Following the "science" as a shield to mendacious policies!

It is intolerable that any scientist feels compelled to frame the findings of their research to fit or confirm the views of their funders - as it it diametrically opposed to scientific method - but this has been transparently the case in both the state and private sectors for a long period of time. The issue of climate change has been a longstanding case study in this phenomenon. Under these conditions it is not necessary to impose explicit censorship or interdiction, as the scientists will self-censor. The same situation is observable in the media and in other areas of academia, where in order to build or sustain a career conformity is more important than the quality of one's research.

The real danger is that, although these conditions observably exist, scientists are presented as being somehow above politics and financial concerns as some kind of pure and untainted figures of empirical truth and integrity - which lends great authority to their pronouncements. People are commandeed to "Listen to THE SCIENCE", however ill-founded or even mendacious, and politicians use "THE SCIENCE" as a shield for their ideologies. This is the curse of scientism in our societies, which is fatal to any true science or scientific progress.

Under these conditions scientists occupy the role of the priest class and "THE SCIENCE" takes the place of holy texts and revelations in earlier historical eras.

And, of course, where there are canons of faith there are heretics (derived from the Greek 'hairetikos' meaning 'able to choose') who must be hunted down, vilified, made anathema and destroyed. The heretics (often termed 'deniers' or 'conspiracy theorists' in modern inquisituonal parlance) are mocked, starved of funding, silenced or censored and denied academic positions and access to mass communication. They are effectively subjected to a modern form of excommunication.

Interestingly Papal bulls of excommunication almost always struck at the material and social standing of the heretic.

This is from the 1521 bull of excommunication on Martin Luther 'Decet Romanum Pontificem'

"On all these we decree the sentences of excommunication, of anathema, of our perpetual condemnation and interdict; of privation of dignities, honours and property on them and their descendants, and of declared unfitness for such possessions; of the confiscation of their goods and of the crime of treason"

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose....

As a wise person once said:

"It's very difficult to make someone see something that their livelihood depends on them not seeing"