Most days I feel as if I am living in the Dark Ages of the 1500s. I hear friends and acquaintances speak about science and scientist as if we were speaking about a gift or a fairy tale. I am not sure how we got here.

I feel ancient and out of place.

Opinions are like buttholes…yes we all have one. So here’s mine…my opinion.

My opinion on Science is that we need to listen to it more than we have been doing it in recent years. Our complete mastery of science has led to backsliding into thinking, the likes of what we would have seen before the Renaissance Era. Yeah, it is that bad. It’s like Galileo never existed, or Sir Issac Newton, who?

The United States has gone through a dark time recently. We were once thought to be the most technologically advanced country, with a fantastic educational system and people with a thirst for science and innovation.  Then the 1950s ended. It feels as if there was a decay in the educational system as the years progressed (New Math). Now, I am not sure where we are at.

When you are speaking about Journalism or Politics the same trend has taken place. Things have changed. There was once a time when you were prohibited from using maledicta in Congress. Now people are cussing and worse. For now, most journalists refrain from using profanity.

Now that I’ve pissed off so many people and genres, let’s get to the topic at hand. Science. It used to be just like Journalism, something that was respected and revered.

Alchemy was the precursor of chemistry. There were philosophical and physical elements (metals) that were used in experiments, which scientists later used in the study of pharmacology, medicine, and chemistry. We have moved on to what we call hard science which has its own set of rules. Science is much more complex from when it started in the Age of Enlightenment. The Australian Academy of Science says this: “Science can be thought of as both a body of knowledge (the things we have already discovered), and the process of acquiring new knowledge (through observation and experimentation—testing and hypothesising). Both knowledge and process are interdependent, since the knowledge acquired depends on the questions asked and the methods used to find the answers.”

Natural science like chemistry and medicine are based on observable data that has results that can be reproduced and reviewed. This means anyone can review the results of an experiment or study.

Why am I writing this? In the time of conspiracy theories and rumors, I wanted to inject some sanity and logic. I can still hear in my brain many doubters still questioning science. That’s fine. Question. But do you have any evidence…no, not some random unproven theory or rumor. Do the research. Scientists give their own assessment of their studies and have spent hours collecting data and writing up reports.

Be careful of the source of your information. There may be an agenda with it.

Everyone is not out there to give you real information. I have an agenda. My agenda is to caution people about accepting things that you read on the Internet as fact until you look at the source.

There comes a time to note,  if you are skeptical of scientific studies, you need to do your own research, but not use a source that is not well known, and supported. Check out the corporations backing the studies, the goals of the study. Don’t accept secretor underground sources that are hard to verify. Whistleblowers are fine and dandy, but look at the agenda and look who’s supporting the information to see if you would even want to be associated with that group.

Yes, there are many opinions, but they are just that. Opinions. Trust facts and data to learn what’s real and what’s just speculation. Misinformation has a purpose too.

Of course, you can apply this to reports on the Coronavirus, but this is really more for understanding everything that’s out there. When you start to doubt AP for journalism, AMA or John Hopkins for medicine, or trust Youtube as a source of news (seriously don’t do this)…you need to re-examine what is fact and what is conjecture.

Here are some of my sources below. My agenda is clear. Make up your own mind. Educate yourself.

 

Associated searches and links:

Associated Press, https://www.ap.org/en-us/

AMA, American Medical Association, https://www.ama-assn.org/

John Hopkins School of Medicine, https://www.jhu.edu/

Magic vs Science, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicVersusScience

Science vs Magic, https://wikidiff.com/magic/science

What is alchemy? Royal Society of Chemistry, https://www.rsc.org..alchemy/what-is-alchemy

What is science? Australian Academy of Science, https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/what-science