Why Scientific Integrity is Vital to the Future of Our Country

By Dr. Rob Sheldon

According to rocket scientist Rob Sheldon, science is a very fragile construct. Basically, there are two strange attractors that will neutralize science: ideology and pragmatics. Ideology says that the theory is the most important thing, so when the data don’t match the theory, you change the data. Global warming has become ideology, as has Darwinian evolution, just as assuredly the Russians made their Marxist Lysenko biology into an ideology. As Karl Popper said of Freudian psychoanalysis, a theory is no longer science if it can’t be disproven. It has become ideology. When we sacrifice our data to ideology (as was done by scores of climate scientists), our science dies.

The opposite side of the problem is pragmatism. Everything comes down to a recipe. This is much like the story of the Polynesian king whose hut burned down around his pig, and discovered roast pig, so every year the natives hold a festival that involves burning down a hut. Recipes without theory cannot progress, nor can theories without data, but the two must be held in a delicate balance. When we sacrifice our theories to pragmatism, we end up with “just-so” stories, with contradictions and lacunae incapable of resolution, a mess of contradictory, independent “facts” that we paper over with non-theories such as naturalistic neo-Darwinian evolution, unable to make progress, to make predictions, or even make sense of what we already know. The science may not die, but it languishes in the doldrums.

Integrity in science is therefore essential to progress, to success, to vitality, to our children. If we want to leave a legacy of any value for children, we must not chase after dollars or fame or recognition, but after the twin virtues of truth and righteousness.