UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

MEANS BEING A SCEPTIC

Another day, another example of how the ‘woke’ side in our grisly culture war don’t understand what science is, simply using the word to signal imagined virtue and crush debate.

I’d define science as a method of empirical observation of the universe, thereby constructing theories capable of being shown to be false - or at least partial - by further experimental investigation. A process which - by its very nature - doesn’t claim questioning is ‘denial’, since it works through scepticism.

The example - my empirical observation?

Some nice but bustling middle-class Remainer/Eco-activist/lockdown types, in my local artisan coffee place. I got dragged into a conversation about how powerful Oxford University is, which then broadened into my dislike for how woke and dogmatic all academia has become - above all in its reluctance to protect free speech - in marked contrast to its constant flaunting of eco and woke credentials.

‘Are you a denier and a Leave voter?’ I was immediately asked, by one rather hectoring lady.

‘Denier of what?’ I innocently asked - before getting an off-the-peg lecture on global warming, imminent flooding, looming catastrophe.

‘A DENIER THAT THE SCIENCE IS THE SCIENCE!’

Mildly piqued, I replied that, though not knowledgeable on climatology, I had a First and DPhil in chemistry from Oxford, so wasn’t especially interested in ex-gratia lectures on respecting science. But since she clearly loved the activity, what was her background in it?

‘A degree in environmental planning and sustainable development - not that it matters!’

‘Surely it does matter, if you think barking “science” at me is some sign of authority and moral superiority?'

‘I’m just saying that those who deny the established position, they’re denying science itself.’

‘What - including emeritus professors, FRSs, MIT professors? Why not use your degree - albeit in a non-science (non-subject I might have said) - to shut them up?’

I had a similar discussion with a poet friend - degree in Art - who was sneering at ‘Covid Deniers’ - many of them Professors of Medicine at highly prestigious universities around the world. I pleaded ignorance of the epidemiological/immunological/microbiological nuances, but expressed surprise that this chap was sending me Lancet papers which he clearly had no understanding of, other than to pronounce them as ‘definitive’.

Maybe I’m being churlish. We should celebrate the huge proliferation of such buffoonish experts, with their apotheosis in Professor Robert Peston - 2:2 in PPE, but he can turn his hand to any advanced science when the cameras are rolling.