Why the Scientocracy Won't Work

Regular readers of SHS know that I am critical of the trend to let "the scientists" decide what is ethical and what our public policies should be. That not only subverts science by mutating it into an ideology or social movement rather than a method (scientism), but is nuts because scientific "facts" often change at breakneck speed.

Example: A new report from Australian astronomers warning of global cooling. From the story:

The study's lead author, Ian Wilson, explains further, "[The paper] supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years."

According to Wilson, the result is a strong, rapid pulse of global cooling, "On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by 1 - 2 C."

A 2 C drop would be twice as large as all the warming the earth has experienced since the start of the industrial era, and would be significant enough to impact global agriculture output.

Screenwriter William Goldman once famously said about Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." To some (obviously, not literal) degree, that is--and should be--true about science because otherwise new and novel theories will never be explored. Still, this story that utterly pierces the global warming meme is a caveat against confusing the current scientific consensuses, which are always subject to change, with truth.