Not Even Trying

Bruce Charlton

• Publisher: University of Buckingham Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781789551433
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Real science is dead.

Researchers are no longer trying to seek and speak the truth. Scientists no longer believe in the truth. They no longer believe that there is an eternal unchanging reality beyond our human organisation which they have a duty to discover and disseminate. Hence, the vast structures of personnel and resources that constitute modern science are not real science but merely a professional research bureaucracy.

The consequences? Research literature must be assumed to be worthless or misleading and should almost always be ignored.

In practice, this means that nearly all science needs to be demolished (or allowed to collapse) and real science rebuilt outside the professional research structure, from the ground up, by real scientists who regard truth-seeking as an imperative and truthfulness as an iron law.

The argument of this book in a single paragraph

Briefly, the argument of this book is that real science is dead, and the main reason is that professional researchers are not even trying to seek the truth and speak the truth; and the reason for this is that professional ‘scientists’ no longer believe in the truth - no longer believe that there is an eternal unchanging reality beyond human wishes and organization which they have a duty to seek and proclaim to the best of their (naturally limited) abilities. Hence the vast structures of personnel and resources that constitute modern ‘science’ are not real science but instead merely a professional research bureaucracy, thus fake or pseudo-science; regulated by peer review (that is, committee opinion) rather than the search-for and service-to reality. Among the consequences are that modern publications in the research literature must be assumed to be worthless or misleading and should nearly always be ignored. In practice, this means that nearly all ‘science’ needs to be demolished (or allowed to collapse) and real science carefully rebuilt outside the professional research structure, from the ground up, by real scientists who regard truth-seeking as an imperative and truthfulness as an iron law.

Contents

Introduction

Understanding science retrospectively

From real science to generic bureaucracy

I wasn’t actually doing science

If not real science, what are professional ‘scientists’ really doing?

The pervasive dishonesty of modern ‘science’

Communications within the science profession

Dishonesty as pervasive, endemic

Dishonesty with oneself

Causes of dishonesty in science

Roots of dishonesty in science – the role of peer review

Modern ‘science’ is de facto dishonest

Peer review is neither a necessary nor sufficient part of real science

In real science truth must be a transcendental value

Jacob Bronowski on the habit of truth

A 50 year experiment in excluding transcendental truth from scientific discourse

But is truth really true, or was it just a convenient fiction?

Not even trying

The peer review cartel

Understanding reality

Real science declined because scientific genius declined

Human capability peaked decades ago, and has since declined

Human capability then and now

Measuring human capability: Moonshot versus 'Texas Sharpshooter'

The Texas Sharpshooter society of secular modernity

Since collapse happened to Classics, it could happen to science

Chargaff on the loss of human pace and scale in science

Delbruck on the moral qualities of science

Micro-specialization and the infinite perpetuation of error

The idea of science as a truth-machine

Zombie science

What is the function of Zombie science?

The expectation of growth in scientific knowledge

Doing real science is hard

When the bubble bursts

Scientific validity is about coherence not testing

Science as a sub-species of philosophy

No such thing as ‘Science’ anymore

Doing science because science is fun?

After science

Real science in one sentence

Origins of this book

Further reading and references

Selected sources and acknowledgments

Introduction

As a schoolboy and for many years afterwards, I was perhaps as idealistic about science as anyone in recent years – it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that I worshipped science; since I was an atheist for whom science was the bottom-line description of reality. The great scientists were my heroes – those whom I hoped to emulate.

For me nothing was more fundamental than science; everything else was properly to be evaluated from the perspective of science.

Yet now I regard real science – the kind of science I used to worship - as a thing of the past; an object of historical study. There are small islands of real science dotted here and there, but with only local and dwindling influence.

To all extents and purposes, I see real science as dead; and what calls itself science as a fake – worse than nothing, because it claims ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Biographical note
• Dedication
• Note to the reader
• The argument of this book in a single paragraph
• Introduction
• Understanding science retrospectively
• From real science to generic bureaucracy
• I wasn’t actually doing science
• If not real science, what are professional ‘scientists’ really doing?
• The pervasive dishonesty of modern ‘science’
• Communications within the science profession
• Dishonesty as pervasive, endemic
• Dishonesty with oneself
• Causes of dishonesty in science
• Roots of dishonesty in science – the role of peer review
• Modern ‘science’ is de facto dishonest
• Peer review is neither a necessary nor sufficient part of real science
• In real science truth must be a transcendental value
• Jacob Bronowski on the habit of truth
• A 50 year experiment in excluding transcendental truth from scientific discourse
• But is truth really true, or was it just a convenient fiction?
• Not even trying
• The peer review cartel
• Understanding reality
• Real science declined because scientific genius declined
• Human capability peaked decades ago, and has since declined
• Human capability then and now
• Measuring human capability: Moonshot versus 'Texas Sharpshooter'
• The Texas Sharpshooter society of secular modernity
• Since collapse happened to Classics, it could happen to science
• Chargaff on the loss of human pace and scale in science
• Delbruck on the moral qualities of science
• Micro-specialization and the infinite perpetuation of error
• The idea of science as a truth-machine
• Zombie science
• What is the function of Zombie science?
• The expectation of growth in scientific knowledge
• Doing real science is hard
• When the bubble bursts
• Scientific validity is about coherence not testing
• Science as a sub-species of philosophy
• No such thing as ‘Science’ anymore
• Doing science because science is fun?
• After science
• Real science in one sentence
• Origins of this book
• Further reading and references
• Selected sources and acknowledgments