PrintFollow the science — to where?
The dictum "follow the science" seems to make good sense until you actually follow it to a conclusion that is opposite to that which the "experts" intend you to reach. We all saw that during the COVID-19 pandemic. Entire cities were shut down. Schools and churches were closed. Enforcement was at times brutal. In contrast, some states remained open, and the result was that, health-wise, they fared no worse than the states that gutted their economies and violated their citizens' civil rights. We are still waiting for apologies.
Another dictum makes a lot more sense: "follow the money." While small businesses were starved into ruin, large businesses were allowed to continue operation. Churches were closed — even their parking lot services were forbidden — but casinos operated night and day.
While "Mister Science" led us astray in important policy decisions, there is another area of science that seems a lot less important, but which has subtle implications that have had pernicious effects for a long time. It is called the Standard Model of Cosmology, which encompasses theories of how the universe was formed and how nature operates today. For most of the population, this is Ivy League, ivory tower stuff. It consists of incomprehensible squiggles on blackboards by (according to stereotype) bespectacled, bearded professors "vith" foreign accents. They seem too smart to be wrong, but lately, new discoveries are challenging their authority and, by extension, opening criticism of the social policies that affect our daily lives and the future of our grandchildren.
There is a saying that disputes in academia are savage, not because the subject matter is important, but rather because it is trivial. In that regard, we must ask, how important is the Standard Model of Cosmology? If it collapses, what else will collapse with it?
It seems that nothing will collapse, except perhaps the careers of some scientists, along with their funding. Beyond that, there is one possible big change, which is that the paradigm of physicalism will give way to the paradigm of Intentional Design and creation of physical reality.
That is not trivial. Social policy and cultural values are heavily influenced by the notion that we are just physical phenomena with no spiritual component. How long can we survive as a society when we treat moral principles as if they were malleable, transactional, and artificial? Is the fetus just a clump of tissue? Are there only two genders? Is pedophilia a civil right?
When "man is the measure of all things," there is no room for divine authority. As Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said, "moral truth is vindicated by the ruin that follows when it has been repudiated."
Are we witnessing that ruin?
On the brighter side, imagine the social consequence that would follow if scientists were to declare that science has no idea of how the universe began. What if they were to say, "Nature could not have come about by natural means, because until nature existed, there were no natural means"?
Science demands that any theory must be the simplest one that fits all the facts. Divine creation does just that. No better theory has been demonstrated.
I doubt that there would be any overnight rush to fill the churches and synagogues, but perhaps at least policy-makers would be less inclined to legislate forced compliance with woke ideology and more inclined to conform to the idea that "our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" (John Adams).
