“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Sagan

“Trust the science” as a referent to political pundits like Fauci who make scientifically unfounded claims such as “masks don’t work” prior to “two masks work better” before “stop the spread” (i.e. mRNA covid therapies reduce transmission) exemplify how in some sense we are living in a Scientific Dark Age. This is underscored by squelching and outright censure of opposing viewpoints & criticism, where such free inquiry constitutes a cornerstone of the bona fide scientific process.

How can this be reconciled as occurring with such temporal proximity to detection of the Higgs Boson and pioneering genetic engineering? The contemporary root culprit of thinly-veneered major non-science is the state, and it takes on many forms to distort and damage the otherwise market for honest valid science. These forms are discussed and include: neglecting or distorting definitions of science; incentivizing decreased scientific integrity; and government malinvestment in “science” via funding control, favoring politics over truth-seeking, monopolization of education & licensure, and incorporation of marxist-related anti-science ideologists that are irreconcilable with science.

what is science

Definitions of science essentially fall into one of the following two definitions:

• broad definition: pursuit of knowledge via systematized study
• narrow definition: specifically employing the scientific method to pursue knowledge

Misesian praxeology and mathematics, as well as other systematic disciplines commonly regarded as sciences, notably do not fulfill the narrow definition due to their non-empirical natures. Hereafter we shall employ solely the narrow definition.

Science seeks to understand the universe–to discover what is true regardless of our feelings about it, and to get glimpses at such truth even if always incomplete. When definitions drift from this, then dependent disciplines such as engineering (channeling scientific principles to build things things in the physical world) become impossible: you can’t build a bridge that ignores gravity.

While constructing an experiment stating I hoped the results would go a certain way, I was mildly chastised by my colleague and mentor who said something to the effect of “this isn’t about hope/bias, it’s about asking the universe questions, and if we do our job right in constructing the experiments, we can learn something.” Dawkins notably recounted a lecture he attended where the decades-long work of a professor in the audience was clearly disproven by the contents of the talk, and the professor earnestly thanked the presenter for advancing his knowledge. This is furthermore generally reflected in good experimentation design aimed at disproving the theory at hand, with resilience against such assailment by good design increasing the likelihood that a theory offers glimpses at truth. The archetypal scientist thus employs such means and perspectives to pursue truth against the distracting vagaries of politics, hubris, and superstition.

integrity as a prerequisite for science

While obviously not every so-labeled scientist possesses the elite archetypal attributes, a core prerequisite for undertaking any scientific research is the possession of integrity. There is no point in looking at the alleged data, charts, and analysis brought forth by someone with no integrity, let alone acting on such “research.” Absence of integrity can manifest specifically as fabricated data & plagiarism, which are ostensibly not always tempered by peer review or replication. Integrity-lack is reflected in numerous serious journal retractions, sometimes years after original publication and with interim medical treatment protocols predicated on the newly-defunct research.

How is it possible that the leaders of the most highly-regarded scientific institutions such as the NIH can publicly broadcast such blatant non-science and lack of integrity under the aegis of science?

state distortions in state research

The state introduces systemic bias away from scientific principles and towards integrity evaporation. This has myriad manifestations including what questions/projects are pursued (e.g. toward politically biased boondoggle energy initiatives) & what investigations are published (e.g. vapid positive result studies vs. important negative result studies). Political rather than scientific aptitude drives government-funded projects.

This might provoke the questions of: “why would the market be any better over state-funded research? Would not some evil corporation be possessed by the higher valences of the same biases to the detriment of the general public, compared to the state-tempered scientific sobriety of the NIH?” Market research superiority would be expected for a multitude of reasons, including the following.

funding

Market research must secures its funding via economic rather than political means. That is, money must be voluntarily solicited from individuals or groups, be it e.g. investment or charity. Government research, on the other hand, is funded generally via taxation and debt-financing, with selection of research vectors mediated by politician-equivalents in academia. The possession of advanced degrees (e.g. PhDs or MDs) or prior research success in no way changes the fact that politics is the driver of project selection. While no guarantee of scientific integrity, being beholden to voluntarily-conferred funding acts as at least one check and balance against run-away non-science. For example, a charity funding work revealed to be pseudoscience would stain its reputation and capacity for future solicitations of funding. In contrast, while for such a situation the state may e.g. appoint an investigatory committee to “investigate wrongdoing,” dismiss particularly pseudoscience-rabid investigators, or alter slightly the egregiousness of its pursuits, the siphoning of continued funding from unwilling donors is guaranteed for its apparati. Furthermore, given the political rather than market source of its funding, the state is capable of directing absolutely massive amounts of funding to pseudoscientific or immoral misadventures.

Despite the status quo cries of market & corporate immorality, it is difficult to imagine market research rivaling the state-sponsored “scientific” investigations like those that occurred with the Tuskegee or MKULTRA “studies.” The millions of dollars flowing from the state through direct government grants, government institutes like the NIH & CDC, and regulatory behemoths like the FDA or DEA, poison scientific pursuits with monopolistic political maneuvering that free markets would never tolerate.

political distortions

In 2020 a motorcyclist killed on the road in Florida was tallied as a covid death by the Orange County Department of Health. While nothing is perfect, it is extremely difficult to imagine such an error as being anything other than political manipulation to inflate COVID numbers. And if errors such as these can make it into official tabulations, how can you trust any related analyses or conclusions predicated on such data? Even if the subsequent analyzers have integrity, it is as they say: garbage in, garbage out. Keep in mind these data were employed not just in armchair academia, but to operationalize risk for keeping people from going to work and essentially shutting down the US economy. While biases are everywhere, it is worth considering whether honest researchers and clinicians would voluntarily participate with organizations such as the Orange County Department of Health, when it undermines even in a single instance so radically scientific integrity. The state monopolizes such reporting, acting as a forced sole-gatekeeper for collection and curation of this data. Any group with integrity and greater scientific/clinical acumen wishing to compete with them is not granted. So we are stuck with the health department and its automatic funding, receipt of death data, and fed-dictated reporting protocols.

academia

While it may be clear to many that the state subverts and poisons scientific integrity with respect to endeavors explicitly under its purview (e.g. NIH, CDC), such poisoning overflows into what is commonly, and erroneously, regarded as non-state enterprises.

Academia is increasingly tantamount to a component and engine of the state, a concept captured well by Yarvin’s term “the cathedral” as referring to concentrated political power in academia and journalism. This is reflected in direct funding, as well as in licensure-control.

A massive amount of government funds go specifically towards education & scientific research. It is near-inconceivable to consider a PhD or MD untouched by government money. State medical boards mediate medical licensure since the radically anti-market, monolithic, actually-racist, and actually-misogynist 1910 Flexner report. When organizations like the AMA wield massive political power that impacts state-monopolized parts of education & licensure, it is impossible to consider them as anything other than at least part of the cathedral if not just a cog in the state wheel. In turn, one overall impact of state political power flowing through these entities is that market distortions appear, deepen, and centralize in the scientific and medical professions. In my medical training, overarching education organizations mandated “Quality Improvement” projects that were theoretically ways that trainees harness understandings of their disciplines and the scientific/research process in order to improve the quality of care. In reality, I don’t think I ever saw any of these adhere to any semblance of the scientific method, nor employ research methods to actually improve care, even theoretically. They became just another checkbox for training, another certificate to get to put on resumes. I witnessed hours of trainer and trainee time spent on ostensibly unsound methodologies that would never impact care. These people seemed earnest and honest, and trainers as far as I knew excellent clinicians. But the bureaucratic requirements thrust on them made them either unconscious to the waste of time these endeavors were, or apathetic to them. Furthermore, at least some if not many of trainees appeared oblivious to the anti-science nature of the projects and, to a lesser extent, oblivious to the waste of time that they were. It seems as though such nonsense protocols were, in at least some minds, being inculcated as actually constituting science. And as time goes on, it becomes harder to correct that.

Perhaps relatedly Sagan wrote: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

A market, on the other hand, would not be plagued as readily by such overarching political anti-science in education and licensure, and would be more capable of clawing back into reality. Any serious time-wasting anti-science efforts as described would provoke either rallies to reform or fissure, the latter manifesting as competing licensing and education systems. Reform is impossible with entrenched political self-interests protected by the state centralization. There are definitely payrolls, job-positions, and other perks for those preaching the anti-science quality improvement gospel. Those benefiting from these have a lot to lose from anyone demonstrating how antithetical such endeavors are to their stated ends. Fissure is similarly impossible today with state centralized/monopolized control of these domains.

culture at odds with science

As authors such as Rectenwald have excellently covered, the state has increasingly endorsed a culture of Marxist-related thought including strains of post-modernism that don’t recognize the possibility of an objective reality. When this is denied we are left with “my truth” and “your truth” based on hallucinations such as identity politics (“e.g. as a triple-trans left-handed eskimo black lesbian…") and polylogism that are fundamentally irreconcilable with the scientific method (and arguably any coherent rational framework). While historically it was easy to ignore such groups, detached from any cohesive reality as they are, they have ostensibly become entrenched in positions of power in mainstream politics. The realm of science has also not been immune to this in e.g. the deluge of non-science papers dealing with such topics “gender gaps” that are published in high-profile journals, as well as redefining words like “vaccine” (not quite to Newspeak levels, but close). Without a detour back to science, USA is on the road to a new Lysenkoism.

A fundamental characteristic of a scientist is openness to being wrong, that your hypothesis is incorrect. Can you imagine even trying to publish in a higher-tier journal anything with evidence against prevailing assertions around “gender disparity” or race-related topics? This illustrates how far and wide such marxist-related ideas have metastasized through academia. And it is only getting worse, as we’ve seen over the past decade. As Hoppe brilliantly articulated in “Democracy: the God That Failed” this should perhaps be expected, as well as for it to only get worse as power consolidates further with the marxism-infected state emboldened to expand its anti-science ideologies.

optimism: science and liberty as candles in the dark

The shift to a Rothbardian/Hoppean scientific production structure is not around the corner. Much research still percolates from and through the state. Intellectual property drives much “innovation” through government regulatory approval processes dictated by goons in the FDA. The White House even has the audacity to have a “Scientific Integrity Task Force.” Things aren’t any better on the clinical side. That all being said, there is room for much optimism including: states lose control as they overextend themselves, the covid regime’s lies have inoculated many laypeople against at least state-branded pseudoscience, and covid-related propaganda and censorship has stimulated the creation and adoption of censorship-resistant technologies and communities.

An upside of Hoppe’s assessment of democracies is that they are eventually unable to sustain their ever-expanding thievery and exploitation. At this point many of the aforementioned bonds by which anti-science is sustained under the aegis of science may be set loose, depending on how the government unfurls. If the political utility of the non-scientists expires due to a shift towards freer markets and economic over political means, then the demand for real science will be stimulated. You can’t build bridges with pseudoscience, and freer markets appreciate this fact.

Furthermore, the egregious falsity of the claims from the state’s “science” priests like Fauci, which were used to temporarily shutter large segments of the US economy and destroy many lives and livelihoods, has in the minds of many on one side of the political party divide effectively decoupled scientific pursuit from the leaders of these oft-unscientific government research institutions. While it may not always push the lay onto the track of the scientific method, let alone critical rigor, the distrust and questioning attitude engendered by these horrific events is a healthy improvement.

Though the state and cathedral utilized digital media to censor legitimate scientific dissidence and literally spread misinformation (that they claimed to be fighting), this has also backfired in a number of ways. It has amplified the obvious duplicity of the “science” priesthood as above, as well as fostered the growth of censorship-resistant media such as Odysee and multiple twitter-alternatives.

The market science production structure is not here, but we are on our way towards it. Truth always has a price. Free markets just make it cheaper than pseudoscientific delusion.