She blinded me with science

There's a lengthy but well-worth reading essay by someone named Chris Mooney at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal site. It takes as its starting point a review of a book called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, by Tom Bethell, and goes on from there.

Here are a few of my favorite paragraphs.

...Bethell's more general science policy arguments are...problematic. For instance, there's his concept of a "priesthood of science," an elite caste of scientific leaders whose words are taken as gospel and whose received wisdom never challenged. Alas, this mythic priesthood does not exist. The scientific process is inherently a contentious and antagonistic one, in which vast incentives exist for scientists to publish research that undermines what everyone thought was known and well established. In essence, the scientific process represents the institutionalization of doubt and skepticism. It is nothing like a priesthood.

Finally, Bethell sneers at scientific "consensus," noting that even if 99 percent of experts in a field accept a given theory, that doesn't make it automatically true. But this fact notwithstanding, consensus plays an important role in the scientific process. It is how our knowledge progresses. Scientific conclusions are eternally subject to revision, but when consensus develops, it is based upon repeated testing and retesting of an idea or theory--and that's hardly something to be taken lightly. In fact, when it comes to pressing matters of public policy where decisions depend upon a clear understanding of the underlying science (such as global warming), we ignore scientific consensus positions at our own peril.

All of these arguments made by Bethell--the scientific ones as well as the science-policy oriented ones--are very problematic. But what's most disturbing about The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science book is not the lack of scientific accuracy or its poor arguments. Rather, it's the overall message that it preaches to conservative readers--in essence the following: "Don't trust the nation's scientific community, they're a bunch of politicized liberals who are hooked on government funding."