What Happens When Education Is Tainted with Scientism?
It is no overstatement to say that science is behind the driving wheel of our civilization, as stressed by all of our educational institutions. Science increased our longevity and comfort in all aspects of life and gave us the tools needed to rule over nature, like no higher animal is capable of doing. Science allowed us to accomplish these things with two key ingredients:
- Empirical testing
- Replicability.
In other words, as we observe nature and detect patterns, we arrive at conclusions that lead us to larger, more comprehensive theories about the world. We then repeatedly test these theories, continually updating them if something is out of sync with theory’s predictions and the observable results in the real world. Such an empirical and rigorous approach greatly aided every sport you have heard of, allowing new records to be broken as science discovers new ways to tweak the human body.
This process bears a striking resemblance to how professional athletes behave. Whether it is a matter of dieting, exercising, developing a technique particular to a certain sport, all athletes are dedicated to empiricism, relentless observation, and testing.
Otherwise, they have no hope of getting in third place, let alone earning a gold medal. It is innate to sports because the competition is so intense between athletes, scaling from the county level all the way up to an international level. Moreover, there is no inherent ideology bound to surpassing all other athletes in any given sport.
As you will see from the example of climate change, the same cannot be said when other interests are bound to scientific endeavor.
In essence, the endeavor of science allows us to move away from our subjective mental states and move closer to objective reality – to what is actually true and what is actually happening in the real world. Within this alignment is where all our power lies, as a species capable of using tools and rational thought, and as a species that continues to break athletic records that were previously deemed impossible to break.
Misalignment
Given the considerable power the science gives us by aligning us with what is true, people tend to view it as the supreme arbiter of truth, the one thought system that is more legitimate than other thought systems. Greta Thunberg is the prime example of this line of thinking.
A rising global star of environmental activism, supported by the entire world’s corporate power, Greta Thunberg repeatedly calls for:
- “Unite behind the science.”
- “Listen to the scientists.”
- “Unite behind experts and science.”
- “I personally recommend that we do as the experts say.”
Imagine an essay writing service with Greta Thunberg in charge. Do those quotes look like employing critical thinking faculties? Notice that she is not invoking data and facts. Instead, Greta is invoking the authority of the modern priesthood – scientists. But not just any scientists, only those that are securely embedded within the establishment and funded by various government and corporate interests. The same scientists that keep reimagining the specter of climate change, no matter how many times it turns to be riddled with falsehoods.
- Global cooling during the 1970s
- Acid rains during the 1980s
- Ozone hole during the 1990s
- Global warming during the 2000s.
All impending disasters in their own right, and all thoroughly erroneous and debunked within a decade. The most recent reimagining in the form of Climate Change is no different. More false predictions, more false computer models, and more media hysteria of impending doom. All based on “science”.
It is scientism, which is opposite to the education. It is the notion imbuing in people that experts should always be trusted and believed. Then, when these experts are proven wrong in no uncertain terms, we shun other experts who point this out. It shows us that implicit trust in science is wrong. Science has internal self-correcting mechanisms, but the road to fully deploying them is long and difficult.
By screaming “trust the science” every single time, we are impeding the progress of this self-correcting mechanism, destroying the education. We are crippling the efforts of our most talented and dedicated athletes. More importantly, such scientism maligns science itself. As people discover that almost everything the experts said about COVID-19 is wrong, how will they react when their lives are impoverished due to governments “trusting science”? Let us not be tricked into tyranny by blindly following establishment scientists in the future.
On another note, if you engage in sports, you know how vital it is to maintain a proper diet. Consider all the intricacies of dieting as it relates to sports activities. There are hundreds of diets, and for the longest time, America officially adopted a diet that makes people fatter like never seen before in recorded history. Literally, the worst diet imaginable. The so-called SAD (Standard American Diet) diet that spikes insulin and stresses the body as it overloads it with carbs.
Experts concocted this diet with the same confidence with which they economically ruined countless lives with coronavirus lockdowns, with the same confidence with which they created an unprecedented obesity epidemic. Remember these things when you next listen to establishment experts, and always keep in mind that education should instill knowledge and critical faculties, not blind obeisance to authority.
