The Cult of Science

Pics below from a book on religion with a list of warning signs.  I can't help but notice how many of these "warning signs your religion is a cult" apply more to science than any standard religion.  I'm not saying science is a cult.  I'm just saying it fits this definition of a cult very well.

Taboo Topics:  Eugenics, human cloning, stem cells, administrative costs, education, rigor, standards, publications, peer review procedures, genetic engineering

Secrets:  We know cancer can't actually be cured, what percentage of revenue goes towards actual research, the weight of our standards has fluctuated, we don't know much at all, our answers are guesses (and we're prepared to correct them, but we will present them as fact until then, not guesses)

Spiritual Clones:  You've reached the higher level so now you wear this ceremonial robe... err... lab coat/glasses/gloves/leather elbowed jacket, everyone has to conform to this belief structure, these are the laws of the universe and no matter how often our understanding and definitions of them change we got it right this and you must use them, everyone take these prerequisites then these courses and get yourself published in these magazines

Groupthink:  There is no other explanation than science.  If anything happened, it was because of science.  If we can't explain it, we will guess and then research it and find how science caused it, changing our guess as we go.

The Elect:  There is no room for superstitious nonsense in science.  "If I can't measure it, it doesn't exist!" - people who actually know very little about science

No Graduates:  Well, plenty of graduate students.  Heh... But you never leave the scientific community because you've finished the dogma.  You teach or you write or your research science and you just keep doing that until you retire from everything or you die.

Assembly Lines:  All the same classwork, all the same tests, all the same standards, all the same white coats

Loyalty Tests:  Well, unpaid internships that go on for years aside, I think the fact that science actually literally tests loyalty as a quantity qualifies it here. (Milgram Experiment, famously)

Duplicity:  You can't have a study without duplicity.  One of those cancer patients is going to get saline instead of medicine.

Unifocal Understanding:  from the text "a single world-view is used to explain anything and everything; alternate explanations are verboten. For example, if you have diarrhea it's 'Guru's Grace.' If it stops, it's also Guru's Grace.  And if you get constipated, it is still Guru's Grace."  That's just silly.  Guru's Grace!  Science explains all of tha... oh wait...

Humorlessness:  Can't say science doesn't have a sense of humor.  It certainly has some sacred cows that you aren't allowed to make fun of, but on the whole scientists are fun people.





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