Bill Nye and His Marchers for Pseudo-Science
by
Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg
.... Bill Nye and the Marchers for Science are not really promoting science, but a utopian political ideology…
In a public spectacle reminiscent of an episode of The Twilight Zone, on this past “Earth Day” there was a massive March for Science in Washington D.C. featuring Bill Nye “the Science Guy.” As reported in the Washington Post, the “moment he emerged onstage in a black jacket and red bow tie, the crowd noise hit near-deafening decibels. A sea of iPhones appeared, everyone stretching and jostling for the best possible photo angle. They cupped their hands to their mouths, screaming his name.”* This scene brings to mind an image of a futuristic rendition of Lord of the Flies. Indeed, Mr. Nye has become a demagogue for the rising generation of pusillanimous techies whose cup of self-esteem is brimming over with extra gigabytes of high-speed streaming data. It might be comical if material reductionism didn’t already have a domineering stranglehold on our universities and public discourse.
Ideological enslavement to material reductionism is the unifying principle of the multitude who came out in droves at the March for Science (held in Washington and some 600 other cities across the world ). They came out because they have been taught well by an educational system steeped in scientific reductionism. After we had been duped into believing that something like education ought to be “data driven” instead of principle-driven, how long could it have been before this terrible ideology was equally misapplied to our sensational media outlets, our courts, our politics, and most devastating of all, our public morals?
Education is the soul of a nation. As the material sciences gained hegemony in the Western academy, wisdom gave way to knowledge, and knowledge then gave way to information, as character gave way to rationalism, and rationalism then gave way to sentimentalism.
Those who marched aren’t marching for science: They are marching for a political ideology grounded in material reductionism. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world came out to march for this cause. Why? Bill Nye explains: “We are marching today to remind people everywhere, our lawmakers especially, of the significance of science for our health and prosperity.” The emptiness of this declaration is lost on this army of ideologues.
.... Their slogans are about “health and prosperity,” but both of these concepts are emptied of their real worth if they are reduced solely to their material constituent parts. Medical technology has been miraculously aided by the material sciences, but real health includes intellectual and moral health. ... true prosperity follows moral and intellectual integrity by the acquisition of virtue and the expulsion of vice, not by the accumulation of terabytes of data interpreted by “experts.”
A look at the March for Science goals is instructive. Their stated aim is to “contact our elected official, support science institutions in our communities, and hold our leaders in society and science accountable to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and fairness. And we work to bring science and the benefits of scientific research to those who need it most.”
Following this stated intention is a list of equally vague and unintelligible, if not outright inapplicable, desires. At the top of their list is “sustaining and strengthening scientific integrity.” Clearly, it is lost on them that integrity in science is found in a place most odious to the modern scientist: the philosophical integrity that undergirds empirical science itself. Philosophical first principles ground good science in truth, not the other way around.
Next, these aspiring societal architects suggest that we use “the best available science to make policy and regulatory decisions.” This is what we have been doing in the public schools.....
Flourishing and prosperous nations use philosophical principles of truth flowing from the philosophical anthropology to make policy and regulatory decisions. If our policy is not grounded in virtue, which it cannot be if science is our guide, then it will fail as quickly as it was dreamt up. There is no doubt that scientific data could play a supporting role in informing the nuances of principled decisions, but to use empirical evidence as the primary means of forming policy is dehumanizing at the least.
We also discover the science marchers’ stated desire to facilitate “open communication and collaboration between scientists and the broader public.” One of the attributes of ideological scientism is the desire to jargonize the field in order to heighten the value of the “expert.” Classrooms, airwaves, and public discourse are already over-saturated with jargonized scientific communications and collaborations with the “experts” in the white coats. It is nearly impermissible to speak of the philosophical anthropology or the natural law without derision. To facilitate even more communication and collaboration really means to indoctrinate in jargon, and this ushers us headlong into the dystopia of the Brave New World, a soft rendition of which we are already enduring.
Next, they encourage “scientists to take an active role in public life and policy.” Like any political underclass seen through the darkened lenses of the material dialectic, these people pretend they are oppressed, but by whom?.... The real oppressor is the material, reductionist, independent-minded herd dictating public policy for generations now. Clearly, the March for Science crowd is overreacting to what they perceive as offenses against their scientific agenda by a “rogue” president—which is highly ironic, given that President Trump is certainly no religious fundamentalist.
....
Only respect for an authentic education has the potential to lead our communities to flourish in the arts and the sciences. The vibrant scientific community for which they are calling, and despite its calls for diversity, excludes the liberal and fine arts. These would-be Creators have decreed that there is no survival value to the arts, and therefore that this is not the kind of diversity they desire in their international community. And yet, without the liberal and fine arts, there is less value to survival....
Never before have so many clamored for the authoritarian dystopia of material reductionism. The trends suggest that more and more will join in a March for Science the further we get from the sources of real truth. The Marchers for Science, with the delusional fervor of a cult, claim that “united as one movement, and with the support of our leaders, we can take a step forward into a future where science can do its job; protecting and serving the health of our communities, the safety of our families, the education of our children, the foundation of our economy, the freedom of our imaginations and the future we all want to live in and preserve for coming generations.”
This statement is dehumanizing, for it is not science that protects the health of communities, but human doctors. Science doesn’t keep families safe. Science doesn’t educate children; teachers do, not with scientific techniques but with philosophical principles of truth conveyed by the liberal arts.
The March for Science is not really about science, but a political ideology. It is, in essence, a “March for Pseudo-Science,” which is to say, science untethered from its proper guiding principles. ... It ought to be the lens through which we see and order all the other sciences. We must recover the right order of things and return the empirical sciences to their proper place, subordinated to philosophy and the moral law, before it’s too late. The ideology propagated by the March for Science does not lead to health or prosperity, but further sickens and impoverishes our nation.
by
Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg
.... Bill Nye and the Marchers for Science are not really promoting science, but a utopian political ideology…
In a public spectacle reminiscent of an episode of The Twilight Zone, on this past “Earth Day” there was a massive March for Science in Washington D.C. featuring Bill Nye “the Science Guy.” As reported in the Washington Post, the “moment he emerged onstage in a black jacket and red bow tie, the crowd noise hit near-deafening decibels. A sea of iPhones appeared, everyone stretching and jostling for the best possible photo angle. They cupped their hands to their mouths, screaming his name.”* This scene brings to mind an image of a futuristic rendition of Lord of the Flies. Indeed, Mr. Nye has become a demagogue for the rising generation of pusillanimous techies whose cup of self-esteem is brimming over with extra gigabytes of high-speed streaming data. It might be comical if material reductionism didn’t already have a domineering stranglehold on our universities and public discourse.
Ideological enslavement to material reductionism is the unifying principle of the multitude who came out in droves at the March for Science (held in Washington and some 600 other cities across the world ). They came out because they have been taught well by an educational system steeped in scientific reductionism. After we had been duped into believing that something like education ought to be “data driven” instead of principle-driven, how long could it have been before this terrible ideology was equally misapplied to our sensational media outlets, our courts, our politics, and most devastating of all, our public morals?
Education is the soul of a nation. As the material sciences gained hegemony in the Western academy, wisdom gave way to knowledge, and knowledge then gave way to information, as character gave way to rationalism, and rationalism then gave way to sentimentalism.
Those who marched aren’t marching for science: They are marching for a political ideology grounded in material reductionism. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world came out to march for this cause. Why? Bill Nye explains: “We are marching today to remind people everywhere, our lawmakers especially, of the significance of science for our health and prosperity.” The emptiness of this declaration is lost on this army of ideologues.
.... Their slogans are about “health and prosperity,” but both of these concepts are emptied of their real worth if they are reduced solely to their material constituent parts. Medical technology has been miraculously aided by the material sciences, but real health includes intellectual and moral health. ... true prosperity follows moral and intellectual integrity by the acquisition of virtue and the expulsion of vice, not by the accumulation of terabytes of data interpreted by “experts.”
A look at the March for Science goals is instructive. Their stated aim is to “contact our elected official, support science institutions in our communities, and hold our leaders in society and science accountable to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and fairness. And we work to bring science and the benefits of scientific research to those who need it most.”
Following this stated intention is a list of equally vague and unintelligible, if not outright inapplicable, desires. At the top of their list is “sustaining and strengthening scientific integrity.” Clearly, it is lost on them that integrity in science is found in a place most odious to the modern scientist: the philosophical integrity that undergirds empirical science itself. Philosophical first principles ground good science in truth, not the other way around.
Next, these aspiring societal architects suggest that we use “the best available science to make policy and regulatory decisions.” This is what we have been doing in the public schools.....
Flourishing and prosperous nations use philosophical principles of truth flowing from the philosophical anthropology to make policy and regulatory decisions. If our policy is not grounded in virtue, which it cannot be if science is our guide, then it will fail as quickly as it was dreamt up. There is no doubt that scientific data could play a supporting role in informing the nuances of principled decisions, but to use empirical evidence as the primary means of forming policy is dehumanizing at the least.
We also discover the science marchers’ stated desire to facilitate “open communication and collaboration between scientists and the broader public.” One of the attributes of ideological scientism is the desire to jargonize the field in order to heighten the value of the “expert.” Classrooms, airwaves, and public discourse are already over-saturated with jargonized scientific communications and collaborations with the “experts” in the white coats. It is nearly impermissible to speak of the philosophical anthropology or the natural law without derision. To facilitate even more communication and collaboration really means to indoctrinate in jargon, and this ushers us headlong into the dystopia of the Brave New World, a soft rendition of which we are already enduring.
Next, they encourage “scientists to take an active role in public life and policy.” Like any political underclass seen through the darkened lenses of the material dialectic, these people pretend they are oppressed, but by whom?.... The real oppressor is the material, reductionist, independent-minded herd dictating public policy for generations now. Clearly, the March for Science crowd is overreacting to what they perceive as offenses against their scientific agenda by a “rogue” president—which is highly ironic, given that President Trump is certainly no religious fundamentalist.
....
Only respect for an authentic education has the potential to lead our communities to flourish in the arts and the sciences. The vibrant scientific community for which they are calling, and despite its calls for diversity, excludes the liberal and fine arts. These would-be Creators have decreed that there is no survival value to the arts, and therefore that this is not the kind of diversity they desire in their international community. And yet, without the liberal and fine arts, there is less value to survival....
Never before have so many clamored for the authoritarian dystopia of material reductionism. The trends suggest that more and more will join in a March for Science the further we get from the sources of real truth. The Marchers for Science, with the delusional fervor of a cult, claim that “united as one movement, and with the support of our leaders, we can take a step forward into a future where science can do its job; protecting and serving the health of our communities, the safety of our families, the education of our children, the foundation of our economy, the freedom of our imaginations and the future we all want to live in and preserve for coming generations.”
This statement is dehumanizing, for it is not science that protects the health of communities, but human doctors. Science doesn’t keep families safe. Science doesn’t educate children; teachers do, not with scientific techniques but with philosophical principles of truth conveyed by the liberal arts.
The March for Science is not really about science, but a political ideology. It is, in essence, a “March for Pseudo-Science,” which is to say, science untethered from its proper guiding principles. ... It ought to be the lens through which we see and order all the other sciences. We must recover the right order of things and return the empirical sciences to their proper place, subordinated to philosophy and the moral law, before it’s too late. The ideology propagated by the March for Science does not lead to health or prosperity, but further sickens and impoverishes our nation.
