They Burn Witches Don’t They?

Once upon a time, we burned witches at the stake. Or killed them in any number of other ways. But what were “witches?” Healers, mentally ill, outcasts, people with birth defects or deforming diseases? People, especially women, who seemed to know more than they were supposed to? What is the difference between a “wise man” and “witch,” other than the observer’s point of view? All that really doesn’t matter anymore because we are so enlightened. Or are we?

Today, we have Science, and that is the touchstone whereby all assertions are weighed and measured, and only the provably correct make the cut and everything else is discarded. Really? It only takes a few minutes studying the controversies around climate change, anti-depressants, vaccines, GMOs, birth control, and any number of other issues, to see that “Science” is treated as a matter of opinion by the vast majority of people in the world, scientists included. I can point to any number of controversies, for instance the age of the Sphinx, where one group of scientists has been pitted against another for fifteen years, in a sometimes, nasty, bitter battle. I can’t help but wonder, what’s the big deal? So what if the Sphinx is older than you thought, get over it. Conventional wisdom has been overturned many times in the 200 years, there’s no reason to expect that it won’t keep happening.

There’s one thing you have to keep in mind when dealing with debunkers, their job and passion is to debunk, not to confirm, and they have way too much of their ego on the line to ever confirm some controversial discovery. Go through the history of science, and you will see that the debunker as always the last to fall in line whenever a controversial discovery turn out to be fact. Sure, there’re plenty of nutty ideas, and lots of misinformation out there to keep debunkers busy, but they are human, just like the rest of is, and do they really want to risk their credibility by coming down on the wrong side of some issue that everybody knows is crap?

Yes, we still “burn” our “witches.” We still ruin careers and destroy livelihoods of people who say something we don’t like. Take the Fleischmann–Pons, “cold fusion” debacle: The made a discovery, some marketing idiot slapped the name “Cold Fusion” on it, and for that, they were forced to leave the country to find work. Since then, the effect has been confirmed and research is ongoing, but not one of the jerks that ripped apart Fleischmann and Pons has apologized or admitted they are wrong. The funny thing is, while the battle rages on, the technologists are quietly turning this “impossible effect” into real products: Black Light Power, Brillouin Energy Corporation.

Being truly objective can be really hard. I know the pain of have to give up a treasured idea. But you can’t always be right, nor can you always know all the facts. Sometimes you just have to say “I don’t know,” despite the pressure to come down on one side or the other. As far as “debunking” goes, it’s always easy to make fun of something, just watch any schoolyard bully, but the hard part comes when you are watching pundit tear apart some piece of “psudoscience:” Do you have any real idea of what’s at stake, or are you just one of the crowd, cheering on the bully who’s beating up that nurdy kid who just might be building the next FaceBook in his bedroom?