Dear Friends,
It seems to me, it is the antithesis of science, to ostracize a doctor for being a whistle blower. In fact it is anti science. If the term science means anything, it is the rational, unbiased examination into the natural world. This can only be done if all observations are accounted for. Especially those that go against the paradigm. Anything less is appeal to authority and was proven a fallacy during the Enlightenment. That those who are the most educated in science, fail to apply this basic truth about the philosophy with which they have dedicated their lives, is a testament to the failure of the education system that produced them. The testimony it gives, is that the adherents of natural philosophy (science) have abandoned it, for a return to appeal to authority as a religious duty.
Appeal to authority was the dominant paradigm for the millions of years that mankind walked the Earth. As a philosophy it served those in power but it’s rate of return on invested mental energy was very low. In fact in many cases history shows that the return on innovation was negative. In that an advancement could land a person in the bronze bull. That is why if you went back to the Bronze age and lifted a person into colonial New England, they would not be that out of touch. Oh, there would be some innovations that would amaze them, iron and it’s myriad of uses, but most everything else would be mundane to them. Even looms and other mechanical items. Step them forward another two centuries and both the colonial and Bronze age person would be agog. Why, because the scientific method.
The scientific method is a way of solving the problems of natural philosophy. It is a means to discern the natural world such that it is less subject to error. Under that schema the observer forms a theory, tests it under laboratory conditions, compares the theory to the results, then concludes with their observations. Other observers then reproduce the experiment to verify the outcome, theory and results. If other observers find different results then the observers form a new theory based on the new results. That is how “cold fusion” was supposedly discredited. Despite the fact, NASA is experimenting with “confined fusion,” which is cold fusion by another name. Nevertheless, the innovation of the scientific method from the Enlightenment has launched mankind to the heavens.
Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift goes a long way to explaining why “experts” are so reticent to use the scientific method on their own ideas… it might prove decades of work useless. Most observers observe with an eye to proving their theories correct. Only the greats observe with an eye to proving their hypothesis wrong. Every time there is a paradigm shift, the work of many observers is rendered irrelevant. No one likes their life’s work made moot. Yet that is exactly what the scientific method requires. To diligently try and prove oneself wrong. One can “prove” almost anything is correct, given clever enough logic, yet the world and reality are much less amenable to manipulation. Jump off a cliff naked, and even Daniel Webster can’t outsmart gravity on the way down.
All of which makes it so amazing to me that folks who claim to be scientists, experts and a lot smarter people than me… all have abandoned the scientific method for appeal to authority, en masse. How do I know this? Because observers who call attention to failures in today’s paradigms are threatened with today’s version of the bronze bull. Proving the paradigm is priceless not the discipline. Instead of looking for proof they are wrong, today’s new class seeks to prove they are right… and like zealots, will stop at nothing to achieve it. In doing so abandoning the scientific method for appeal to authority. Why? It’s easier than discerning a speaker’s legitimacy oneself, and it protects the expert’s from being proven wrong, so their career can advance… when being proven wrong is how science advances.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
