From Wesley J. Smith at First Things:
Science is never truly settled. Indeed, challenging seemingly incontrovertible facts and continually retesting long-accepted theories are crucial components of the scientific method.
Examples of perceived truths overturned by subsequent discoveries are ubiquitous. Here’s just one: So-called junk DNA that does not encode proteins was, until relatively recently, thought by a large majority of scientists to have no purpose, and was even used as evidence of random and purposeless evolution. But continuing investigations in the field led to the discovery that most “junk DNA” actually serves important biological functions.
Think what might have happened if scientists seeking to continue exploring this area of inquiry had been warned away because of the “scientific consensus.” What if the self-appointed guardians of existing perceived wisdom had gotten researchers to abandon their investigations for fear of losing university tenure, being scorned by colleagues, or having research funding blocked? The biological truth about non-protein-coding DNA might well have never been discerned. Yet these are the very anti-science tactics deployed today to chill scientific challenges to the theory of evolution and the questioning of “consensus” climate change conclusions.More.
Yes, that’s the trouble. Science has become a gravy train for entrenched mediocrities with PC theories. And we’ve…
nowhere the navy
to float all the gravy
… they demand. Assuming we intend to go on supplying them, of course. In some quarters, that’s unclear.
First Things seems to be changing, for the better. We can remember when published articles on issues related to design in nature crossed the line to dumb-down stupid, the sort of thing that earns plaudits among decaying Thomists or profs at a dying Bible school.
The issues today are way too serious for all that piffle. For example, this is March for Science’s best-known figurehead: Bill Nye would criminalize dissent from human-caused global warming claims.
These vids certainly show different side to Bill Nye… Someone asks, does Nye has a future as the ”Pee Wee Herman of popular science”? Maybe that’s what’s left now.
Oh, and, Bill Nye now wants to shrink science classrooms further by penalizing people who have extra kids.
Good grief, what’s next? Almost any approach will yield better results than the Pussyhats for Science movement. Credit to First Things for seeing that.
Note: Re “junk DNA” claims, some background. Here’s a great deal more background.
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