ThirstyFish

"Science is not a liberal conspiracy theory". As someone with a background in science, I'm not so sure anymore. The blind belief in science is hardly any different than the blind belief in religion - and it is more consequential nowadays. Here's a Week in Review of science news:

According to a BBC report from a few days ago, between 2011 and 2016, 23 of the 24 top research-intensive British Universities known as The Russell Group were found to be involved in plagiarism, fabrication, piracy and scientific misconduct with allegations numbering in at least 300 cases. More than 30 scientific papers were retracted.

Science is increasingly tied to profiteering and it is used as a tool of oppression and deception. A significant amount of scientific research is both funded and utilized by governments and multinational corporations for their own means. The most important science news in the last few weeks, barely covered accurately in the mainstream media, was the email releases showing collusion between Monsanto and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conceal that Monsanto's flagship product Roundup - the most widely used herbicide on the planet - potentially causes cancer. According to the New York Times "a Monsanto executive told other company officials that they could ghostwrite research on glyphosate [active ingredient in Roundup] by hiring academics to put their names on papers actually written by Monsanto ... citing previous instances the company had done this". For their part, the EPA, while publicly downplaying a recent World Health Organization report linking glyphosate to cancer, in the emails, acknowledges that the risk assessment is not settled science. According to the emails, the EPA was also instrumental in quashing further research by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The potential collusion between a corporation and its regulatory agency to deceive the public using "science" is the definition of a conspiracy...

Stories like these are not one-off. As scientific fallacies and scientific misconduct become common, more and more people are increasingly skeptical about "findings" presented in the name of science. Science might not be a "liberal" conspiracy theory, but it is increasingly looking like a "neoliberal" conspiracy theory.