by Neocone

Created on: October 31, 2009

Censorship should be welcome against the pervasiveness of charlatanism and scientific misinformation.

Science, Mathematics, and to a degree Philosophy, are way less subjective than literary essays or the latest rating of American Idol. They do not need popularity to prove their worth or usefulness in seeking the Truth in all things. And anyone claiming any scientific basis or aspiring to raise some set of ideas to scientific worth should be subjected to the same filtering as the information that is published in scientific papers.

Ideas which are evidently false should not be spread or promoted in any way. There is no Freedom of Speech for pseudo-science.

The tragedy of this pseudo-science generates a misguided direction for society as its leaders can be those charlatans, or influenced by them (as they excel in social manipulation and the creation of socially attractive illusions). This ultimately results in self-censorship for those who could truly resolve issues and better Mankind.

This occurs to me after I went to check on that "The Secret" phenomenon in some club conference yesterday... my first exposure to "New Age" and other polluting mental traps for the mathematically and scientifically illiterate.

The worst is when keywords and slogans that sound scientific are used in something like that Law of Attraction, of talk shows fame. They are easy to swallow because interlaced with simplistic emotional appeal. It makes the average Joe feel all scientific and superior to the passionate graduate student who spent the last 10 years doing a post doc in genuine quantum physics.

It would be all amusing and harmless, except when politicians and those who have a real sway in decision making start using astrologists or the plethora of available pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophical nonsense in important Life or Death decisions, including War.

Anyone remembers the "Aryan" concept and where it lead a lot of people in dark rooms with false shower heads?

No easy remedy for this, except then to start applying a sort of "leader principle" to Discovery for anyone who realize how much Science is misused, and their little discovery can be too...

In this whoever invents something is always the best person to use is, and giving it away for the "common good" is akin to the tragedy of the commons: All it takes is someone to misuse that stuff to spread misery i.e dynamite, invented by Nobel.

Ditto for nuclear power... or the printing press and finally the Internet used to spread falseness and to mislead.

I suspect a sort of ceiling may apply to scientific progress as a reaction to Charlatans and scientific misinformation dominating genuine information and progress.

Those who advance knowledge realize to what degree their accomplishment can be misused... and therefore bury it or restrict it to themselves.

And the pillars supporting our complex society can only crash down if they cannot be strengthened...

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