An
engineer of '90s PBS Kids fame by the
name of Bill Nye “the Science Guy” has recently made many controversial
headlines, contrapositioned by those within the “Scientific Community” who
dismiss him and his statements as the simple opining of a mere engineer (pronounced with a lethal dosage
of vitriolic venom). While this post takes no position with regard to the
specific content of Mr. Nye’s statements, the recent controversy occasions a
brief inquiry into the nature of what precisely constitutes the nature of
“Scientist”—must one have been degreed a Philosophiæ
Doctor (Ph.D.) to be a Scientist
properly so called?
The Scientific
Method prescribes certain criteria for a theory of natural phenomena to be held
as generally valid, including rigorous and independently reproducible hypothesis
testing. Such methodology necessarily presupposes peers of specialized,
professional competence; hence the relegation of Natural Philosophy to the See
of Academia, possessing plenary and exclusive jurisdiction over the theologians
of “all things visible”.
With
science thus wholly professionalized,
all those lacking degreed credentials regulated by authority of the Academic
See were henceforth declared anathematized. The scientific writings of
non-scientists were systematically declared heretical by the Censor Scientiæ, and those claiming the
title “Scientist” without the sanctioned ordination of the Academic See were
declared excommunicated latæ sententiæ,
notwithstanding the validity of specific truth-claims so advanced.
Those
who dare defy the monopolistic power-grab of the Scientific Community are henceforth
declared schismatic pseudo-scientists, wolves maliciously misleading the flock
of secular citoyens.
But in the beginning it was not so.
The
term scientist has a recent
etymological gestation, brought to birth by the quasi-pontifical high priest of
secular social theory Auguste Comte in the 1800s. Long before the Christian Era
up until the dawn of the Modern, Natural
Philosophy was the area of philosophic enquiry whose specific content
encompassed the workings and wonders of the natural world. Natural Philosophy
predates the Scientific Method, originating in Presocratic Greece, refined by
Medieval Scholastics, and systematically developed by Renaissance thinkers of
Neoplatonic Keplerian ilk.
Paradoxically,
in the age of tyrants, monarchs, emperors and autocrats, the domain of licit
scientific inquiry remained open to all persons, while in our own egalitarian age
of parliaments, republics, populists and popularizers, democratic claim to legitimate
science has been all but eradicated by the crippling totalitarian clutches of academic
autocracy.
Natural
Philosophy maintains no monopoly on the practice of systematic inquiry into the
nature of the Cosmos; sed contra the
ranks of natural philosophers are by nature open to any lover of wisdom who
sincerely pursues the truth of physicality.
But
in our New Dark Age, the democratic light of natural philosophy has now been all
but extinguished, for a Ph.D. constitutes the
prerequisite for attaining the rank of “Scientist” from which Academe grants no
dispensation. Remedially, the Weltanschauung of Natural Philosophy must be restored to its rightful claim as definitional defender of those who profess the work of "Scientist", for if a genuine philosophia
were again demanded of those declared Teacher of the Love of Wisdom, the
swelling ranks of pseudo-scientific sycophants would surely begin to thin.
(Mostly written 4 June 2017, 5:30pm; completed 2 December 2017, 6:30pm.)
