The Science Illusion
We should be careful to distinguish Behavioral Science (Opinion
Science) from the physical sciences, which they resemble only in pretense. Science
is a meticulous dispassionate inquiry. Social sciences are based on emotions.
The amazing success of the physical sciences, from molecular
biology to astrophysics, is what gives the Opinion Scientists the arrogance to
pretend they’re doing the same thing as authentic scientists. Experiments that
furnish data for the Opinion Science lack the test tubes, the microscopes, the
element accelerators that lends authenticity to traditional science. Opinion
Science uses hard-to-define phenomena such as thoughts, motives, mental
impressions, emotional reactions, and so on.
We’ve been conditioned to trust these “experts”. We’ve been
taught to disregard our own common sense.
Very few of us actually rely on our own experiences. Very
few of us look for information that both supports and refutes the information
and ideas we are receiving from news sources, science, politicians, medicine,
so we can then make our own
reasonable conclusion.
“There is apparently
some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and a proneness to
credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the
rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a
distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the
actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous,
which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They ask to
be deceived. The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty deceiving
themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.”
― Eric Hoffer
Science is continuously being discovered and improved
upon. People make of science a lot more
than it really has to offer concerning ultimate explanations, or even mundane
ones. Who has yet to see a satisfactory scientific explanation of why we dream
what we dream? How to control our dreams? Where the dust particles came from
that led to the ‘big bang theory’ – why, when you get stuck at a party talking
to a schmuck, you can’t think of a polite way to disengage or why you find
missing items in the last place you look?
Science and marketing have replaced reason, common sense,
and natural instinct.
The Christian Religion and Jewish religion being snubbed as
insidious, backwards, by the media, government,
and college campuses (yet the Muslim religion which doesn’t tolerate
homosexuality or women’s rights, is being praised) and Science will save us now!
Don’t misunderstand me, science has given us fantastic
improvement and improved the standard of living;—e.g., trauma repair,
agriculture and engineering. But where the meticulous, cautious physical scientist
fears to tread, or only goes with highly detailed concerns, Illusion Solutionists rush in and save the world or solve the
problem by scientistatically explaining the problems and solution in ways that
benefit their organizations or causes.
Ed Bernays perfected the spin that anything vaguely scientific will
convince us to buy the explanation.
Eight out of ten doctors say that you should eat bacon to give you more
protein in the morning! A survey finds an association between longevity and
running!
The scienctastic terminology makes it possible to say almost
anything without contradiction provided you begin you start your sentence
with “A study has shown …” or
“Scientists now tell us that …”
Marketing and advertising is dripping with science. And
sadly, just like mythology was for people long ago, and religion was and
continues to be, science is good enough for many as the ‘explanation’ of all.
It was for me for many years until science ‘fact’ after
science fact was retracted and replaced – and I fell for most of them.
“So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it
enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.” Ben
Franklin once said, meaning that whatever you want to believe, you will seek
out information that confirms your idea and proves you to be right.
As Neil Postman said about the scientific view: “In the end,
science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our
origins and our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, “How
did it all begin?”, science answers, “Probably by an accident.” To the
question, “How will it all end?”, science answers, “Probably by an accident.”
For many people, the accidental life is not worth living.
We search for significance, meaning, purpose. For some
people, the idea that there is no magic (we simply die) dashes any mysticism,
any hope, any reason to hold carry ourselves with dignity and act honorably –
the pessimist idea that man is nothing
but a bunch of cells that can be manipulated by science gives people an excuse for self-gratification:
What’s the point in trying to make a difference when we’re all going to die
anyway?
Religion gives people a reason to be hopeful.
Science gives people a reason to be irresponsible (I was
born that way!)
Independence gives people a reason to be honorable.
The destruction of
mankind is the fear and rejection of self-rule, responsibility, and diversity. The belief that there is only one superior way
to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical
affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own
species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, status, comfort, and ease which slowly erodes our spirit, our
confidence and courage.
Much of what was formerly called “moral philosophy” is now
called “social psychology” or simply “psychology.” For the past century or so,
psychologists have considered themselves, scientists that use methods and
theories that are the same as those of the biologist or physicist which is
false because true science relies on objective investigation – behavioral
science relies on emotion and opinion and can’t be objectively measured.
Look at “science” of climate change… if climate science is
settled, why do its predictions keep changing? Even the great physicist Freeman
Dyson, who did climate research in the late 1970s, cautions that climate-change
apostles are hopelessly mistaken.
After enduring the horror of Nazi camps, Viktor Frankl, who
went in a as a doctor with a belief in socialism, changed his mind after
surviving his second prison camp: He
stated, "If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we
may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a
mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a
mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to
which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted," Frankl
continued, "with the last stage of that corruption in my second
concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate
consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and
environment--or, as the Nazi liked to say, of 'Blood and Soil.' I am absolutely
convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately
prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and
in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
Opinion Science has simplified the work of advertisers and marketers;
it has created the illusion of fact
and people are too distracted and eager to be part of the ‘in crowd’ - fearful
to ask questions because they will be ostracized or look stupid.
