Toward Ecosophy

I've mentioned before that being a satirist is one of the toughest jobs in existence just now. Day after day, the world parodies itself ever more outrageously, and somehow you have to keep on topping it!  Well, the satirists of the world now have another good reason to hang their heads in despair, thanks to UNESCO and a clutch of scientific institutions. On May 16 of this year these latter launched a new project -- they're trying to get people to sign a pledge to trust science. 

I'm not making this up, I swear. You can find the project's website here. They really are asking people to take a loyalty oath committing themselves to blind faith in whatever gets officially labeled as science. 

Now I suppose it's a good sign that UNESCO and the other supporters of this project have noticed that a growing number of people these days no longer assume, when somebody who claims to be a scientist makes a public statement, that the statement can be trusted. It would be a better sign if they noticed that the people who no longer trust science have ample reason for their doubts. Shall we talk about the way that approved scientific opinion about what counts as a healthy diet swings around with every gust of wind like a well-oiled weathervane? Shall we talk about the number of recent scientific studies that cannot be replicated, and therefore fail the most basic test of scientific validity, but are still being used to guide public policy?  Or the number of soi-disant wonder drugs approved by the authorities and cheered on by science that had to be withdrawn in a hurry because they turned out to have horrific side effects? Or -- but I could go on along these same lines for a week. 

The reason so many people no longer trust scientists to tell them the truth is that too many times, scientists haven't told them the truth. A glossy and impressively vacuous website isn't going to change that. A shortage of scientists willing to say whatever corporate and political interests tell them to say might help, but I'm not holding my breath. It's an appalling situation:  one of the half dozen or so greatest intellectual creations of our species, the scientific method, is facing a rising wall of distrust because too many people who claim to speak for science have told too many lies. 

The fascinating thing is that even within the science-and-tech field this does not seem to be going over well.  For a case in point, check out this article in the online issue of Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. The article itself is a typically uncritical display of bootlicking, but the comments are lethal -- precise, mordant, and thoughtful rebuttals of the article's claims. (Sample:  "Seriously? A loyalty oath? No. You need to have somebody read TS Kuhn to you and explain him to you using very small words.") It's indicative that the journal closed comments very quickly -- and also indicative that so far, at least, the loyalty pledge in question has a remarkably small number of signatories. 

You don't need to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind blows.  Modern corporate science's crisis of legitimacy may just be about to hit critical mass.