Cult of the Supreme Being
Follow the science. Follow me. I am science.
Mathematics was born of humble origin in a fishing village in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo. Even ancient fishermen needed a way of keeping track of items of value, twenty thousand years ago. The Ishango Bone has carved “tally marks” reminiscent of a counting system based on the number twelve. It would take another twenty millennia before the system of enumeration would become bidirectional, as the number (true) zero would need to be created, first.
Today, we use the geometry of lines to describe the seasonality of crops, the trends in stock markets, the motions of the planets. Indeed, mathematics is the language of the universe, rendering natural phenomena into symbols that we can manipulate. But, before we can manipulate data, we needed to be able to “prove” mathematical principles. That would depend on the definitions, axioms, theorems, and mathematical proofs that Euclid gathered together in his Elements. What is interesting about the axioms is that they themselves can not be proven—they are a matter of belief. At some point, everything we know has to be taken on faith.
Faith in a principle depends on how long the principle has withstood the onslaught of contrary opinion. The Law of supply and Demand is called a “law” because it is still considered to be axiomatic after centuries of application. But what about science?
There are as many scientific methods as there are scientists granted license to pontificate. But, no matter the field, the methodology relies on two areas of human endeavor: mathematics and the data produced thereof—both areas subject to the frailties of humankind.
Knowledge is cumulative. Sir Isaac Newton borrowed knowledge from the astronomers Galileo and Thomas Street. And two centuries later, Albert Einstein would upset the Newtonian view of the universe by introducing the theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Stephen Hawking would occupy “Newton’s Chair” at Cambridge University. He would become famous for his endeavors regarding a unifying theory “of everything”. That is, he would attempt to find a theory that bridges the divides among the four reciprocal actions affecting matter. We are not there, yet.
So, what does this say about the way science is practiced today?
Don’t get me wrong, I love science. What I loathe is politicized science. The key to scientific enquiry is repetition. Furthermore, there must be absolute transparency among the producers of information and the consumers of the information. Yet, since the Dawn of Recognition, Progressives have communicated their opinions via the Big-Brother branch of linguistics.
Science, done honestly, provides a flow of information that can inspire the consumers of that information to bring forth refinements—refinements that can themselves be subjected to the Marketplace of Ideas. For example, commerce relies heavily on information in the form of prices. But prices rely most heavily on the supply of currency relative to the supply of goods, at any given moment in time. Since the dawn of economics, Progressives have politicized the medium through which prices are determined. With inflation running at 7%, inflationary expectations will distort the way savers, investors, producers, and consumers look at the future.
I don’t think I need to say much more about the “science” regarding COVID. Progressives have used COVID to terrorize citizens, to excuse the estimated $2 billion in damages following the riots, to obscure the nature of the virus, and to abandon law and order. And, if that were not enough, COVID provided a handy mechanism for cheating voters out of their most precious right. (Did President Biden really get 15 million more votes than did Hillary Clinton in 2016?)
A headline on the home page of a taxpayer-funded website (NASA) reads, “Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate is Warming”. Consensus and science are inconsistent, as consensus suggests a harmonizing of opinions, while science is all about challenging the wisdom of the day. But don’t take my word for it, Michael Crichton said it better. See…
We should no longer tolerate the effrontery of these politicians calling themselves “Progressives”.