Words From Bob Park
The book Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, written by physicist Bob Park, was published in 2000, twenty five years ago. Park foresaw many of the problems science faces today. Here’s a quote from the preface of his book.
“Of the major problems confronting society — problems involving the environment, national security, health, and the economy — there are few that can be sensibly addressed without input from science. As I sought to make the case for science, however, I kept bumping up against scientific ideas and claims that are totally, indisputably, extravagantly, wrong, but which nevertheless attract a large following of passionate, and sometimes powerful, proponents. I came to realize that many people choose scientific beliefs the same way they choose to be Methodists, or Democrats, or Chicago Cubs fans. They judge science by how well it agrees with the way they want the world to be.”
I urge you to read Voodoo Science, so you can see that anti-science forces are not new. Park was fighting them a quarter century ago. Then, however, they hadn’t yet captured one of our two main political parties and gained control of the federal government. Perhaps it’s best that Park did not survive to see how voodoo science has transformed into the Republican War on Science. Had he not passed away, the state of science today probably would have killed him.