Search for truth or quest for power

[Andre]

The title of the thread is from the quote:

When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.

Alston Chase

As I'm trying to mitigate a deluge of climate alarms in the adjacent forum perhaps it may be time to understand what is really going on. That's why it's basically social science, understanding group behavior perhaps. Before I continue, please understand that I'm not pointing fingers. Just observing and trying to understand what's really going on.

May I quote a part of Michael Crightons "state of fear" ending with a question:

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms. ...

Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in state from New York to California.

These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort.

All in all, the research, legislation and molding of public opinion surrounding the theory went on for almost half a century. Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant. But in hindsight, what is surprising is that so few people objected.

Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.

Now which theory was that?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This could almost have been global warming [rather the denial of global warming, now called GCC] but with a twist. Because of the potential implication of pending doom, for decades the evidence was largely dismissed by the public and until recently, many scientists. Anyone supporting the enviromental movement was labeled a tree hugger. It was fear.

 

[Andre]

Actually what I left out at the "..." was:

I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.

Nevertheless interesting. Would the climate-skeptism be associated with:

new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out...

...The crisis is reported frequently in the media.

...The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.

...

or would climate skeptisism be associated with:

Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant.

Here the page:
http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/index.html

The theory was

The theory of eugenics postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones --- the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the "feeble minded."

Don't shoot the messenger.