Reason under Attack: the Modern Corruption of Science

The enlightenment defined reason as the tool to lift humans out of their self-incurred immaturity and developed methods to guide and implement it. The technological and scientific progress over the last three centuries is evidence of its power.

Up to some time ago the major opposition to reason came from a religious perspective. The Christian church had a hard time giving up control over the way how human beings perceive the world around them. The disappearing influence of religion, however, gave way to a myriad of irrational and pseudo rational believe systems. They aggressively try to undermine the unique achievements reason has provided. Often using a cloak of scientific language they obscure the difference between rationality and irrationality with dreadful consequences. This post starts my discussion of the attack on reason and the related corruption of science in the western societies.  

 

Enlightenments challenges in the fight to free reason

The introduction of the mechanical printing press was certainly the major enabler of the intellectual development in the western societies of the 16^th century. It allowed the unprecedented sharing of ideas and knowledge. Still it needed a change in values to allow the technological and scientific revolution to really take off.

The freedom of the individual to think wherever it would lead it was restricted in several ways. The external forces of religious and political powers had tried to control the thoughts of the people over millennia. Teachings of the church and edicts of the emperor were to have priority over observations and logical conclusions. Galileo was probably the most prominent case. In many ways such prescribed truths were internalized by the individual as its own beliefs.

This process met psychological conditions which per se are not favourable toward a rational way of thinking. Sigmund Freud’s explorations of the human mind taught us that its conscious part is in a rather precarious situation in our internal world. In the words of Gustav Jung, “Consiousness ….could easily be compared to an island in the ocean” of the unconscious.

In his famous book “Thinking fast and slow” D. Kahneman demonstrates in myriad ways how our instinctive and emotional system invades our rational thinking. It takes discipline to escape the many traps if we want to arrive at an “objective” perception of the external world.

 

The scientific method: the implementation of reason

The thinkers of the enlightenment were aware of this. Accordingly they tried to define rules and methods which would allow rational thinking to persevere under adverse conditions. Three basic assumptions provided the building blocks for these rules and methods:

1. The world exists independent of our perception but is rationally intelligible
2. Our senses allow us to perceive reality
3. Our faculties are fallible and we need to be sceptical toward all kinds of knowledge

The combination of the rationalistic thinking of Descartes with the empiricism of Bacon and the scepticism of Hume thus lead to the development of the scientific method which found in Karl Popper in the 20st century the definite formulation how to proof it against irrationality.

What does it say?

1. Theories can be developed in any number of ways – invented, deduced, dreamed etc
2. The scientific way of testing them can be done either analytically i.e. through mathematics and logics or empirically.
3. Any theory which cannot be falsified either analytically or empirically is potentially irrational

The most important conclusions are

1. This definition of the scientific method does not claim that progress in knowledge can only be achieved through a process which fully adheres to it. In fact most is not.
2. If, however, we need to have a high confidence that a given theory is not irrational  then we have only one way. We must demand that it can be falsified but has not been falsified by all the available mathematical or logical tools or by empirical data.

 

Modern rejection and corruption of science

Today the separation between rationality and irrationality as defined by Popper is under attack from two sides within the western society:

1. Rejection of the notion of scientific knowledge as objective by the postmodern philosophy and its offshoot the critical race theory. They claim that there are only competing narratives and the power structure defines which one prevails. This approach has taken over a major part of the US higher education. Science from this perspective is a tool of the white male to perpetuate his superiority. The whole concept of a meritocratic basis of hierarchy is rejected as a power game of the white race.
   

    

2. Science is turned into a tool to support political power. Eisenhower in his famous warning 1961 predicted this problem. There are two actual forms to corrupt science in this way.
   • One just uses the word “science” in its claims to authority. This is similar to the kings which in earlier times used “god” as an undisputable argument to support their claims to power. Often a “scientist” acting as an unquestionable authority is used as the source of the proclaimed truth called “science” in whatever area the public needs convincing.
     

      

   • The other twist is more disturbing: scientists conspire with political power. They get their grants from the governments and in turn deliver the “scientific” arguments which the governments use to justify their need for additional power. Examples can easily be found in the context of global warming and COVID as well as in social sciences. This has grave consequences. In areas where objective knowledge should be the basis for critical political decisions the doors are opened to subjective viewpoints. Right and wrong are then decided by those exercising power. And science has ceased to be the independent and objective voice of reason. 

Such abuse destroys the notion of an objective truth represented by science as a tool of the powerless against those in power. Where this could lead to has been described by G. Orwell in “1984”. Details will be discussed in a later post.