Article by Mark Keenan.
Excerpts (my emphases):
Critics argue that by severing science from broader philosophical or spiritual questions, modern institutions emphasize data while overlooking deeper questions of meaning and truth. In this view, a kind of technocracy has emerged—one in which scientific institutions can appear less like explorers of reality and more like gatekeepers defending established doctrine. Real science seeks understanding; fake science seeks obedience.
If we are to restore genuine inquiry, we must recover not only intellectual freedom but moral and spiritual humility — the recognition that truth cannot be owned by the state, the market, or the algorithm.
[. . .]
When Truth Becomes Treason
The moralization of science has turned dissent into sin. A climate skeptic is not “wrong” — he is a “denier.” A doctor questioning mandates is not “debating” — he is “spreading misinformation.” This is the language of religion, not reason. Science without dissent is not science at all; it is propaganda. But the cost of silence in the present is immense: an entire generation is being taught that conformity equals integrity.
Restoring Scientific Freedom
The answer is not to reject science, but to depoliticize it. That begins with transparency: open data, open debate, and open funding. Research should not be filtered through bureaucratic agendas or corporate interests. Independent journals, decentralized platforms, and citizen-led inquiry offer a path forward — if the public demands it. Science belongs to everyone, not to the technocrats who manage its narrative. True environmental and medical progress will never come from censorship, but from curiosity — the very trait that built civilization itself.
A New Age of Technocratic Faith
We are entering an era where “belief in science” has replaced belief in God — but without humility or grace. Many worry that a small number of technology platforms now have extraordinary power to shape what information is visible—effectively influencing via algorithms which viewpoints are elevated or ignored.
Unless we restore the freedom to question — whether about carbon, Covid, or any future crisis — we will find ourselves living not in a knowledge economy, but in an information prison. To critics, parts of institutional science now function almost like a new secular authority—one that emphasizes compliance and control. And its heretics are, once again, the last defenders of reason.
My (PwG) thoughts on this:
“If the public demands it”, the author writes, we will get the necessary structures to return to honest science: “Independent journals, decentralized platforms, and citizen-led inquiry”.
He correctly recognises that we are in a crisis “not only [of] intellectual freedom but moral and spiritual humility”.
So, the only way to get the public to “demand” a return to proper science is to first restore “moral and spiritual humility”.
This is the task of the century for Christian churches worldwide. Unfortunately, it appears that about 99% of them don’t recognise it, at least not to its full extent.