In Defense of “Misinformation”

[Doc7505]

In Defense of “Misinformation”​

Restrictions of scientific free speech will inevitably lead to restriction of any speech deemed detrimental to freedom.​

In Defense of “Misinformation”

American sociologist Robert K. Merton once defined four norms that guide scientific research: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Communalism holds that science should be done publicly, universalism that everyone should be held to the same scientific...

www.city-journal.org

15 Nov 2021 ~~ By Brandon Patrick Purdy
American sociologist Robert K. Merton once defined four norms that guide scientific research: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Communalism holds that science should be done publicly, universalism that everyone should be held to the same scientific standards, disinterestedness that there should be no biases, and organized skepticism that scientific claims should be evaluated based on objectivity and rigor. For all four norms, open inquiry is fundamental. To practice the scientific method, we must have the freedom to discuss ideas. No claim should be ignored, only refuted, using available evidence.
The ideologization of science poses a constant danger to the Mertonian norms and the freedom of scientific expression. Extreme historical examples include the Soviet Union’s promotion of “socialist science” over “bourgeois science” and Nazi Germany’s forbidding political opponents or those of Jewish ancestry from working for the government. Communist and fascist governments handicapped scientific endeavors by restricting who could do science and what science could be done; in both the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany, all speech was regulated. The scientific method allows scientists to seek out truth about the world, without worrying about whether the truth will bother the government: free scientific inquiry can properly take place only in a society where freedom of speech is allowed, or better, encouraged.
Not surprisingly, the United States—with free speech enshrined in its Constitution—is the leading scientific country in the world. While totalitarian countries like China nominally perform well in the sciences, they take advantage of the work being done in the West, and only one Nobel Prize winner in the sciences has come from China. Other scientific Nobel Prize winners of Chinese descent all left for the British Commonwealth or the United States to pursue their scientific endeavors. All told, America boasts 347 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences.
~Snip~
In a melancholy essay, John Ioannidis discusses how the Mertonian norms* have come under further attack by the ideologization of the scientific method during the Covid-19 pandemic. These attacks didn’t start with the virus. One has only to look at discussions of climate change and biological sex to realize that even before Covid, our ability to speak freely about science has been narrowed. Murthy, Biden, Walensky, and Fauci, and others following what Thomas Sowell calls the vision of the anointed understand that science remains the standard of truth; thus, if they control what science says, they can control what is considered true. To rehabilitate the scientific method—and with it, our own freedom of speech—we need to stop participating in their deceptions.

*Mertonian Norms" Definition -- Mertonian norms


Comment:
A Large proportion of America's citizenry have any idea what Scientific Method (capitalized on purpose) is and how it is supposed to be implemented. So when politicians tell us it's settled science they are either lying or ignorant.
There was once a time when Heliocentric model of the Solar System was misinformation.
At one time bleeding were settled science, even into the 20th Century Lobotomies were considered good science, Again, during the 20th Century we were told that hydrogenated vegetable oils were good for you. The list of “Scientific” misinformation is endless.
We are being told by the politicians in our gov't that there is no such thing as herd immunity, Climate Change is "Settled Science" etc.
But at every turn what we are being told is not true.
We see the truth by those demanding us to believe as scientific fact and violating what they are telling us to believe.

 

[Otis Mayfield]

In Defense of “Misinformation”​

Restrictions of scientific free speech will inevitably lead to restriction of any speech deemed detrimental to freedom.​

In Defense of “Misinformation”

American sociologist Robert K. Merton once defined four norms that guide scientific research: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Communalism holds that science should be done publicly, universalism that everyone should be held to the same scientific...

www.city-journal.org

15 Nov 2021 ~~ By Brandon Patrick Purdy
American sociologist Robert K. Merton once defined four norms that guide scientific research: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Communalism holds that science should be done publicly, universalism that everyone should be held to the same scientific standards, disinterestedness that there should be no biases, and organized skepticism that scientific claims should be evaluated based on objectivity and rigor. For all four norms, open inquiry is fundamental. To practice the scientific method, we must have the freedom to discuss ideas. No claim should be ignored, only refuted, using available evidence.
The ideologization of science poses a constant danger to the Mertonian norms and the freedom of scientific expression. Extreme historical examples include the Soviet Union’s promotion of “socialist science” over “bourgeois science” and Nazi Germany’s forbidding political opponents or those of Jewish ancestry from working for the government. Communist and fascist governments handicapped scientific endeavors by restricting who could do science and what science could be done; in both the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany, all speech was regulated. The scientific method allows scientists to seek out truth about the world, without worrying about whether the truth will bother the government: free scientific inquiry can properly take place only in a society where freedom of speech is allowed, or better, encouraged.
Not surprisingly, the United States—with free speech enshrined in its Constitution—is the leading scientific country in the world. While totalitarian countries like China nominally perform well in the sciences, they take advantage of the work being done in the West, and only one Nobel Prize winner in the sciences has come from China. Other scientific Nobel Prize winners of Chinese descent all left for the British Commonwealth or the United States to pursue their scientific endeavors. All told, America boasts 347 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences.
~Snip~
In a melancholy essay, John Ioannidis discusses how the Mertonian norms* have come under further attack by the ideologization of the scientific method during the Covid-19 pandemic. These attacks didn’t start with the virus. One has only to look at discussions of climate change and biological sex to realize that even before Covid, our ability to speak freely about science has been narrowed. Murthy, Biden, Walensky, and Fauci, and others following what Thomas Sowell calls the vision of the anointed understand that science remains the standard of truth; thus, if they control what science says, they can control what is considered true. To rehabilitate the scientific method—and with it, our own freedom of speech—we need to stop participating in their deceptions.

*Mertonian Norms" Definition -- Mertonian norms


Comment:
A Large proportion of America's citizenry have any idea what Scientific Method (capitalized on purpose) is and how it is supposed to be implemented. So when politicians tell us it's settled science they are either lying or ignorant.
There was once a time when Heliocentric model of the Solar System was misinformation.
At one time bleeding were settled science, even into the 20th Century Lobotomies were considered good science, Again, during the 20th Century we were told that hydrogenated vegetable oils were good for you. The list of “Scientific” misinformation is endless.
We are being told by the politicians in our gov't that there is no such thing as herd immunity, Climate Change is "Settled Science" etc.
But at every turn what we are being told is not true.
We see the truth by those demanding us to believe as scientific fact and violating what they are telling us to believe.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration — has begun incrementally raising his herd-immunity estimate.

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak.

How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough? (Published 2020)

Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the population needed to acquire resistance to the coronavirus to banish it. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci and others are quietly shifting that number upward.

www.nytimes.com

So if we can get 9 out of 10 people vaccinated, we'll reach herd immunity.

 

[RodISHI]

Put Fauci and every other one of them involved in this in jail and don't give them "herd immunity" for being Satan's minions.

 

[sparky]

~S~