Denyse comments on the latest evidence that “science” has totally abandoned science for politics. SciAm outright endorsed Harris instead of Trump, AFTER FIRMLY SUPPORTING WHAT TRUMP ACTUALLY DID IN 2020.
This is the exact opposite of the “independent” activists, who worked hard to oppose WHAT TRUMP ACTUALLY DID, and now are universally working FOR Trump.
Neither side is objective or realistic. Both are sacrificing honesty and realism to gain money and power.
Denyse hits SciAm correctly, while missing the other side of the coin.
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That’s one of the problems when scientists engage in political partisanship — they become persuaded that abandoning accuracy is a form of righteousness as long as it helps the Good party win.
But — and this is the point that the scientists-turned-partisans miss — once people come to see them as partisans, one thing is sure to happen: Those people will stop believing the scientists even when they insist that they are speaking as scientists. They may well be right. But how is a layperson to know? And in a serious matter, why should we take a chance?
The public has noticed, sort of. Among Americans, public trust in science has declined sharply in recent years, with further declines clocked in 2023 and in 2024.
Explanations (why, why, why don’t people trust science any more?) are all over the map. Tribal loyalty, too much information, and lack of outreach all strut their stuff — and the decline continues.
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Those fake explanations have been going on for many years, and the open partisanship by the magazines has also been going on, though it wasn’t always pure D vs R. In 2008 NewScientist endorsed McCain against Obama, solely because McCain’s record on Gaia was more solid. The Gaian lunacy was the only thing that mattered. The “virus” lunacy was a strong distraction, but now NewScientist is back on the Gaian horse.
The bankruptcy of “science” is identical to the bankruptcy of “journalism”. Both have lost whatever objectivity they might have claimed in the past, both are PROUD of their wrongness, and both are losing public support.
The solution to both is simple. Don’t try to save or reform an unreformable institution. Many attempts have been made, from inside and outside, and both institutions ENJOY what they’re doing now. Just let the whole thing collapse and replace it with something new.
The replacement for “journalism” is already underway in social media. When you have a local group on Facebook you don’t need the unrealistic crap of local newspapers. When you can see real people in foreign countries** on Youtube or Tiktok, you don’t need “reporters” standing in fake foreign locations and spouting Deepstate propaganda about foreign countries. The algorithm gets in the way, but the algorithm’s power is overrated. Real people can always tell what’s going on from even a partial indication. “Journalism” disconnects the real people entirely.
Social media connects people directly without the Deepstate intermediary.
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The solutions for “science” are harder for two reasons. First, academic “science” doesn’t respond to the profit motive because its only customer is Deepstate, which massively funds lunacy and destroys objectivity. Second, real research requires more than a camera. It requires lab equipment and technicians and a bank of skills and completed knowledge.
Real science still continues in industrial facilities where profit is the goal. Many of them are now in China. We lost part of our real science when we offshored electronics. We lost Bell Labs, long the primary source for electronics and language and hearing. We still have active research in oil and agriculture, the two major industries we DIDN’T offshore.
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I’ve proposed two replacements for the academic side of “science”: crowdfunding and Trinity House.
I discussed crowdfunding here. Note especially that the polio vaccine was mainly crowdfunded by the March of Dimes. Government funding for science wasn’t fully cranked up then, and government funding of academia hadn’t yet pushed out the more effective and realistic crowdfunding.
I spent much more time on Trinity House. Reprinting the intro here:
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In the ‘Beacon’ theme I frequently mentioned Trinity House.
It’s a totally UNIQUE institution in many ways. Founded in 1514 by Henry VIII, it has served the same purposes for 500 years without ever losing track. No Parkinson, no exponential seeking of ever greater failures. Trinity House has two purposes: (1) a Mutual Benefit Association for sailors and (2) preserving the HONESTY and integrity of lighthouses. The latter purpose has expanded APPROPRIATELY to include radio beacons and GPS services along with physical lighthouses.
I recently found that Trinity House also funded important parts of science in the service of keeping the beacons true.
Trinity’s scientific research was headquartered in South Foreland Lighthouse on the White Cliffs.
South Foreland is a rather stubby tower since the cliffs take care of the altitude.
In the 1880s, South Foreland was converted to electricity, with a massive new plant to generate AC, designed both for constant unbreakable service and constant research.
At the same time, optical experts were working on lenses and lamps, and acoustical researchers were working on sirens and foghorns, trying to determine the best frequencies and paths for various air conditions.
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If we’re going to have a positive bounceback from the current holocaust, the most widespread EVIL in all of history, we need to think along the lines of Trinity House.
A Mutual Benefit Association to provide unstoppable BULLYPOWER for the billions of people who were permanently ruined by the holocaust, and a RIGID FEROCIOUS PRESERVER OF SCIENTIFIC HONESTY.
The original Trinity built HONEST lighthouses to replace the DECEPTIVE lighthouses built by aristocratic wreckers.
The New Trinity would fund HONEST research to replace existing MALEVOLENT research in a variety of areas, never losing sight of its basic beacon. If the grants for HONEST research are 10 times as large as the grants for MALEVOLENT research, young unspoiled scientists will gravitate toward the HONEST side. The existing MALEVOLENT researchers won’t be swayed by money. They enjoy what they’re doing.
The task is achievable. Trinity House has been proving the point for 500 years.
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** Sidenote: Before Deepstate’s 1946 coup, normal Americans had real access to foreign countries via shortwave. We could hear the propaganda and the reality of other countries by tuning in foreign stations. FDR’s government TRUSTED us and ENCOURAGED us to listen to foreign propaganda. After the coup, Deepstate gradually closed off the access with TV and then the web. But the web reopened the channels in a different way.
See next item for more on this point.
Polistra's Mill 