CLERGY of TRUTH vs. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and REASON

Academics, Experts, Scientific Polls, & Professional Journalists
The New Clergy of Truth?

Here's something that's been bugging me about
Academics, Experts, "Scientific Polls", People with Letters, Phd., Esq., et. al., etc.,
and even "official reports" in "newspapers of record" by Professional Journalists,
who love to celebrate the above categories as "official sources".

Experts are fine. Experts are necessary and important.
Peer reviewed science is important and necessary.

Believe it or not, there are areas where I am a subject matter expert.
(I know this may shock  many people)

But we should never take the words of experts
as Divine Immutable Word of God,which should never be challenged.

There is a big problem when we ASSUME that a blogger is not to be trusted
over the words of a Professional Journalist or an Academic.

There is a big problem when we ASSUME that a POLL is a better barometer
of public opinion THAN OUR OWN EXPERIENCE.

Science diverged from the Priests/Clergy in the middle ages based on the premise
that TRUTH is NOT that which is passed down from on-high on clay tablets.

Science is NOT premised on the fact that published papers-- the modern equiv. of clay tablets-- contain the Divine Immutable Truth.

The basis of science-- going back to Galileo and the Age of Reason, is that
the final arbiter of TRUTH is ultimately
the perceptions and reason of
the individual, conscious observer.

That's YOU!  (and me). 

Yes, I agree, science is very useful. I have made a fine living in the scientific field of Engineering.  I have studied the philosophy of science for many years. Here is what I will tell you.

There are some UGLY TRUTHs about SCIENCE which many academics will deny or discount:

• Science is Uncertain (cf. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle)
• Science is always Incomplete
• Science can can produce meaningless jibberish (cf. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem)
• Science involves judgment and interpretation of the facts
• Science is based on unproveable axioms which must be taken on faith!
• What Science considers as Truth must be Falsifiable!
• Science is BLIND to things it cannot measure.
• Science requires repeatability and thus IGNORES one-time events.

I could go on, but that's enough for now.

BOTTOM LINE: Any academics, scientists, journalists, or even lay people who appeal to experts, and published papers as being the final arbiters of truth are in fact creating a kind of NEO-CLERGY.

This is in opposition to the basic scientific principles of OBSERVATION and REASON.

A wise man named Siddhartha Gotama who lived 5,000 years ago once said this:

"Do not take my word as truth, because you see me as some kind of guru.
Put what I am claiming as truth to the test of reason.
Trust yourself. Trust your reason. Trust your own observations."

Siddhartha Gotama is also known as The Buddha, one of the greatest scientists who ever lived.