| Science 1999 |
As 1998 nears its close, I notice that the word "science'' does not have the same meaning that it did when I first encountered it as a freshman at the California Institute of Technology in 1959. To be sure, it is still possible to define science in the same way as previously and to insist that pure science remain as before, but it is increasingly difficult to find evidence that this "pure science'' still exists to a significant extent in the real world.
Pure science, as I learned it, is a rigorous search for truths about temporal subjects. The hypotheses of science have significance only in so far as they are tested by physical experiments. Since many quantitative experiments are possible, the language of science has become mathematics - and its ethical component rests upon the philosophical requirement that there be truth vs. falsehood, right vs. wrong, correct vs. incorrect - with only the former properties deemed acceptable.
So, what has happened to the science of my youth? Why do I find myself writing a newsletter - founded by another scientist 25 years ago who foresaw the trend of dissolution in "science'' that has occurred - largely devoted to exposing and reducing "false science''?
The principal reason is that the United States government has extended tax-financed welfare payments to a large fraction of American "scientists,'' including most scientists who reside in academic institutions where pure science was once emphasized. Welfare socialism does not work, and it has had the same general effect on science as it has when applied to other human endeavors. In fact, given the ethics necessary to the conduct of good science, government welfare payments are even more harmful to it than they are to other endeavors.
With the Buenos Aires United Nations global warming shindig now in progress for example, the world has returned to its annual bewailing of the sin that coal, oil, and natural gas are being used to make possible long, productive, and enjoyable lives for billions of people. This is a sin because "science has shown'' that this human activity is warming the planet - which, of course, science has not shown at all.
Yet, in the midst of all the furor and the very dangerous risks that this global warming myth poses for those who depend upon hydrocarbons, America's scientific institutions are - silent. They are, of course, not silent on all matters. As an alumnus, I will soon receive another request from Caltech for a donation. Unfortunately, if I give them a donation, I will actually be giving this money to the government. Caltech, like virtually all American universities and other institutions of higher education with significant scientific components, receives substantial payments of tax money - money extracted by force or threat of force from those who earned it and given to Caltech by the executive branch of the U. S. government, which is directed by William "Any President who lies to the Ameri-can people should resign - 1992'' Clinton.
Caltech has a very large endowment. With that endowment (to which its alumni are frequently admonished to add), it could and does fund a part of its activities. It also has, however, a large annual income from tax-financed "research grants'' that are given out by agencies headed by Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Caltech is, therefore, silent, as are its faculty members who understand their self-interests.
The tax money essentially captures the private money at these institutions and forces its expenditure under constraints imposed by politicos in the United States executive branch of government. Once a large part of the activities and salaries of a university campus are tax-financed, then 100% of the campus activities must please the government - in order not to offend the source of welfare payments for the tax-financed part. There are, of course, rare exceptions in which individual scientists risk their careers through independent activities, but these occasional exceptions do little to correct the overall problem.
In addition to suffering the debilitating effects of welfare, our university humanities departments now teach primarily New-Age, New-Left, politically correct psychobabble, and our college graduates suffer personally and professionally as a result. In fact, the new trend (as at Southern Oregon University near here) is toward rules that prohibit the presence on the campus of students who do not enroll in these brainwashing courses - even if they wish to take other courses and do not seek a degree. This forced religious training in pseudoin-tellectual nonsense is, of course, not helpful to young scientists.
In the 1960s, the trend toward ostentatious political activities among humanities faculties began to become evident. I recall thinking then that the general problem was that these people did not have productive activities to keep them occupied and happy, so they sought notoriety in "one-upping'' each other - each seeking to write or teach a little more outrageously than the others.
This process has now run its course. One indicator is the age of authors now forced upon university students in their humanities courses. Having expunged most of the mores of Western civilization from their courses, these "teachers'' cannot use works of the great writers and thinkers of the past. Most of the assigned authors, therefore, are still living and are engaged in political activities.
Science thrived in the atmosphere of honesty, integrity, and the work ethic that previously prevailed in the United States. This atmosphere still exists in some pockets of productivity, both in America and abroad. It is, however, faltering in American society as a whole - as the moral atmosphere in that society is degraded.
The rigorous integrity that prevailed on the Caltech campus of my youth was not taught in courses. It was taught in the only way such principles are really learned - by example. Children learn primarily by example - as do most adults. The only way to effectively teach and lead scientists in the laboratory is to out-work and out-think them - side by side at the laboratory bench. Even this, however, may not be enough when their time outside the laboratory is spent in a moral and ethical atmosphere that is alien to the truth.
When science, in addition, depends for its funding upon welfare payments from a government that no longer is interested in the truth, the ethics required for reliable scientific work gradually disappear.
Science, technology, and true free enterprise are in decline in the United States. With that decline will come the gradual withdrawal from American society of the fruits of these activities. Already, real living standards are decreasing. Ironically, our political masters now blame this decrease on science, technology, and free enterprise.