I’m a scientist and skeptic, but these days it is the imprimatur of “science” we need to be skeptical of.
Everyone knows to be skeptical of religion. It goes without saying. Even fanatically religious people will tell you that the religion club is open only to those who can jettison reason — or at least temporarily suspend it — and embrace “faith”. That makes people naturally skeptical.
Calling something “science”, though, that can make otherwise rational people check their brains out at the door without their even realizing it. The by far best example is Carl Sagan’s “scientific” prediction that the Earth would be engulfed in a cloud of ash from burning oil fires if we liberated Kuwait. We were supposed to be living in a nuclear-winter-equivalent Ice Age right about now … I’m looking out the window for the glaciers, but the global warming must’ve scared them away …
I’d like to coin the word “Saganism” as the science equivalent of Spaghetti Monsterism but the English language already has a word for it:
Quackery.
I fear Quackery more than any other religion in America. Quackery has the potential to do a whole lot more damage.
