I don’t like Star Trek but I know enough about it to remember the tagline, “Space: The Final Frontier.” These words began each episode of the original series (as far as I know) and at the optimistic time the series was born into; anyone could be forgiven for believing the truth of such a statement. This optimistic belief about human progress is still generally held; that all the secrets of the Earth had been discovered and only in worlds beyond the black void surrounding it is there anything left to discover. All the religions of the world are therefore no longer relevant at best and a hinderance to scientific progress at worst. The former view was one I remember comedian Bill Hicks stating and the latter characterised the “new atheists” that had brief but significant influence in the years after the collapse of a couple of prominent buildings in New York. The view that “science” is the answer for the problems of the world and that the only mysteries left to discover lie beyond earth has been the dominant view for most of my life but this has perceptibly began to crumble in recent years.
I’ve dwelt on this subject in a number of ways over the years but here I will offer more optimism than cynicism because the world we live in is actually a lot more exciting than anything found in Star Trek and it is only going to get more so.
There are a number of reasons why the world is becoming more exciting but a major one is simply because it is now clear that many of the claims and promises of “science” were grossly exaggerated when not outright lies. I only put science in scare quotes to dismiss the way the word is so freely thrown around as a magic spell which I explain in one of the links above. I have no qualms with the natural sciences in their pure form or many of the practitioners who conduct themselves with honesty in this discipline. I do have a problem however with the legion of glorified salesmen that call themselves scientists. Especially more recently, those who describe themselves as “futurists” which strikes me as a profession about as useful as “influencer” — both of course being a more marketable description of a “salesman”. Then there are the aforementioned new atheists and their considerably more irritating acolytes — both groups being considerably less intelligent than they believe themselves to be.
For evidence, one could point to the replication crisis as well as the control and influence that governments and corporations are increasingly asserting over the truth claims of science. I would certainly also bring up the disgraceful last few years of experimentation on the world population and the baffling mass psychosis including amongst prominent people I had thought more intelligent. But I’d be happy to step more outside of the mainstream into conspiracy theories — especially since anything being labelled as such has become a reliable indicator that there is truth to it. At least more so than a large portion of scientific research.
To give a list, I now doubt, deny or would be happy to question the following “scientific facts”:
- The Age of the Earth
- The Theory of Evolution
- The Existence of Dinosaurs
- The Possibility of Extra-Terrestrial Life
- The Space Program and Moon Landings
- The Shape of the Earth
- The Antarctic
The latter does not imply that I think there is no Antarctic, just that there may be a lot more to that land than what is officially known. With the others it is a mixture of doubt or increasing incredulity about science in general that leads me to wonder whether the “scientific consensus” is accurate. I don’t want to go down any rabbit holes here because this is not the purpose of the post. I will say that I certainly depart with mainstream science regarding the theory of evolution for reasons I have briefly covered in at least one of the links above. And I didn’t include “climate change” simply because I only briefly considered it credible.
The main point here is I would no longer be surprised to learn that most if not all of the above is false. People might point to all the data, textbooks, research and the great minds that have contributed to all the above and ask how that could all be wrong? I would point to the very detailed information you can find on the Australian soap opera Neighbours which mercifully ceased production last year. Or to the incredibly detailed information on more than one thousand fictional species of Pokémon available online. These two examples are most relevant because much of this information has been produced by enthusiasts for free and the characters, stories and species are all created. So there is certainly incentive when you’re paid to add weight to your speculations and more especially when they underpin the modern world order.
I’m not angry about the possibility that much of what we know about the world is a lie though. The great thing about all of this is it means we are likely living in a new age of discovery where many of the mysteries of the Earth that were thought solved, may well not be and are still there to be sought. I expect as our civilisation continues to decline and eventually collapse, that much of the scientific underpinnings will come down with it. As I write, most people would still consider all of this (and this writer) kooky but I expect they won’t be in the coming years. If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it.