I read this several times, and unfortunately, it does not seem to be a parody:
Not too long ago the blogosphere was rocking with the great debate of Intelligent Design vs Darwinism. It was an interesting debate, though I doubt much that anyone had the mind changed. Be that as it may, the whole thing got me thinking, and today ii occured to me: science is dead. We have reached the end of the Age of Science – what will come after, I don’t know, but I don’t think that we’ll ever again have a time when Science is enshrined as some sort of god-like arbiter of right and wrong. The question now: what killed science?
A lot of different factors – but the main thing was that science could only thrive as it did from about 1650 until 1850 when everyone agreed on the rules. The prime rule of science was truth – everyone involved in science had to tell the truth to the best of their ability, and always be willing to correct one’s views when new evidence called in to question previously held beliefs. What killed science was when its strongest advocates stopped telling the truth.
It was, after all, science and its enthusiasts which fell for the Piltdown Man, Haekel’s embryos, eugenics, Population Bomb, ALAR, etc, etc, etc. So many bogus theories, dressed up as science, and greeted by the believers in science as the be-all and end-all of existence. After a while, it was bound to errode the foundations of science – and now it has. Science is now so intertwined with myth and political gamesmanship that whatever judgements are pronounced under the cover of science are immediately suspect – everyone who hears such things wonders when some future science will completely refute what is held as rock-solid science today.
That is Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush, lamenting the death of science. The very first commenter points out that the self-correcting nature of science is what exposed theories previously heldto be true to be inaccurate- but it essentially fell on deaf ears. Perhaps he is sad that science has been unable to provide him with the gaps in the fossile record. Who knows?
Considering the assault on all things scientific by this administration, I would go on record and claim that it is not science that is dead, but irony. Mark continues on:
I don’t regret its passing – hopefully we will soon start to really educate people, so that even as they pursue science, they keep it in perspective, and in relation to the real human condition.
Who, you might ask, should do that educating? Why, folks like the Discovery Institute, who Mark describes as a “ non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank.” Really- that Discovery Institute. Quit giggling. the only thing more frightening about this post itself is that the author may actually believe it.
Science is alive and well, but the GOP is not- it is currently led by hacks, frauds, religionists, self-concerned activists, and deluded fools. Bookmark this post so in the future, when asked, you can provide people with a short description of what it means to be a ‘Bush dead-ender.’
Jon Swift takes on Noonan with a funny approach:
Recently there was some controversy when the Bush Administration accidentally left off evolution from a list of subjects eligible for government grants–whoops! But Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush has an even better suggestion: That we just leave off science altogether. The debate between Evolution and Intelligent Design, he says, “got me thinking, and today ii [sic] occured [sic] to me: science is dead. We have reached the end of the Age of Science.” I must say I haven’t been so happy since we reached the End of History. What is especially great about Noonan’s theory that science is dead is that he doesn’t have to conduct any experiments or present any evidence to prove science is dead because science would actually have to be alive to do that.
***Now that two of my least favorite subjects in school, science and history, are dead, I’m hoping that the Bush Administration will redouble its efforts to kill off two other subjects I didn’t much care for, Math and Geography. While important strides have been made, I still think more can be done to send Math and Geography to the dustbin of History, which, course, has itself been sent to the dustbin of . . . something else, I guess. I’m not ready to declare victory until our schools are teaching only two subjects: Religion and Gym.
Bravo.