{"id":5057,"date":"2020-12-02T11:25:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T16:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5057"},"modified":"2020-12-02T11:26:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T16:26:15","slug":"dont-trust-the-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5057","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Trust the &#8220;Experts&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thronealtarliberty.blogspot.com\/\">Throne, Altar, Liberty\n<\/a>\n<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Canadian Red Ensign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ShJ56ncRijQ\/Vic7ppYOalI\/AAAAAAAAABc\/d3gWM-vfhbM\/s1600-r\/red%2Bensign.jpg\" alt=\"The Canadian Red Ensign\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wednesday, November 25, 2020<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"> Don&#8217;t Trust the &#8220;Experts&#8221; <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Until a short time ago&nbsp;the word\n&#8220;misinformation&#8221; referred to statements purporting to be factual\nwhich fell short in some way, whether in letter or spirit, of the ancient and\nageless transcendental landmark known as truth.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;&#8220;Disinformation&#8221; meant the same, but with the additional\nconnotation that the erroneous information was being spread in mala fide by\nthose with a deliberate intent to deceive.&nbsp; &nbsp;Both words have been in\nthe soi-disant news far more frequently in recent days than has been the norm\nin the past.&nbsp; &nbsp;Indeed, it would almost seem that other words have\ndropped out of the vocabularies of our regular commentators on passing events,\nbecause they have been using these multiple times per day.&nbsp; &nbsp;It would\nappear, however, that the words have undergone a change in meaning.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;They now seem to mean anything which differs or disagrees with whatever\nthe media&#8217;s approved experts happen to be saying at any given moment even if it\nconforms with what they had been saying in the moment immediately prior to that\none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is indicative of just how far we have\napostatized from the wisdom of the ancients who sought the illumination of the\neternal beacons of Goodness, Beauty and Truth to light their path.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;To the extent that the media, the information machine which has far too\nmuch influence over how we perceive and think of the world, acknowledges\ntruth&nbsp;today, it is truth in the old\nleftist sense of whatever advances the cause of the revolution.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;This, of course, is not truth at all in the proper and older sense of\nthat permanent standard, recognized as a basic aspect of being itself, which we\nstrive to attain by conforming our indicative or descriptive speech to reality,\ni.e., things as they are in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately what we are seeing is the result of\ncenturies of assault on the foundations laid for Western thought, at least in\nits Classical and Christian phases, by the Attic philosophers, specifically the\nSocratic school and especially Socrates himself.&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thronealtarliberty.blogspot.com\/2020\/05\/how-universities-have-betrayed-founding.html\">I\n addressed this matter earlier this year in an essay about how Western \nacademe has betrayed the very foundation of its venerable tradition<\/a>, the first of a series that\nscrutinized the corruption of the various branches of the universities.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;It is worth revisiting now as the media is once again telling us to\nblindly trust the experts as they impose all sorts of invasive restrictions on\nus in total disregard of our prescriptive and constitutional civil rights and\nbasic freedoms in the name of keeping us safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the message of the Socrates who has come\ndown to us primarily through the writings of Plato could be summarized in one\nsentence, which, of course, it cannot, that sentence would be &#8220;don&#8217;t trust\nthe experts&#8221;.&nbsp; &nbsp;For Socrates&#8217; career as a philosopher basically\nconsisted of going around and pestering experts, those who claimed to have\nauthoritative knowledge about courage, justice, piety and the like, with\nquestions that demonstrated that the experts didn&#8217;t really know what they were\ntalking about and didn&#8217;t possess the kind of knowledge they professed.&nbsp; &nbsp;He\nwas, in other words, someone who spent his entire life doing the exact opposite\nof what those who say &#8220;shut up and listen to the science&#8221; tell us to\ndo when we question the climatologists&#8217; prophecies of doom by pointing out holes in\nthe theory of anthropogenic climate change or question the epidemiologists&#8217;\ninsistence that we must sacrifice all of our freedoms and necessary social\ninteraction and put ourselves in house arrest for weeks and months at a time to\nprevent the spread of the Chinese bat flu.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it true that human beings have\nhistorically thrived better in warmer periods than colder periods?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it true that climate has been\nconstantly changing through history and that this has affected how people live\nrather than the other way around?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;What about that Danish study from this\nsummer in which masks were found not to reduce the spread of the virus?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;What about all the deaths that lockdowns\ncause?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Why should we believe that the same\nhealth authorities who support abortion and euthanasia are taking our freedoms\naway because they want to save lives?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Why all this hype about a virus that is\nnon-lethal for well over 99 percent of people under 65 and in good\nhealth,&nbsp; most of whom will experience only mild symptoms or none at\nall?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer we hear to these questions and\ncountless others like them is always &#8220;Shut up, listen to the science, and\ntrust the experts&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some might raise the objection to my point\nthat&nbsp;today&#8217;s experts differ from the\nones to whom Socrates was, in his own words&nbsp;as recorded by Plato in the <em>Apologia<\/em>, a &#8220;gadfly&#8221;, in that they\nhave science to back up their claims to authoritative knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us consider that argument and see whether\nit can bear up under scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Science, although it bears the Latin word for\nknowledge as its name, is not synonymous with knowledge but is rather a\nspecific type of knowledge.&nbsp; &nbsp;The admirers of Modern science see the\nhistory of its development as one of unprecedented and exponential expansion of\nhuman knowledge to the benefit of the species.&nbsp; &nbsp;This is not,\nhowever, the only way to look at it.&nbsp; &nbsp;From a different perspective\nModern science can be seen as a contraction rather than an expansion of\nknowledge.&nbsp; &nbsp;Furthermore, it is rather difficult to deny that science\nhas done harm to the species as well as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether science is an expansion or contraction\nof knowledge depends on&nbsp;what measuring stick you are using.&nbsp; &nbsp;Allow me to\nillustrate.&nbsp; Imagine two men with studies\nin their home in which their personal libraries are kept.&nbsp; &nbsp;The one\nman keeps all of his books&nbsp;in a single bookcase.&nbsp; &nbsp;The shelves\nare crammed full and overflowing.&nbsp; &nbsp;The other man has several\nbookcases around the room, but none of them is full and there is plenty of\nspace for other books.&nbsp; &nbsp; Which of the two has the larger library?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer depends upon how you are determining\nlibrary size.&nbsp; &nbsp;If the measurement is in bookcases the second man\nobviously has the larger library.&nbsp; &nbsp;If, however, we are measuring in\nnumber of books, the first man might have the larger library.&nbsp;\n&nbsp;Indeed, for the sake of making the point of the illustration let us\nstipulate that he does have more books in his one bookcase than the other in\nhis many.&nbsp; Therefore the answer to the question of which has the larger\nlibrary is different when size is measured by bookcases than by books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now here is how that illustration applies to\nscience: pre-modern science was integrated into philosophy which concerned\nitself with the whole of reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;\nPre-modern science like Modern science, involved specialized knowledge\nof different aspects of reality, but, being integrated into philosophy as it\nwas, it recognized the general knowledge of the whole that philosophy sought\nafter to be the higher and greater knowledge, and therefore did not exclude any\npart of that whole as an area of interest for its more concentrated study.&nbsp;&nbsp; The science that emerged from the transition\ninto the Modern Age, by contrast, was far less integrated into philosophy,\nwhich itself was undergoing a radical transformation, and not, in my opinion,\nfor the better.&nbsp;&nbsp; Neither Modern science\nnor Modern philosophy shared the pre-modern hierarchical ranking of general\nknowledge of the whole as higher and superior to specialized knowledge of the\nparts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Furthermore, Modern science narrowed\nthe areas in which it was interested, excluding several parts or aspects of the\nwhole of reality that pre-modern science had not so excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, when it comes to the parts of\nthe whole of reality that science concerns itself with, Modern science is\nactually interested in less than pre-modern science.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is often overlooked since Modern\nscience has subdivided those fewer parts of reality that have retained its\ninterest into multiple fields to facilitate its scrutiny of each.&nbsp;&nbsp; Think of it as being like a food store that\noriginally sold all different kinds of food \u2013 meat, fruit, vegetables, dairy,\ngrains, etc. \u2013 then limited itself to fruit, but multiplied the kinds of fruit\nit offered, now including all the exotic varieties alongside every available\ntype of the staple apples, oranges, pears, peaches and bananas.&nbsp;&nbsp; Although it has actually narrowed what it\nhas to offer, someone who only ever entered the store to buy fruit might miss\nthis because for him the variety has increased.&nbsp;&nbsp; The point is that when measured by the\ncriteria of the portion of reality that Modern science takes an interest in\ncompared with pre-modern science, the development of Modern science is clearly\na contraction of knowledge rather than an expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to the areas in which Modern\nscience has retained an interest, it has, undeniably, expanded one type of\nknowledge about those areas, and that exponentially.&nbsp;&nbsp; That type of knowledge is the kind that\nanswers such questions as \u201cHow does this work?\u201d and \u201cWhat is this made of?\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;That\nproviding highly detailed answers to such questions in no way answers such questions\nas \u201cwhat is this thing in itself?\u201d and \u201cwhat is the good of such things?\u201d was\nbeautifully illustrated by C. S. Lewis in the exchange on the nature of a star\nbetween Ramandu and Eustace in <em>The Voyage\nof the Dawn Treader <\/em>and explained more prosaically in a number of his\nnon-fictional writings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason Modern science can answer the one\ntype of question well and in great depth but is hopeless at answering the other\ntype of question is the same reason why it is interested in some parts of the\nwhole that is reality and not others.&nbsp;&nbsp;\nFinding the answers to the first type of questions with regards to the\nareas in which it is interested serves the end of Modern science.&nbsp;&nbsp; Finding the answers to the second type of\nquestions does not serve that end.&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor\nis there anything in the areas of reality which Modern science has excluded\nfrom its interest that would serve that end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is because the end of Modern science, that\nfor which it seeks and strives, is not truth at all, but power and control.&nbsp;&nbsp; As C. S. Lewis opened his lecture on \u201cThe\nAbolition of Man\u201d, the third of the lectures transcribed and published together\nunder the same title in 1943, \u201c\u2019Man\u2019s conquest of Nature\u2019 is an expression\noften used to describe the progress of applied science\u201d.&nbsp;&nbsp; Lewis\u2019 entire lecture is well worth reading\nto understand the implications, positive and negative of this, as is the entire\nbook in which it can be found and, for that matter, his treatment of the same\nsubject in <em>That Hideous Strength<\/em>, the\nthird and longest of his \u201cSpace Trilogy\u201d in which theological and philosophical\ndiscussion is presented in the form of science fiction.&nbsp;&nbsp; That this is the goal of Modern science,\nhowever, rests not merely on the assertion of one of its more distinguished\ncritics.&nbsp;&nbsp; We also have the word of one\nof its earliest advocates.&nbsp;&nbsp; Sir Francis\nBacon famously expressed the end of Modern science as the mission statement of\nhis fictional Salomon\u2019s House in his unfinished novel <em>The New Atlantis<\/em> (1626), \u201cthe knowledge of causes, and secret\nmotions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the\neffecting of all things possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is because this is its purpose that Modern\nscience is interested only in those parts of reality which it can bend to serve\nthe human will and only in the kind of knowledge that serves that purpose, such\nas what those things it wishes to bend and harness into service are made of and\nhow they work.&nbsp;&nbsp; Answers to the questions\nof what things are in themselves, what their good is, how they fit in to the\nlarger whole of reality, and how they contribute to the good of that whole, are\nentirely irrelevant to that purpose, as indispensable as they are to Truth.&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, true knowledge of the good of things\nin themselves and the part they play in the order of reality as a whole, would\nin many cases run counter to the goal of Modern science for it would identify a\ngood for all things which is not imposed upon them by the will of man, and to\nwhich man is obligated to bend his will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The history of Modern science itself\ndemonstrates that truth is entirely irrelevant to it at the theoretical\nlevel.&nbsp;&nbsp; Theory is the essential link\nbetween scientific fact gathering \u2013 observation and recording \u2013 and scientific application\n\u2013 the use of those facts to bend the nature of things into the service of the\nwill of man.&nbsp;&nbsp; It begins as hypothesis \u2013\nan interpretive explanation of what has been observed \u2013 which, if it survives\ntesting by experimentation, becomes theory, that is to say, an explanation that\nis accepted and taken to be true for the purpose of devising further hypotheses\nand developing practical applications.&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis is the means whereby science has obtained its great success at\nmanipulating the nature of things to serve man\u2019s will.&nbsp;&nbsp; This success, however, has never required\nthat the theories underlying human invention actually be true.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, most if not all of what are\nconsidered to be Modern science\u2019s greatest successes, are the culmination of a\nseries of advancements, each based upon a theory that has subsequently been\nshown to be false.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Success for Modern\nscience is measured by whether it works, not by whether it is true.&nbsp;&nbsp; The philosophy of science took a major step towards\nacknowledging this in the twentieth century, when Sir Karl Popper successfully\nreplaced \u201cverifiability\u201d with \u201cfalsifiability\u201d as the litmus test of whether a\ntheory is truly scientific or not.&nbsp;&nbsp; To\nbe scientific, Popper argued, a theory must be falsifiable, that is,\nsusceptible to being shown to be false.&nbsp;&nbsp;\nLogic, of course, would tell us that if a theory is capable of being\nshown to be false, it is, therefore false, and, indeed, Gordon H. Clark argued\nconvincingly that all scientific theories are false, by the standards of logic,\nfor they all involve the fallacy of asserting the consequent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now perhaps you are wondering whether any of\nthis matters or not.&nbsp;&nbsp; Since science\npresumably aims at using the mastery over nature it seeks to benefit mankind is\nnot the question of whether it works all that really matters?&nbsp; This objection would have more validity if\neverything science had accomplished had been beneficial.&nbsp;&nbsp; Some things science has given us \u2013 the ability\nto preserve food longer for example \u2013 are unquestionably beneficial.&nbsp;&nbsp; Other things science has given us \u2013 nuclear and\nother weapons of mass destruction \u2013 are decidedly not so beneficial, quite the\nopposite as a matter of fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is directly related to everything we have\nseen about how Modern science has divorced its inquiries from an appreciation\nof things as they are in themselves, contemplation of the whole, and Truth as\nit was classically and traditionally understood.&nbsp;&nbsp; A science that seeks only such knowledge as\ncan be used to bend nature to man\u2019s will is a science that recognizes no limits\non man\u2019s will.&nbsp;&nbsp; Such a science is incapable\nof distinguishing between a good use of its mastery of nature and a bad\nuse.&nbsp;&nbsp; Goodness like Truth, from which it\ncan be distinguished but never separated, is a transcendental, an element of\nthe permanent order of reality that cannot be bent to serve human will but\nwhich requires man to bend his will instead to his own peril if he refuses.&nbsp; Since Modern science is based upon an assertion\nof the will in rejection of these limitations it dooms itself to using its\npower in an evil way, as in the example given in the previous paragraph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I offer the above as grounds for continuing the\nSocratic tradition of not trusting the experts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Modern science, for the reasons given, is\ncause for regarding today\u2019s experts as being less reliable than those of\nSocrates\u2019 day, not more.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone may, however, object that this does not\napply to the medical experts we are being told to trust today because their\nscience is devoted to the end of saving people\u2019s lives and health and that this\nensures that medical science cannot serve evil ends like the science that went\ninto creating the nuclear bomb.&nbsp;&nbsp; The\nresponse that jumps to mind is to point to all the harm and destruction done \u2013\nsmall businesses going bankrupt, massive job losses, mental health breakdowns,\nalcohol, opioid and other addictions, suicides, the erosion of social capital,\ndistrust of family, friends, neighbours, the development of a snitch culture,\nthe trampling of basic freedom and constitutional rights, the cruel\nlocking away of people in the last days of their lives from their loved ones,\nthe brainwashing people into regarding such things as a friendly handshake or a\nwarm hug as sources of contagion, the cancelling of weddings, birthday parties,\nholidays, and all the joys of life, forcing people to merely exist rather than\ntruly live, etc. \u2013 by the lockdowns that so many of these medical experts have\nbeen demanding and imposing for the sake of preventing the spread of a disease\nthat most often produces only mild symptoms, has over a 99 percent survival\nrate for those under 65-70 and in good health, and which poses a threat mostly\nto the very old and very sick.&nbsp;&nbsp; Medical\nexperts who would recommend such a thing demonstrate thereby that they are\ncompletely unworthy of our trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>George Grant devoted his philosophical career\nto the contemplation of the significance of the transition from ancient to Modern\nthinking, focusing specifically on the shift from the view in which the\npermanent order of reality held us accountable to standards such as goodness,\njustice, and truth to the view in which the only \u201cgoodness\u201d, \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201ctruth\u201d\nare values we impose on reality by bending it to our will.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;He\n frequently quoted Robert Oppenheimer&#8217;s statement &#8220;When you see \nsomething that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it&#8221; as \nencapsulating the thinking behind Modern technological science and \nshowing why such thinking precluded bending and submitting to the order \nof the universe.&nbsp; &nbsp;He contrasted this unfavourably with the old adage&nbsp;<em>a posse ad esse non valet consequentia&nbsp;<\/em>as epitomizing the older and wiser way of thinking.&nbsp;&nbsp;He\n spoke and wrote frequently about the\ntroubling paradox of freedom, wherein the prevalent liberalism of the \nModern\nAge made freedom its highest value, but understood freedom as the \nunshackling\nof the will from the constraints of the order recognized by ancient \nwisdom, and in developing the science and technology necessary to so \n\u201cfree\u201d the will as to\nmake every desire attainable, created the conditions for unprecedented \nlevels\nof social control that were eliminating freedom in the older sense of \nprotected\ncivil liberties and rights and ironically, in the name of freedom, were \nmoving\nus closer to tyranny.&nbsp;&nbsp; That medical\nscience was as much a part of this problem as any other he recognized when he\nwrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The\nproliferating power of the medical profession illustrates our drive to new\ntechnologies of human nature.&nbsp; This\nexpanding power has generally been developed by people concerned with human\nbetterment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Yet nevertheless, the profession has become a chief instrument for tightening social control in the western world, as is made evident by the unity of the profession\u2019s purpose with those of political administration and law enforcement, the complex organization of dependent professions it has gathered around itself, its taking over of the cure of the \u2018psyche\u2019, and the increasing correlation of psychiatry with a behaviourally and physiologically oriented psychology. It becomes increasingly necessary to adjust the masses to behave appropriately amidst such technological crises as those of population and pollution and life in the cities.<\/em> (\u201cThinking About Technology\u201d, in <em>Technology and Justice,<\/em> 1986, pp 16-17.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Posted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/12137796641408373451\"> Gerry T. Neal <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throne, Altar, Liberty The Canadian Red Ensign Wednesday, November 25, 2020 Don&#8217;t Trust the &#8220;Experts&#8221; Until a short time ago&nbsp;the word &#8220;misinformation&#8221; referred to statements purporting to be factual which fell short in some way, whether in letter or spirit, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5057\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2679,1708,2136,2677,1001,1121,2681,2674,2680,2678,2675,2676,2682,2683],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5059,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/5059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<br />
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