By: Jože Biščak
Let’s clarify this right from the start. No one holds scientists, even those with academic titles, accountable for incorrect predictions. Some of these predictions are entirely harmless and have had no significant impact on everyday life: by now, we were supposed to have interplanetary spaceships, and according to past forecasts, we should already be traveling in flying cars to overcome distances on Earth. This has not come true – we still observe the stars through telescopes and travel on solid ground. But that is no big deal. Science is not a straight road.
The problem arises when the academic elite, from their pedestal of unquestionable authority, boldly predicts an impending earthly apocalypse unless the entire world immediately switches to renewable energy sources and reduces carbon dioxide emissions, which, as a greenhouse gas, is said to be the primary destroyer of the planet. Such predictions, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations (UN) takes at face value as absolute truth, directly impact people’s lives and well-being. Behind these hysterical theories are usually social scientists and politicians (IPCC is a political body) who push scientists toward increasingly catastrophic forecasts, as this justifies their existence and the high salaries they receive. This is why, in the era of “woke” postmodernism, scientific standards have been turned upside down.
Donald Trump (with the U.S. being the largest global funder of science) is now expected to put an end to this. His stance is that research groups that manipulate methodologies and data to fit the “woke” agenda will no longer receive taxpayer funding for their “scientific” projects. Naturally, this caused an uproar – not just in the U.S. but worldwide, including in Slovenia. The newspaper Delo wrote that the authoritarian U.S. president fears scientific findings based on verifiable and repeatable facts and wants to censor unwanted scientific discoveries. However, there is ample evidence that scientists themselves have greatly contributed to the loss of their credibility.
A typical example is the so-called “hockey stick” graph by Michael Mann. The American climatologist and geophysicist argued that the Earth has been warming rapidly in recent decades and that a climate Armageddon is imminent. However, many flaws and unscientific aspects of his theory soon became apparent, leading the IPCC to remove his “research” from its reports. Since then, climate alarmists have stopped using the term “global warming” and instead coined the term “climate change”.
Let’s move on. Critics say Trump fears unwanted research results. But what if the findings actually support his position? Ah, once-prestigious scientific journal Nature, where many scientists publish their work and which is considered a reference due to its extensive peer review process, issued new editorial policy guidelines two years ago: if a scientific discovery harms a certain (vulnerable) group of people, it must be discarded. I ask you – is this science? No! This shows the direction in which science is heading. It has long been accepted that academic freedom and scientific curiosity are limited by ethical considerations regarding the participants in a study. Now, these “well-established ethical frameworks” will also apply to “people who do not directly participate in the research”. The guidelines state that texts must not harm or stigmatise groups sensitive to racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, and xenophobia. For example, even if empirical data scientifically prove that monkeypox primarily affects homosexuals, the article will be rejected because it stigmatises “vulnerable homosexuals”. Furthermore, if a school-based study finds that white students perform better in mathematics than Black students, the results will not be published. “Although academic freedom is fundamental, it is not unlimited,” Nature states.
Yes, academics and scientists have succumbed to “wokeness” and ended up on the dark side of science. And now they are crying about it.
