We live in the age of SCIENCE! But we need to be able to differentiate between good and bad science, and we are not really very good at doing so. The problem is we have been taught to believe many things about science.
- It is a panacea, providing answers for all kinds of difficulties and disputes.
- That science gives us definitive answers about what is right and what is wrong.
- That science can resolve differences of opinion that have been debated for centuries.
Often scientists can do this, indeed, scientific evidence is usually presented to us alongside an assumption that it had done just this. And, indeed, sometimes it does - when the the science does not concern matters in which there are too many variables to contend with.
- So science knows, conclusively, what will happen when we mix two chemicals together.
- Science knows, without contradiction, how the sun and planets currently interact, and how the constellations function.
- Science has worked out how living organisms function and live, how they survive and how they die.
- And much more.
But often science quite clearly does not do this. For instance, social science, economics, psychology, and many other areas of human activity, where science has been applied but does not resolve very much at all. One reason is that there are just too many variables. Too often, then they are presented to us on the basis that science does have definitive knowledge, that it can predict what will happen. But it doesn't do so.
Science is often too optimistic about its ability to make sense of the world, and the problem we should all face is how we can different between the two.
This blog deals with two areas of scientific endeavour where the failure to resolve critical issues have been most notably absent, not just because there are too many variables that complicate what is happening, but because the 'science' has been taken over by powerful corporate interests.
Climate change and global warming is perhaps something that science should be able to come up with something decisive and conclusive about what is happening. And, in fact, it does! The bulk of the scientific community investigating climate change are clear - it is be caused by the impact that we (humanity) are having on our planet. The science is well known, and its conclusions have been getting clearer over the last 40-50 years.
Unfortunately the science of climate change was not coming up with answers that powerful corporate interests wanted or liked.
Quite the opposite, science was coming to conclusions that had massive implications for the petro-chemical industry, the coal and steel industries, the aviation industry, motor manufacturers, et al. So instead of accepting the science they began to fund and finance a kind of 'counter' science, one that denies that it is their industrial activity (the basis of their profitability) that was damaging our planet.
So for all us 'non-scientists' uncertainty and confusion was introduced.
Conventional medicine, and its use of toxic drugs, has been with us since the 12th century. But it was at the start of the 20th century that the idea that 'science' would eventually be able to overcome illness and disease. After all, we could now travel without horses, communicate by telegram and then by telephone, we could fly - and all of this thanks to science.
So medical science was born. New 'scientific' drugs began to be lauded as miracle cures. Painkillers did seem to work. And antibiotics were able to revolutionise health care, enabling amazing new surgical operations.The result was that the pharmaceutical industry grew in size, wealth and power. They funded the new medical science, which gratefully came up with new and exciting drugs and vaccines. The industry now dominates national health provision around the world.
Yet, as with climate change, there are small voices raising questions about whether medical science is correct, that we are better, healthier because of it. Not least because the 'wonder' drugs proved to be less than wonderful, and caused the most dreadful 'side effects' that harmed patients. Many of them had to be withdrawn, or banned, because they were just too dangerous to give patients.
However, this has not caused too much uncertainty or confusion as the pharmaceutical industry had, by this time, become so powerful it could ensure these dissident voices were not heard. It could control governments, national health services, drug regulation, and the mainstream media.
So for many people there still is no scientific debate about medicine. Pharmaceutical medicine is what keeps us alive and healthy - just as we are told.
So there is an important question that needs to be asked - how can we tell when science is right or wrong? There are two criteria that we have to apply.
- 1. Who is funding the science?
The paymaster, he who pays the piper, can have an undue influence over science. It should not have such an influence, but it almost inevitably does.
Scientists funded by industries that contribute to climate change will tend to deny that climate change is caused by human activity. This kind of science, bought and paid for by industry, has become the preserve of the far, or ultra-right of politics. The USA President, Donald Trump, represents (and is part of) the interests of these polluting industries, and for them climate change just does not exist. Mainstream science is wrong, and it suits Trump, and like-minded people, to believe this.
Likewise, medical science is almost exclusively funded by the pharmaceutical industry, which now controls drug testing, drug regulation, the huge conventional medical establishment, and the mainstream media, through which we get most of our information about pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.
So to make sense of what science is telling us, in whatever field, we need to know more about the scientists, and who is funding them. Mainstream climate science is not funded, and so does not speak for powerful corporations. It is essentially independent, its conclusions do not make money for anyone, quite the reverse, it does not speak for vested interests.
Medical science is funded by, and speaks for the pharmaceutical industry. The drug testing industry, many university medical departments, prestigious medical journals - none of them would be able to exist without the largesse of drug companies. Those small voices who are questioning, or speaking against the 'science' of the pharmaceutical industry come mainly from the tiny world of natural medicine. There is little or no profit in doing so.
- 2. Does the science explain what is happening in the world?
Yet there is a more important, and perhaps simpler way of determining the validity of the message that science is giving us:
Does it help us understand what we can see to be happening in the world?
So we should ask - is climate change happening? Are the polar ice caps and the glaciers melting? Is sea level rising? Are there more hurricanes and typhoons than there have ever been? Are there more severe weather events? Is there more flooding? Are there more droughts? Is global temperature rising? Is desertification happening in some parts of the world?
If so, who has the best explanation? Climate scientists? Or climate deniers?
And is pharmaceutical medicine working, as we are told? Is it overcoming illness and disease? Are doctors able to cope with the medical needs of their patients? Are people getting ill, and then getting better? Are the medical outcomes of pharmaceutical drug treatment positive ones? Are people, and governments, able to afford the costs of pharmaceutical medical treatment?
Or, alternatively, are chronic diseases now running at unprecedented epidemic levels - arthritis, asthma, autism, COPD, dementia, heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, mental health, et al? And are there a plethora of new, previously never-heard-of-before diseases, especially those that are affecting our children?
Scientists are like everyone else, every other profession. Some are honest, seeking only the truth, trying to explain what is happening in the world. Some are dishonest, willing to do and say anything as long as they are well rewarded for doing so.
And each and every one of us has to make a judgement about science - what science is telling us the truth - and what science is speaking to conform to the wishes of their paymasters.
