Briefly Noted: Settled Science

Naturally, I'm like everyone else--I find myself obsessively reading about all the ins and outs of the election challenges, the legal developments, the fraud investigations, etc. At the same time, it's impossible to for one person to keep up with it all in written summary form--the attempt, moreover, would detract from what I see as bigger picture issues that we need to keep before us. After all, the election played out--and the election challenge is playing out--in the bigger picture context of the Left's attempted implementation of their Great Reset. That context, of course, includes the disruptive presidency of Donald Trump, who upset the applecart of Leftist designs. The Left's resistance to Trump has featured determined efforts at thought control and attempts to mold public perception through a succession of hoaxes. 

The Global Warming/Climate Change Hoax was a preview of what to expect from the Left--the subversion of science to transform science into a loyal supporter of the Great Reset--trading off the social prestige of science and technology in this new Digital Age. By contrast, the Russia Hoax was almost purely reactive--a political hoax engendered by the existential shock to the Left posed by Trump's election on a revisionist platform: MAGA being the antithesis of the Globalist vision of the Great Reset. Of course, the Russia Hoax also attempted to trade on public perceptions of the Russian Red Menace, but Leftists found--to their dismay--that Conservatives (despite media attempts at reeducation) still retained a more sophisticated understanding of history than Leftist hubris credited them with. With the collapse of the Russia Hoax (and its subsidiary hoaxes, such as the Ukraine Hoax) in the Fake Impeachment (itself a legal and constitutional hoax), the Left fortuitously found itself presented with a possibility of returning to a scientific hoax that they could weaponize against Trump--the Covid Hoax.

A few days ago we were discussing a side effect of the Covid Hoax's lockdown of higher education--the decimation of liberal arts faculties at many universities. In that context we also got involved in a discussion of the ideologization of the STEM departments at universities. So, this morning, while catching up on accounts of growing public unrest over the latest permutations of the Covid Hoax--its patent implementation for social control, its devastation of small businesses and personal freedom, its spreading of blatantly unscientific hoax 'news'--I came across an article at American Thinker (Santelli vs. Sorkin: A perfect microcosm of Left vs. Right) that contained a reference to the concept of "settled science".

As many of you know, my undergraduate major was philosophy. In those long ago days I had a particular interest in epistemology, including the philosophy of science. With such interests, you can imagine how nonplussed I am to hear, even from family, about "settled science"--a distinctly unscientific concept--and the use this bogus concept is put to in suppressing dissent from Left approved views (including much to do with the Covid Hoax). Since the previous post attracted a fair amount of reader interest, I'm including below some excerpts from the article I was linked to this morning. The article focuses on the uses to which the notion of "settled science"--the far from harmless ideological motives behind its widespread use in our current age of hoaxes. 

Ratzinger and Scientific Method

Having written the previous post in response to the Italian lawyer who attempted to criticize Antonio Livi's critique of Ratzinger's views on faith, I did a few online searches. Those searches confirmed a number of things. One is that the world has become a very small place, indeed, with the advent of the internet. I came across an article in the New York Times by the Professor (now emeritus) whose course on Philosophy of Science I took as an undergrad.

The paper I wrote for that course argued that there is not, in fact, any such thing as "scientific method." Rather, I argued, science is simply a refinement and quantification of "common sense" methods of knowledge common to all humanity, i.e., a careful utilization of the normal methods we all use in coming to know the world around us, extended and refined by the use of instrumentation and mathematics. I received a B for that effort.

Over forty years later, my former professor authored the article I just read: There Is No Scientific Method.

A survey of Ratzinger's writing over the decades since Vatican II leads to the conclusion that his views remain essentially unchanged, to include his naive views on scientific positivism's affect on philosophy, faith, and human knowledge generally. Unfortunately, his views are clearly based on German philosophy from the 18th century that is accepted only by philosophically naive people--such as scientists and theologians. Oh--and Italian lawyers. The truth is that "modern" philosophy doesn't explain "modern" science. Kantian agnosticism is, as Etienne Gilson pointed out, an unjustifiable presupposition. Would that Ratzinger had bothered to actually read and reflect on what the Thomist Gilson had to say, rather than grousing about the scholastic textbooks he (Ratzinger) was required to read in seminary--as Ratzinger has done for the last five decades.