Thread by @Doc_0

The politicization of science to service the climate change industry was a huge canary dropping dead at the entrance to a coal mine the size of Moria.

A straight line can be drawn from that to the insane corruption of medicine to support transgender ideology.

Is there any "science" left that isn't politicized? Is there a single discipline we could rely upon to stick with firmly established facts, allow politically favored theories to be challenged, refuse to conceal inconvenient data, and be scrupulously honest with the public?

Public loss of faith in the authorities is regarded as a major reason the world had so much trouble dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus, and supposedly why authoritarian states had fewer deaths. (Another reason, of course, is that authoritarian states lie about such things.)

But why SHOULD anyone but the captive residents of dungeon states have faith in authorities who have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to lie and conceal vital information to protect their interests, preserve their funding, and win political battles?

Our "authorities" often justify their falsehoods by claiming they must lie to us "for our own good," to prevent the public from panicking, or because people supposedly would not understand deep issues that should be reserved for the scientific clergy.

This is a totalitarian idea: a powerful and credentialed few will decide what the rest of the people "need to know" or are capable of understanding. No one who thinks they have unlimited privileges to lie to you "for your own good" respects you, or thinks highly of your freedom.

Real science is not a mystery cult, with sacred texts hidden away in academic temples and brooded over by high priests who decide which revelations should be made to the masses. Real science can explain itself without deceptions. It does not conceal inconvenient facts.

And you can't help noticing that for all of the arrogance displayed by the science clergy, they have absolutely no problem with dimwitted politicians or foolish celebrities blathering about subjects they clearly do not understand, provided statist political goals are served.

No amount of scaremongering, hyperbole, or absolute falsehood is out of bounds, as long as it supports the interests of the State, which furnishes vast amounts of money and prestige to its favored scientific clergy. Anything said and done to "raise awareness" is acceptable.

Politics and science are fundamentally incompatible, indeed antithetical. Politics begins with preferred conclusions and works backward to enforce them, eliminating inconvenient data as necessary - the opposite of the scientific method.

Collectivist politics are all about making slick promises to TRANSCEND science, to override reality through political will. Most obviously, politicians promise they can discard economic reality, rewriting bedrock laws such as supply and demand with the sorcery of compulsion.

Increasingly politicians demand agony rituals from their followers - a demonstration of religious faith that requires ignoring even the essentials of biology, demonstrating absolute conviction that ideology, political will, and gigantic piles of taxpayer money can remix reality.

As with the old joke about an ounce of feces added to a gallon of ice cream producing a gallon of feces, introducing politics into science inevitably corrupts the latter. Politicians have all the money and power, and they will not allow favored conclusions to be disproven.

Politicians don't even really do "hypothesis" at all. Their giant statist programs can never be reversed, even if they prove to be gigantic disasters based on utterly false premises. Their one and only response to catastrophic failure is "spend more money."

Similarly, socialist politicians stole the language of capitalism - "investment" became their favorite euphemism for compulsory taxation and irresponsible spending - and utterly corrupted it. Investment is based on concepts of risk, profit, and loss utterly alien to politics.

There is no way for science to remain uncorrupted under totalitarian statism and unlimited centralized spending, just as art never remains uncorrupted under such systems. Science is a useful tool for accumulating power by transforming political schemes into irresistible demands.

The Great Reset - democracy rebooted with an authoritarian core - relies heavily on corrupted science to declare a growing list of issues must be placed beyond the reach of uneducated voters. No bumpkin can vote against the "consensus," or even be allowed to question it online.

Trust in authority may be impossible to restore until the corrupting political sphere is reduced. If you want people to trust science, reduce the power of politicians to pervert it. If you want more truth, stop subsidizing deception, and prize questions over conclusions. /end