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Why Are Young American Scientists Too Afraid to Appear in This Video?
Watch this–shot this morning–and tell me if you think this situation is healthy.
People who want to explore these ideas are as afraid of reprisal as anyone I’ve ever met in Turkey. (Excessively so, I’d say: It’s not as if anyone is going to lock them up. But obviously, something is keeping them from speaking freely. And that cannot be good for any of us.)
Published in General
Clearly, if you had to bet, all else equal, one should bet on experts being more right than non-experts. This means, in general, deferring to scientific consensus.
Historically, however, we know the scientific consensus can be wrong. Still, it’s often right to make it rational to trust scientists, all else equal.
So, what makes all else unequal?
I would like to suggest that state support for science is one factor. The funding biases scientific practice in favour of supporting a politically favored hypothesis. Incentives corrupt; and massive state incentives corrupt absolutely.
This applies in the case of global warming, and in the case of HIV-AIDS, both of which I am skeptical of. Both may still be true; but the grounds for believing both have been systematically compromised. In neither case is the assertion of incontrovertible fact be justifed.
The comments by Nick Stuart and Anon make me think it’s worth mentioning that the Bible has always been on the right side of scientific controversies.
While doctors in the Middle Ages were draining the blood of their patients, the Bible states clearly, “The life is in the blood.” (Leviticus 17:11)
When people believed that the earth is flat, the Bible reads, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.” (Isaiah 40:22)
Even Galileo believed that his heliocentric view of the solar system was compatible with scripture, because the passages that speak of the permanence or immovability of the earth are poetic, not meant as fact, and written from a terrestrial perspective, from which it would appear that the sun rises and sets.
People within the religious system have been bullies, and have punished those they considered dissenters, such as Galileo, but Scripture has always been clear. And correct.