Briefly, the argument of this provocative 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.
Author(s): Bruce Charlton
Publisher: The University of Buckingham Press
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 156
Tags: Research;Science & Math;Research;Education;Science & Math;Categories;Kindle Store;Methodology & Statistics;Experiments, Instruments & Measurement;Science & Math;Categories;Kindle Store
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
