Thursday, February 24, 2005
Agenda Science
I wish I could say that I find this NRO Piece surprising. As someone who routinely reads peer-reviewed science journals, and has dropped a subscription or two for this issue, it's not news to me, but that doesn't make it any less sad.
In one sense, this is just more dumbing down of America, but they are right, we need to keep some smart people around.
If this trend continues, the scientific and medical communities are playing a very dangerous game. MIT scientist Richard Lindzen once commented, "Science is a tool of some value. It provides our only way of separating what is true from what is asserted. If we abuse that tool, it will not be available when it is needed." Yet a troubling number of journals and scientists are doing just that. If the institutions of science do not face up to this problem, we face the prospect of a "post-scientific," relativistic reality. The public that trusts scientists to benefit them deserves much better.It is not hard to understand this trend, the MSM routinely takes what the journals publish and sensationalizes it anyway, so why should "People" get all the circulation writing about an article published in the "New England Journal of Medicine?"
In one sense, this is just more dumbing down of America, but they are right, we need to keep some smart people around.
