Science, first of all, is not a profession. It is a method through which human beings interrogate reality in order to tease out the underlying order of the universe. It is based on the idea that there is a set of rules by which the universe is regulated. That is why we speak of “laws,” “constants,” and “facts.” Some things are true, and others are not. We may never fully grasp what is true, but the truth is out there.

Science is not the only or even a comprehensive way to grasp what is. Anybody who has experienced wonder, love, or an artistic epiphany should understand that. Understanding the world and our place in it isn’t about merely grasping rules and facts, but no understanding of the world can be grounded on anything else.

Much of modern science, though, is not motivated by or guided by the desire to discover truth.

Eisenhower alluded to the dangers of "Military-Industrial Complex" in his Farewell speech, 1961. Less well known are his concerns about scientific/technological/academic elite: @DrJBhattacharya https://t.co/pOL65vpXtL

— TwittaChicca (@TwittaChicca) May 19, 2023

In the modern world, for obvious reasons, science is not just a pursuit but also a job. Most scientists in prior ages were independently wealthy and/or were supported by patrons who were curious. Scientists were for the most part individualists and in many cases rebels. They were told stories about how the world works and thought…hmm, that doesn’t sound right.

They were also what we would call today “creative,” in the sense that what made them happy was constructing a more accurate model of the universe. Their happiness wasn’t just in observing how things worked, but in discovering things and building persuasive models that challenged the common wisdom.

Science today is a vastly different enterprise, as are scientists. Not that there aren’t numerous scientists with the same character traits as those of yore. There are.

But the incentive structure and the way in which science is done makes it extraordinarily difficult–in many cases nearly impossible–to introduce new and unconventional ideas. The scientific enterprise is a system, an industry, and an iron hierarchy in which those at the top have near-total control over the flow of money, jobs, and all other resources. Even assuming the best of intentions, which sometimes exist and often don’t, being too far outside the mainstream puts the heretic’s ability to do science at risk.

Some corners of science are more immune than others–theoretical physics or mathematics, for instance–because they don’t require billions of dollars, huge grants, or massive groups of collaborators. A solitary person or small group can brainstorm, steal computer time, and be harmless enough to escape notice.

But most scientists aren’t so free. My parents were astronomers, and highly regarded ones at that. They had access to the best equipment, tremendous resources, grants, and a decent amount of freedom. They also entered astronomy in the late 50s/early 60s, when the money flowed freely, universities were flush with both money and students, and the government prioritized anything having to do with space science.

But even they had to fight for telescope time, which is always at a premium. Telescopes are wildly expensive and the resources to build and maintain them are…astronomical. Computing power was scarce and expensive at the time, and one needed access to large sums of money in order to do cutting-edge science. And astronomy was still quite individualistic compared to most physical scientists.

Physicists, chemists, biologists, and medical researchers depend much more upon grant and research processes that involve large teams, big grants, huge collaborations, and inevitably the approval of a bureaucracy that inevitably places a premium upon consensus. Who decides how to distribute the money? The people at the top of the profession, of course. Who decides what can get published? Ditto.

Galileo and the Pope, all over again.

Science is both corporate and political, when it comes to basic research the private sector and government fund about half each, so if you defend science you are implicitly defending corporations and engaging in politics.

It wasn’t always that way. Ernest Lawrence, whose name is now on both Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Lawrence Livermore National Lab, ushered in the era of academic Big Science. He found that if you did what government wanted, they would throw money at you. And then you could use some of that money to do what you wanted. It really caught on after the Manhattan Project, which was the ultimate use of government guiding academic research to create applied science. People whose entire labs were funded with less than $20,000 per year saw Lawrence getting hundreds of thousands, and then millions, from Uncle Sam and the race was on: Government was firmly in the science business and academics wanted to be in business with politicians.

Government and industry control the flow of resources, so science becomes very political. Eisenhower warned about this trend back in 1960, just as he warned about the Military-Industrial complex. As the government became the paymaster, the government would get what it paid for.

Think Climate Science.

Ike noted that the government’s need for ever more advanced defense technologies would mean a growing reliance on science and scientific advisors, noting:

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. . . . A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

That trend, he noted, might change the nature of the “free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery.” Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”

Economic and power considerations might influence scientific research and the reporting of its findings, leading to the “domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money” – a trend that should be “gravely … regarded.”  Thus, while we should continue to hold “scientific research and discovery in respect . . . we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

During COVID we got a front-row seat watching the interplay of science and politics. Politics determined science, and science buttressed the propaganda of politicians. Scientists would literally say what their paymasters wanted them to.

The virologists who contacted the CDC to warn them that COVID looked engineered got a talking to by Fauci, and an assignment to prove that COVID came from a natural origin. They did so, and subsequently got nearly $10 million in grants.

Did they change their minds? Or did they have 10 million reasons to change their minds? I don’t know, but given the incentives they had to lie, I give their judgment on the matter little credence.

Pfizer and Moderna scientists assured us that their vaccines were safe and effective. Perhaps they believed it. But given their allegiances it would make sense to trust them no more than the scientists who asserted that cigarettes were safe because they worked at the Tobacco Institute.

What climate scientists could expect to get a government grant if they were skeptics of the “consensus” that climate change is not caused by CO2?

Given that the chances of that are zero, how useful is the consensus? It is a self-created one and tells you nothing of value. If the only people allowed to be climate scientists are fanatics, their consensus itself is a creation of something unscientific. It is bought and paid for.

Does that prove that anthropogenic climate change is false? Not at all. It just tells you that the consensus itself is evidence of nothing but the grant and employment processes in academia.

For decades the medical consensus was that stress caused ulcers. The belief that a bacteria did was heretical. Barry James Marshall, a young doctor theorized that the bacteria H. Pylori was the actual cause of the disease, and his colleagues scoffed. In the tried and true method of 18th and 19th century scientists, he proved it by experimenting upon himself.

It took another decade after his demonstration that it was much more likely that the bacteria caused ulcers that it became widely accepted that he was right, and proper treatments were developed. In the interim millions of people suffered excruciating pain and even unnecessary surgeries to repair ruined stomach linings.

Consensus is the enemy of the core idea of science: you cannot prove anything decisively, only disprove it. There are well-established hypotheses and shaky hypotheses. There are facts that require extraordinary evidence to disprove since they have withstood scrutiny unmarred. But nothing is beyond question. Even “laws” and “constants” require testing and skepticism.

That doesn’t mean we have to live in a constant state of paralyzed doubt. We have to accept lots of things as true in order to live; but scientifically speaking, doubt is not your enemy, but your friend.

In cases where people have an incentive to believe or promote certain ideas, one should be especially skeptical. It’s not only money or power but prestige and self-esteem that can make people cling to hypotheses. In any case, it doesn’t matter. When you hear there is a consensus, you can rest assured the “consensus” is likely political.

Political “science” is not necessarily wrong, but it is untrustworthy. It requires more, not less scrutiny. And the harder the consensus is pushed, the more scrutiny and skepticism one should require.

Eisenhower’s warning about the military/industrial complex was remembered so well because it fit a narrative that people, especially academics and Leftists (I repeat myself) liked. The warning about the scientific-technological elite?

That was memory-holed.

There was a “consensus” that he was wrong.