No, Scientists Should Not Rule
Would our world be a better place if scientists were in charge? On this ID the Future from the archive, The Price of Panic co-author and philosopher Jay Richards hosts bioethicist Wesley J. Smith to discuss a tweet from Physics-Astronomy.org. The tweet read, “Imagine a world ruled by scientists, not politicians.” The drift of the tweet was: wouldn’t rule by scientists be wonderful! Smith immediately threw up a great big “Don’t go there” sign at the Epoch Times. As Smith and Richards emphasize, such an approach to governance would be disastrous, and would actually be anti-science. It would tend to corrupt the practice of science, thrust scientific specialists into positions calling for generalist skills, and further the arrogant mistake known as scientism—the view not only that nature is all there is, but also that science is the only trustworthy source of human knowledge and wisdom. As Richards and Smith go on to emphasize, political leaders should most certainly have the humility to take into account scientific insights, but they shouldn’t stop there. They also have to factor in insights from economics, law, ethics, and other fields. Richards and Smith use the response to the coronavirus pandemic as a case in point.
Dig Deeper
- Read Smith’s latest book, Culture of Death: The Age of ‘Do Harm’ Medicine.
- Watch Andrew McDiarmid’s recent interview with Wesley J. Smith on frightening abuses of science: