And the Enlightenment. The celebrity skeptic calls it scientific humanism:
Human progress, which has been breathtaking over the past two centuries in nearly every realm of life, has principally been the result of the application of scientific naturalism to solving problems, from engineering bridges and eradicating diseases to extending life spans and establishing rights. This blending of scientific naturalism and Enlightenment humanism should have a name. Call it “scientific humanism.”
It wasn’t obvious that the earth goes around the sun, that blood circulates throughout the body, that vaccines inoculate against disease. But because these things are true and because Nicolaus Copernicus, William Harvey
and Edward Jenner made careful measurements and observations, they could hardly have found something else. So it was inevitable that social scientists would discover that people universally seek freedom. Michael Shermer, “The Case for Scientific Humanism” at Scientific American
Shermer’s piece, in which he is looking back on his years as a Scientific American columnist, feels like an elegy.
The reality today is that, however people may universally seek freedom, China is dedicated to using the high tech born of science to stamp it out and enlisting many other natures to do the same.
And science, as opposed to technology, is coming under serious assault from those who demand that nature itself do their social justice bidding. More, the social justice warrior culture that is demanding that science incorporate their propaganda (social justice math and all) is descending into serious rot like anti-Semitism.
Maybe at some level Shermer senses the onslaught to come and knows that these are fond reminiscences of a way of thinking about science, true or not, that is utterly alien to those who feel left out by things like facts, evidence, and correct answers.
See also: Will AI liberate or enslave developing countries?
Which side will atheists choose in the war on science? They need to re-evaluate their alliance with progressivism, which is doing science no
and
Maybe the “March for” fad will die out before the anti-Semitism hits science. The reason this subject interests us is that the social justice warriors (SJWs) have set their sights on science (remember the March for Science?). Which means that the science media and groups that are trying to accommodate them would be forced to accommodate the anti-Semitism as well. With any luck, the marching Woke (SJWs) will all break up quarreling before it gets that bad.
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