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According to our dear friends over at Wired, we are losing the war on science. This interview with Shawn Otto, author of The War on Science [no-script hostile] ranges from the American presidential election to Albert Einstein:
His new book The War on Science explores ways that citizens can fight back against a creeping tide of anti-science nonsense promulgated by everyone from postmodern academics to greedy oil companies to nature-loving hippies. An important step is to make journalists understand that science and opinion should not be given equal weight.
"The purpose of a free press in a democracy is to hold the powerful accountable to the evidence," Otto says. "Journalists have really lost sight of that purpose, of their entire reason for being."
Fair enough. But things have gotten worse?
He fears that the war on science will only intensify once Donald Trump takes office in January. "I'm very concerned, as is the rest of the global scientific community," Otto says.
As a personal aside, I find it unlikely that the public, those who executed Socrates, burned the Library of Alexandria, and imprisoned Antoinio Gramsci, could fall for such a diaphanous fraud as the Republican attack on science! People back then were truly and profoundly stupid. But people today have the internet, and facebook, and a total misunderstanding of science, politics, ethics, and math. So, this will not end well? Help me, Soylentils, give me hope.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday December 09 2016, @04:02AM
There is a "war" on science.
OK, "war" isn't exactly the right word. Neither is "science". There is, however, a concerted effort in the US to do away with the concept of objectively provable truth. And the reason for this is that the objectively provable truth is bad news for those with money and political power.
The Soviets had the same problem back in the day, where ideological correctness mattered more than reality correctness. And, surprise surprise, they ran into problems following that principle, because the universe doesn't adjust to what you wish might be true.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday December 09 2016, @11:48AM
sooo... a war on reality then? Sounds exactly right, actually.