Science is a
constant. The whole point of science is that it is meant to prove
that something is either right, or it is wrong. There is no
in-between level. Science is not concerned with such things. In
science, something is either correct, or it is not. In essence,
science is the search for the truth.
The truth does not
care about funding, cost, sponsorship, business interests, needs,
ideology, beliefs or wants. Science therefore, does not care about
any of those human constructs with which we are familiar.
Of course, when
somebody does not properly understand the science, then mistakes
can/will be made. In such cases, that person will rarely find the
truth. He/She will simply find what they believe to be the truth. But
that is not failure of science. It is a failure of the human - who
did not properly understand the science (or is speaking from a
position of ignorance).
We hear a great deal
about scientific theory, and many people believe that scientific
theory is the truth, especially when they hear it from what they
perceive to be a reputable scientist. But they are incorrect.
Scientific theory is exactly what the words say, it is a theory.
Until somebody scientifically proves that theory through a thorough
experiment or application, then it remains an unproven theory. That
is, it is not the truth. It has not been proven to be the truth.
Accordingly, anybody
who calls himself a scientist but who does not seek the truth is not
a scientist at all. In fact, it would be fair to describe such a
person as a fantasist or propagandist. A true scientist will only
ever concern himself with the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the
truth.
So why am I talking
about this ?
It is due to the
myriad of newspaper articles that have appeared over the Christmas
period on a whole range of things. There has been climate warning
scare stories, scare stories on foods, on fizzy drinks, on alcohol.
You name it, there have been claims and counter claims from different
sections of science. So who is right ?
Let’s take climate
warning. Nary a day passes without some warning about climate
change/global warming. I read those stories (and even read the
so-called scientific papers that inspired those stories). In the vast
majority of cases that I have read, we are not talking about any
scientific fact. No, in most cases we are talking about scientific
THEORY.
As I mentioned
above, a theory is NOT the truth. It cannot be the truth as it has
not been proven to be the truth. In some case it is almost impossible
to prove a theory because the necessary ingredients/environments do
not exist or are hard to come by. So what happens is that a scientist
publishes a new theory and then releases it into the wild, and the
newspapers (looking for their next big story) publish it as fact.
Newspapers, as we know, are more interested in readership (or clicks,
if online), than they are in the truth. But because some scientists
has theorised about something (such as climate change), then the
newspapers publish it as fact. They do so because they know people
will read it and believe it because it came from a scientist (often,
though not always, backed up by the person having Doctor or Professor
in front of their name).
This is how people
with agendas influence the public to buy in to their agenda. They
push out what they know is an unproven theory to the mass media, and
then let the mass-media do all the work for them. Therefore, an
unproven theory magically becomes scientific fact overnight.
The truly alarming
part though is how many so-called scientists are actually influenced
in the same way as the public. As scientists, they ‘should’ be
trained to be sceptical about anything presented in such a way until
they see the proof. But they do not. They simply see what they want
to see because that is what they believe. Their own bias prevents the
truth from being found. It is not the truth, it is a belief or
conviction on the part of that person that blinds them from the
truth, from the actual science. Unfortunately, such people invariably
have the ear of the politicians and when that unproven theory is
placed in the ears of politicians by somebody (as before, usually
with Doctor or Professor be fore their name), then that theory is the
truth to those politicians and we the public end up with legislation
based on theory rather than the truth. As we all know, that brings
(often tragic) unintended consequences.
I have watched
open-mouthed at this very process in action over in the USA during
the last few weeks. The American Vaping Advocates have been reacting
and tweeting with alarm at everything that has transpired since the
CDC declared that Vaping was causing lung disease, due to the CDC’s
(initial) inability to search for the truth. The truth was that all
the lung problems being experienced in the USA was not due to Vaping,
but rather it was to do with the illicit THC cartridges that are
easily obtainable on the black market in the USA. Nothing whatsoever
to do with vaping.
But what happened
was that the usual suspects (I will not call them scientists as they
have been proven time and time again to be anything but scientists)
suddenly began gleefully shouting about all the scientific THEORIES
that were abounding to support their ideologies that vaping was bad.
As mentioned above,
a theory is NOT the truth. Until it is proven, it remains a theory
and therefore NOT the truth.
In fairness to the
CDC, they did belatedly prove the above mentioned THEORIES as being
incorrect and published a statement that confirmed that all the lung
issues being reported was due to illicit THC cartridges being bought
on the black market. In essence, they disproved the theories and
therefore found the truth – that there is no proven danger from
Vaping. That, my friends, is science. Unfortunately, when they did
finally publish their findings, it was far too little and way too
late. The horse had already well and truly bolted.
Amazingly though,
there are STILL so-called scientists pushing out the proven-false
theory as truth, and it is the usual suspects that are doing so. I do
not need to name them, you already know who they are. Accordingly,
the politicians (the Senators, Councillors, Legislators – whatever
you Americans call them) have been swayed by these pseudo-scientists
(propagandists) and the result is that many States are STILL trying
to introduce legislation banning vaping (or at least flavours) and
our American Vaping Advocates are having a very hard time of it
fighting these attempts at bans.
In the UK, we are
fortunate now in that most of the prominent bodies are fully
supportive of Vaping, because they chose to examine the proven
science. They chose to look for the truth and based their advice on
what they found. Of course, we do still have many propagandists in
the UK too (unfortunately, some of these also have Doctor or
Professor before their names too), but they are few and far between.
All you have to remember is that the ‘Bobblegoms’ of this world
are NOT scientists, they are propagandists. They do not understand
the science behind vaping and therefore cannot ever arrive at the
scientific truth.
Science – the
unending search for the truth, not the Dollar !!
