Excerpts:
* I spend a lot of time at this site ridiculing the unfalsifiable
hyperbole and altered data that pass for “science” in the field of
climate change. But climate change is just one of many areas where
people who have little idea what real science consists of
nevertheless claim the mantle of science to order others around.
* Right now the response to Covid-19, the Chinese Virus, competes with
the response to climate change for the most egregious misuse of the
imprimatur of “science” to justify political goals.
* As background for this post, I refer to the Manhattan Contrarian
definition of “science,” which appeared, among other places, in this
post of September 12, 2020: “Science is a process for understanding
reality through using experiment or data to attempt to falsify
falsifiable hypotheses.” Under this definition, the classic example
of real science at work is the randomized controlled drug trial, best
understood as an attempt to falsify the falsifiable hypothesis that
the drug at issue is effective, through proving that a placebo works
just as well. When the attempt at falsification fails, then the drug
has been shown, at least provisionally, to be effective.
* The Manhattan Contrarian definition of “science” is what I seem to
remember learning on the subject back in junior high school, and that
I have since confirmed by reading up on the work of philosopher Karl
Popper and others.
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