Science or Quackery? (en)

I have an unpopular opinion. More than an opinion indeed. It is an observation, a realization really gained after years of first-hand experience and internal consideration with the topic of science.

Simply stated it is:

The way science is practiced and dealt with in our modern world is in its deepest sense religious and ideological. Science today is UNscientific. Most people claiming to be 'scientists', especially those who praise the merits of science and how it changed and will change human life for the better are guilty of the quackery that they accuse 'populists' or 'pseudo-scientists' of. These people (think of Richard Dawkins as a prime example) are found all over the academic sphere. Often they are the loudest people in the room, the ones seemingly being most confident.

At first impression this (false-)confidence might come across as evidence for the certainty and validity of their position and statements. I, too, was fascinated by the grandiose pledges of science as a young student, I, too, was blinded by the confidence with which these people stood up against religious dogmas, by the audacity with which they told us about how the world is, what we have to do to improve it and what makes us happy, all based on scientific 'facts'.

It took me many years to realize that just because somebody behaves confidently, or to be more accurate, derogatorily towards others, does not mean that what they say is true.

The truth is often spoken in the most unassuming demeanor, its friends are calmness, humility, and humor.

The real virtue of science does not lie in its 'power' to change the world, in its utility for everyday life, or its unique 'objectivity'.

The real virtue of science, the real virtue of any scientist, is the courage to accept insecurity. Its true merit is its curiosity-driven willingness to look upon the world and our own conceptions about it with merciless clarity. This means that science only starts when one has accepted the fact that one does not know anything (for sure). When we accept that all our ideas and theories about the world are, by virtue of them being ideas, not true, not real, then only do we start to engage in the process of understanding the world. Thus, the only truth in science is that every scientific theory, and every scientific claim is always false. It is not truth, not reality but a mere symbol, or as Alan Watts liked to put it: "The menu is not the meal."

The nature of science is insecurity, self-scrutiny, and humility about its claims. This is what sets it apart from religion. Religion is an authoritarian parent who tells you what is true, what you have to do, and what you are not allowed to do in life, a parent that we urgently needed to emancipate from. Science is the cool uncle, who tells you to follow your curiosity, never blindly believe anything that anybody wants to tell you, and find out what life means on your own.

That was science's virtue. It meant freedom from the oppression of organized religion (organized lies to be more precise) and self-confidence in our own faculties to engage with reality. That is why it destroyed religion and why it became our next dominant way of approaching life, and for good reason so.

But with the increasing popularity of science, it again became an ideology just like the religions before. Today, science is seen as the equivalent of 'good' and 'true'. Scientists are seen as the saviors of humanity, the guardians of knowledge and truth. By becoming the new ideology, science became corrupted by insecure egos. And what do insecure egos do? They run away from their insecurity holding on with dear life to anything that gives them the notion of security, anything that helps them to avoid accepting their own insecurity and fear inside, anything that helps them to avoid looking truth straight in the eye.

Put shortly, they long for external direction, also known as 'scientific facts'.

From a movement driven by curiosity, self-empowerment, and thirst for truth, science became the breading department for the weak characters of society, a place where people with overly potent brains and fearful hearts could hide their pain, insecurity, and cynicism under the veil of objectivity.

But there is no objectivity. There exists no objective observer. There exist only individual beings, a manifold of subjects with unique subjective perspectives. Let this be settled once and for all.

The ever-repeated, 'scientific' idea that objectivity is reached by abstraction from subjective instances (experiments, observations, etc.) is the biggest hoax of all. It's the lie, on which the betrayal of true science could flourish. The uncomfortable truth is that by abstraction from the subject to the 'objective' you only get rid of everything that was true and beautiful about the subject and its experience in the first place. You don't get true information, you get irrelevant, informationless, uninteresting grey data-goo, the same way you lose the potential for the beauty of a picture if you mix all colors together until they are nicely averaged out into the most boring, most uniform brown.

No wonder such a 'scientific' culture created an indistinguishable goo of average(d), unoriginal, modern zombies without any purpose other than consumption out of what could have potentially been magnificent, unique human beings. Beings pulsating with life and curiosity, their eyes shining like galaxies, their hearts as wide as the ocean. Human beings as they are meant to be. Human beings as they can be again, now and in the future.

Anybody trying to tell you about the objective truth which they have found out, about the scientific answer to the big mystery of life, about the solution to all your problems, these very people are the most lost, the most disconnected from themselves. They are the most unscientific. They completely forgot what science is or are simply insincere about their claims. These people, high on their self-indulgence, accuse others of quackery and pseudoscience.

The funny thing is that if we really examine what science is, we understand that the people accusing others of pseudoscientific quackery are in fact pseudoscientific quackers themselves. Paradoxical, but true. Like so many things in life. And of course, this now includes myself, too. So, if you want to be kind to yourself (and that's the only one you need to be kind to), don't believe the quacker that I am, don't believe anything I say. Test it with the power of your own reason, your own intuition, your own experience. Fight me every step of the way. This is what a real scientist would do. Finding out the truth for himself.

The truth must be discovered afresh, by and for everyone himself. No one, not even a Nobel prize winner or a Buddhist monk can give it to you. Do not be discouraged by others who say that this would be impossible to achieve. It is not. Believe in yourself. Listen to the ones that make you believe in yourself. Be brave to accept your insecurity. Trust your heart and live by it. That's the only way to live.

Your essence is good and loving. And the most beautiful thing in the world is to find out that this is true yourself.