Those who are part of that natural elite see it as simply the truth - the only "real" truth. Those outside of that elite frequently view it as a religion in its own right - complete with religious music, such as the "inspired by evolution" opera Origin:
Many years ago, someone in the New Yorker– very likely Richard Dawkins – noted that while religion had its masterpieces like Bach's St Matthew Passion, science had no comparable works.If it weren't a religion, this whole sentiment would be nonsense. Religious music is propaganda. Truth does not require special tools to inspire and convert. Truth is its own reward. But what Richard Dawkins is selling has little to do with truth and everything to do with power. He wants Christianity to be replaced by - why, him! - as the primary source of authority.
But of course scientists place themselves at the top of the hierarchy, high priests of the material world's arcane secrets. Below that are those who know something about science. Below that are people who accept science, but are ignorant. And, at the very bottom - and not entirely qualifying as human - you have people who reject materialism altogether.
And scientists are right to draw the line between us vs. them right there. These people who reject materialism are in fact science's enemy. They don't share the view that scientists naturally should be allowed to determine the fate of the human race.
They don't like the way science has shown it handles responsibilities like that*.
And while I don't reject science, I do sympathize - enough that I refuse to sign on to the "capital S" version of Science, The Religious Doctrine. It's just not a very appealing faith. In fact, unless you get to be the guy at the top, it's a horrible faith. Look at it from the peasant man's point of view. It isn't a pretty sight. The old idea of "first, do no harm" has been replaced by Ockham's razor. Ockham's razor does lots and lots of harm.
And science requires a steady supply of people to experiment on. How would we know about thalidomide if we hadn't tried it on live people?
(What do you mean you want to see "evidence" before we give your child Ritalin? Your child's teacher filled out the checkbox. It's all settled. Why would you demand more than that? Who are you? You're just a parent. We are Experts.)
Scientists, of course, claim a monopoly on truth. Or is that Truth. The infallibility of their method is the claim that gives them the right to override my wishes and impose their will on me - neatly bystepping all the checks and balances, all the measures designed to prevent and limit abuses of authority.
And science isn't content with the material world. It now wants to be granted monopolies on questions such as "what is consciousness?" and "why are we here?"**
But any argument that presupposes the doctrines of (a) materialism and (b) Ockham's razor are as illogical and as circular as using the Bible to prove the Bible. And without those core assumptions, science goes nowhere. Ultimately the power of science is in its results. Lately, those results have not been satisfactory. The world of plenty, equality, and eternal sunshine has not materialized.
In fact, some of the earlier miracles have fallen apart. Remember how "wonder cures" meant that diseases would be eradicated? How those "wonder pesticides" that made it possible to grow seven gazillion times what you used to grow, per acre? In both cases the bugs are back, and now they're mean. The same scientific community that goes on about the perils global warming acts as if someone else invented all the machines that put that filth out into the air. Well, my answer to global warming is, you scientists and technophiles, stop your whining and get to work - you've got a big problem to solve, and just yelling at us for trusting you the last time you invented something is not an answer! You broke it so FIX IT!
Science also needs to be held responsible for any Utopian visions gone bad, just as we hold the Catholic church responsible for the Inquisition. The fact that science is supposed to make lots of mistakes doesn't excuse making those mistakes on living creatures, capable of feeling pain.
Left wing types love to blame the Church for all sorts of wrongs, but the 20th century, with some of the nastiest horrors ever, is more about the evils of science than of religion. Hitler's government was right wing, but the scientific ideas that made the Holocaust really brutal arose from the Enlightenment, from scientists thinking about genetic superiority and how to improve the human race and the bizarre, bizarre idea of the concentration camp. Those were liberal ideas.
But more importantly, Hitler himself was right wing at least in part because "technology" and "progress" made him what he was (and millions of other men, too). Hitler was formed - and deformed - in a war that included things boys of that era had never even imagined: machine guns, airplanes, submarines, tanks, barbed wire, chemical warfare, gas masks, bombardments that could take out entire populations, battles that introduced the visual imagery of blackened landscapes into the consciousness of one traumatized Somme survivor, who later recreated the scene and named it Mordor.
The essential nature of warfare might not have changed much, but the scope of it took a huge jump. Some of these technological "improvements" had been introduced before (machine guns, for instance), but never all together. Technology raped the human brain, and those who were unfortunate enough to be the victims of this psychological trauma never got over it. Reading World War I poetry makes me sick and makes me want to cry.
Science has Siegfried Sassoon to answer to, when they insist that if it is knowledge, then human beings can and must pursue it - and if it can be built, then humans can and must build it.
Have you forgotten yet?...Personally I feel the scientific community needs to stop being so smug. I think they need to accept - and more importantly learn from - some of their more spectacular horrors, including lobotomies and experiments on live human subjects without their consent and virtually any proposal suggesting the genetic perfectability of mankind.
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
What is the difference between this person vs. an Inquisitor?
Nearly a year ago, New York made plans to ban the use of electric shocks as a punishment for bad behavior, a therapy used at a Massachusetts school where New York State had long sent some of its most challenging special education students.
But state officials trying to limit New York’s association with the school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, southwest of Boston, and its “aversive therapy” practices have found a large obstacle in their paths: parents of students who are given shocks.
“I understand people who don’t know about it think it is cruel,” said Susan Handon of Jamaica, Queens, whose 20-year-old daughter, Crystal, has been at Rotenberg for four years. “But she is not permanently scarred and she has really learned that certain behaviors, like running up and hitting people in the face, are not acceptable.”
The Inquisitor was sure he was right, too. And that made it okay for him to engage in behaviors that ordinarily people find horrifying.
Science has violated the gag test. It crosses the line and asks us to ignore our own internal warning systems.
This is where science loses its claim to moral authority. It proves itself monstrous, untrustworthy, unable to regulate itself. Its moral failings are not just mistakes of the past; they are built into the method, which is why the scientific method is itself not enough for a system of government. The scientific method assumes that you're working with information that stands a very excellent chance of being proven wrong.
These past mistakes (which tomorrow will include all of today's mistakes, and next week will include all of tomorrow's mistakes) are the result of Ockham's razor, which justifies choosing the path of fewest assumptions instead of being forced to consider things like compassion and humanity and whether we are causing unnecessary suffering.
Scientists love to argue that there is no such thing as humanity. They don't seem to care at all if the term "meat machine" has ugly consequences. Perhaps this is the because they identify themselves with the glory (and the security) of the side that administers, rather than identifying with the thing that receives what they choose to administer.
True humanists must reject what science has become.
It is not okay to justify a process (or a person) that is too cheap or lazy to tackle depression in a humane, compassionate way. It is not okay to justify a process (or a person) that is too cheap or lazy to figure out a humane way to deal with special needs kids. Decent people do unto others as you would have them done unto you. Science is the only religion in the world that rejects this doctrine.
Especially now that it has become obvious that scientific and psychiatric authority figures are no more naturally benevolent than any other kind of bishop, priest, or pope.
This is what Ockham's razor begets: the belief that you start with the "obvious" solution, rather than the humane one. Taking someone's brain from them and experimenting with it comes before, not after, finding a compassionate solution - and in fact a more compassionate solution will not come about until and unless there is a huge public outcry against the barbaric cruelties perpetrated on innocent victims.
Right now, the outcry against the abuses against psychiatric patients is there - but the drug companies are fighting it, and they're rich.
This is the moral authority of the scientific community. It's not a compelling vision. It is a horrific one.
I don't want any part of a faith that engages in torture-like behaviors against those who refuse to cooperate with authority. I don't care how powerful or orthodox this Church is; until someone reigns in its high priests, it will be a false god to all people capable of empathy and compassion.
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* the problem is in their approach.
They are experts. They tell us what we will live with. Democracy goes out the window because they get to decide who does and does not deserve a voice.
Example: scientists want to use our fields for experimenting with genetically modified stuff. They don't get that it isn't the part about genetically modified that is necessarily bad. Genetically modified might or might not be safe. It's the part about experimenting in our fields - isn't the entire premise of science based on learning the hard way, trial and error, and correcting as you go along? Isn't it correct to assume that genetically modified will be disastrous, until proven safe? I mean, isn't that how the scientific method is supposed to work? It takes a lot of plane crashes to build an American Airlines passenger jet.
But they don't care. They are Experts and we should STFU. Well, maybe reassuring us that it's all perfectly safe because real expert scientists said so isn't a good way to retain one's moral authority. Maybe scientists should stop throwing out that they're Experts, high priests in the most powerful church on Earth, and maybe they should let us have a say in how we go about introducing strange new things into our fields - not to mention our food supplies and our own bodies.
** What is the actual meaning of life? Why are we here? What makes us be alive? What makes us experience ourselves as conscious? They are no closer to having real facts than anyone else, but they get around that by claiming they are more qualified to have an opinion, or by substituting facts that are sorta-kinda like the ones needed to answer the question ("I don't know why we are conscious but I know how the brain routes information, and that's more than anyone else can say, so therefore it must be close enough") and then they vote on it, Wikipedia-style.
Which is also how they determine the criteria by which children are placed on behavior-modifying drugs.
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