Is it science or scientific demagoguery?

If it is necessary to justify why during the Covid pandemic people can get on a full trolleybus, but a store must be kept closed, because it is located in a building with an area of more than 7,000 square meters, then there is no argument more convincing than the term "science-based."

Once people referred to the Bible, Aristotle, St. Augustine. Then came the time when each statement had to be based on a quote from Marx, Lenin or the materials from any congress of CPSU. This mandatory remark now is "science-based", preferably with a reference to the specific "study."

Why do I put the word "study" in quotation marks? Because science today is often like a branch of a public relations office, where a customer's order is neatly packaged. Consequently, the term "science-based" should be understood as "packaged according to the latest style standards." Just as a gift wrapper in a store asks what color ribbon to wrap the purchase with, so here the research to support the desired request is found, among many others. Preparing research and projects has long been one of the most profitable businesses.

It must be admitted that for the first time in the history of mankind, the word science is used in the interests of the political class without the slightest reservations. In Soviet times, it was not possible to obtain higher education without passing a state exam in the specific subject of "scientific communism." Everyone can assess how much "science" there was in this discipline and how much blatant demagoguery. It can even be said that at that time every university graduate was forced to pass an exam in demagoguery.

As the world returns rapidly to the same path from which it turned unexpectedly at the turn of the eighties/nineties, much of what was temporarily forgotten reappears on the agenda. Among these new old things is "scientific communism," only for the time being without the discredited word - communism. It would be logical to call this new subject "scientific demagoguery," but it is unlikely to happen because demagoguery as a concept is also highly discredited.

It must be made clear here that the "science" which people are called to believe in is not the same as the one associated with Newton, Einstein, Planck. One that operates with incomprehensible formulas, complex calculations and accurately measurable experimental results. This science still exists, is extremely advanced and provides a level of technology that would be unimaginable even half a century ago. However, this science is very rarely meant when something is called "science-based." Real science is not for mass consumption. For this purpose, another is meant - science for the masses, which is most often combined under the name of social sciences, although recently there has been a tendency to turn exact science into pop culture as well.

The popular physicist Stephen Hawking, whose fame grew inversely in proportion to his real scientific achievements, was able to do more in this field than others. The fewer new scientific discoveries (almost none at all since the 1980s), the greater his fame grew, thanks to various effective but scientifically insignificant statements.

When I recently called some of our political forces as always trying to take the "correct" position and fluctuate along the "general line," I meant them trying to follow fashionable trends. One of these trends is, without a doubt, mentioning science. Because until recently it sounded stylish. In addition, science is presented as something completely new and complete. Something finally correct.

There was also science in the past, but it was old and wrong. Now everything has changed, and finally, thanks to science, we understand everything correctly. What is healthy for people, what is harmful. What nature, society, the world needs. In the past, it was all vague fumbling in the dark, all sorts of deceptive teachings. You can remember the books of the American pediatrician Benjamin Spock about raising children, which were published half a century ago and was extremely popular. Including in Latvia. Today, the methods of this "scientist" would be considered completely wrong, unscientific and unimaginably archaic. And now the only correct, research-based method of raising children has been finally found, which will provide constant pedagogical guidelines for young parents forever and ever.

Old knowledge, once based on the same science, is overthrown and replaced by the new one. Everywhere. In nutrition, human relations, medicine, climatology, etc. It is self-evident and logical for young people to believe that in the past everything was wrong, but now science is finally putting everything in its place. It would be strange if young people started talking and thinking like people with more experience. It just doesn't work like that. However, if people who have already experienced several such cycles, when the bad to eat foods that had fat, then carbohydrates, then fat again, back to carbohydrates and so on, start to speak the same way as the young people then the question is, have they not learned any lessons from this experience?

The answer is clear - they have. But not that mentioning science has anything to do with the truth. They have learned that smooth integration into a fashion trend is closely linked to a person's place in society. If it is fashionable to mention science, then the best social success can be achieved by mentioning science. When Aristotle, Marx or Steve Job was in vogue, it was desirable to mention them.

What will be in vogue tomorrow, no one can predict at the moment, but it is becoming increasingly clear that this mentioning of science is gradually becoming so saturated that it is already in danger of becoming unstylish. Therefore, the most avant-garde brave ones have to think of something new. Maybe you can hit the top ten and get the title of a unicorn.

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