“In its Wilsonian form, progressivism is a system in which the elected branches attempt to permanently outsource many of the country’s key political decisions to an ostensibly disinterested technocracy. When that technocracy is trusted, as it was for a while in the early 20th century and again in the 1950s and early to mid 1960s, those attempts enjoy a sufficient degree of support. When that technocracy is not trusted, as was the case after the fall of Robert McNamara and during the malaise-ridden 1970s, those attempts create a mighty backlash.”
Read More“So those who believe in science as philosophy are increasingly estranged from science as an institution.”
Read More“One motivation: Pessimism sells. “You don’t get blamed for being too pessimistic, but you do get attention. It’s like climate science. Modeled forecasts of a future that is scary is much more likely to get you on television.”
Read MoreScience begins with guessing and then proceeds to proof.
Scientists is a susceptible to cognitive biases as any human and must work to overcome them.
Separating the cranks from the visionaries requires judgment and patience.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Politics can and often do pollute science.
“We saw that the bias in psychological research is in favour of publishing exciting results. An exciting result in psychology is one that tells us that something has a large effect on people’s behavior. And the things that the studies that have failed to replicate have found to have large effects on people’s behavior are not necessarily things that ought to affect people’s behaviour, were those people rational. “
Read MoreThis is the consequence of political consensus ruling over scientific inquiry. Scientific objectivity is thwarted by intellectual McCarthyism. Dissent is demonized, careers are destroyed. It is more like religious fanaticism than science. Yet they have been able to brand the right with the pejorative of being anti-science. Moral superiority justifies illiberalism. Obvious conflicts of interests are ignored.
Read Morefrom Olivia Goldhill at Quartz, Many scientific “truths” are, in fact, false: For example, there’s massive academic pressure to publish in journals, and these journals tend to publish exciting studies that show strong results. “Journals favor novelty, originality, and verification of
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