing paradigm a scientist is (or ought to be) questioning everything they are doing - and checking it against known results and understandings. Does what I’m doing fit? That’s the question we ask ourselves all the time. It’s a continuous process of challenge - if we’re not directly questioning the paradigm we’re working in, we’re questioning our own work within that paradigm.
It’s a bloody marvellous day, for a scientist, when they discover something that doesn’t fit. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s wonderful when it does. Part of my PhD work was based around examination of a simple model of an atom-field interaction. It was fully quantized and was, supposedly, well-understood. I was able to show that the previous explanation of some of the interesting behaviours was not correct. It took a better scientist than me to properly work out what was going on - but at least I was able to point them in the right direction.
It’s nice to occasionally blow one’s own trumpet - alas, for me, it is a rather small and not very tuneful trumpet in scientific terms.
But only approved covid trumpets have been allowed to sound over the last couple of years. This is not science. It’s a perversion of science. It sickens me to the core. I want to go all Greta and declaim in the most menacing and manic way possible
“How dare you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
If you think about it, the scientific method rests entirely on free speech. To progress science one must be allowed to question, to criticize, and, as Ibn al-Haytham said, to “make oneself an enemy of all that he reads”
The atomic bombs were dropped by B-29 bombers, not B-52s. Just wanted to point out that small error.
Read Joel's piece right before yours. As usual, both were spot on.
I've been amazed by the complete lack of science surrounding Wuhan virus, but "science" has been one of the primary tools of hucksters science, well since science.
When scientific method was first introduced all civilization was naturally ignorant of it and could be fooled by those who actually understood it. The enlightenment(s) gradually popularized science and the masses took advantage of its use making great strides in all fields of endeavor. For the last few decades much of, if not most of the world's educational institutions have been failing to teach science, and instead they've been successfully proselytizing. They convinced a significant portion that science and fact are subjective.