Science & common sense, verses science as a belief system and Covid19

Science is a method of enquiry based on reason, evidence and hypothesis. It is a stylised, investigative and methodical form of “common sense”. From it, comes our ability to think for ourselves which is probably our greatest gift both for our own personal development and for a just and empathetic society based on freedom of expression and democracy.

Up to a point, science has been a God send for humanity. It replaced dangerous superstition and self-limiting belief systems with a method of enquiry that led to innovation, prosperity and freedom of expression. It helped us move away from feudalistic control towards democracy and other more desirable and less controlling systems of governance.

All gifts have a flip side. The knowledge that comes from science or distortions thereof have been used to accrue obscene profit and power which has contributed to economic disparity, poverty, poor health, mass death and destruction. However, all these awful things were not uncommon well before the scientific renaissance arrived. Knowledge can be usurped by those who fall into the trap of thinking that ever more wealth and ever greater influence/power is the pathway to happiness and fulfilment. History and critical thought demonstrates that the accumulation of wealth and/or power beyond what is healthy and without checks and balances is a pathway to misery, suffering and ultimately self-destruction. I would go as far as to suggest that this phenomenon is essentially a law of human nature that repeats itself and that we are currently at a critical point in terms of when and to what extent it manifests itself well within our lifetime.

In the same way that the gift of the word of God, which some agnostics and atheists would call an understanding of the way of all things, or the nature of reality, was usurped and weaponised by powerful and misguided factions of the church and by royalty, science as a belief system has now been weaponised by Governments and corporations. Whilst a very few individuals may be fully aware and proactive within this growing phenomenon most people’s participation is unwitting or is complicit through misunderstanding. The antidote to this type of abuse of knowledge is the freedom to express it, having thought about it calmly and reasonably, free of fear and other forms of coercion.

I think the Covid19 crisis, perhaps more aptly referred to as a manmade disaster borne in large part of our own lack of common sense, has a silver lining for humanity. We may have been asleep at the wheel with respect to real world events and their cause, but it is not too late to redirect our future if we think for ourselves at critical times. Not for a long time has the vulnerability of our freedom and prosperity and the ineptitude of Government and the media been so laid bare as it was during the Covid19 debacle. Enough people have seen this to make a difference.

Change for good, and bad has always been at the behest of a few although the main difference is that change for bad is fundamentally selfish and therefore self-limiting and self-destructive whereas change for good is only limited by the willingness of individuals to make a difference unconditionally based on empathy.

This rational is not Marxism or any other misguided denial of a healthy and necessary desire to be successful, wealthy and influential but it is a reference to obscene accumulations of wealth and power whilst others, particularly children are obscenely poor and without influence. The only rational response to becoming a billionaire is the realisation that we haven’t given enough of our wealth and influence away yet, but this can only be done willingly, or we risk replacing one tyranny with another. Peaceful, free expression of all views, preferably respectful views but including marginal and offensive views when necessary is absolutely essential for our freedom and prosperity. Recent Government legislation and woke trends that are afoot today risk jeopardising this.

Part of common sense, or science, is a healthy degree of scepticism. The old saying “believe none of what you hear and half of what you see” is a good place to start rebuilding a level of common sense that will fix what is a very fixable problem, if tackled at the grass roots. Had people noticed that they and their loved ones were not dying in droves, at least not in new and extraordinary ways, the Covid19 crisis would have fizzled out just as other alleged pandemics had repeatedly done.

Humans have a wonderful imagination, another gift. It helps us love our favourite stories and movies and much more besides. But it does make us vulnerable to the power of suggestion. A healthy imagination is one that is controlled by our own conscious thoughts. Un unhealthy imagination is one dominated by subconscious programming unchecked by conscious thought. What we watch and listen to has a profound influence on what our sub conscious tells us to do if we watch or listen to it too much or if it occurs in the absence of calm rational debate. Use of the media by Government, our Prime minister and corporations is a fact of life but it is only a bad thing if we over-indulge. Few can deny that we over-indulged in fear news during the Covid19 crisis to the point that we lost almost all perspective of the scale of the risk. We did things that would have been scoffed at during saner times and we caused untold damage to our economy, our freedom and potentially the future of our children. Waiting for an apology or arguing about what caused the Covid19 crisis is mostly counterproductive. It is not the solution to the next crisis that will surely arise if we don’t do something differently. The solution is individual peaceful self-expression and a willingness to help each other unconditionally, free of Government interference and coercion. Sometimes this will require sacrifice and bravery. If enough people think for themselves, the solutions borne of common sense, science, empathy, etc., are a foregone conclusion. Those who accepted a Prime Minister who openly admitted to using “sustained propaganda” and who used insincere jargon like “follow the science” to lead people away from the science towards dangerous compliance appear to have lost the ability to think critically, especially if they again vote for any member of Parliament who failed to foster the rational debate that could have avoided the crisis. The form of the next crisis is something of a moot point but most likely it will take its form from more grossly distorted media representation of climate change, war and economics much of which is already self-evident to those not already captured by it. Their release is in our hands.