Science is a word we're hearing a lot these days. "Follow the Science", "Trust the Science", "It's Science!" but how many people truly understand what science is? Science is defined as "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment."
The key words to consider here are 'observation' and 'experiment'. Science requires a free platform for it to function properly. Sadly, history reveals to us that attempts to dismantle the free platform upon which science propagates has been evident throughout the ages. And today is no different.
We, like many of our fellow Americans, are not scientists. We rely on the time-tested principle of credential; from which we gather information and solidify our own assessments. Even other scientists do this. Scientists in one field will routinely examine data published by scientists from another. Information is essential.
It's through this free exchange of data that the art of science is perfected. Scientific findings need to be examined, put to the test, and rigorously questioned until all uncertainty is vanquished. Vera Rubin's work in identifying the galaxy rotation problem, for example, offered some of the first evidence for Dark Matter, confirmed through subsequent decades of observation and testing.
When scientific data and information are suppressed, it weakens the model of science itself. Big Tech, virtually monopolizing today's hyper-connected exchange of information via social media, video archive websites and search engines, is fundamentally damaging science itself through its campaigns of censorship-- censorship of scientists and doctors who are challenging what has been decided as ubiquitous truth by the "arbiters."
One of many examples, In mid-February, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by John Hopkins professor of medicine and public health Martin Makary arguing that a combination of vaccines and natural infections would result in herd immunity in many parts of the United States by the end of April. Facebook quickly flagged the editorial as “misleading” and having “very low overall scientific credibility.”
When science is centralized and opposition is dubbed as 'misinformation' by so-called Big Tech 'fact checkers' and the government, the results are devastating. One, science is no longer science, because science requires the very questioning that they are suppressing. Two, the general population either trains themselves to accept information from only once source, or they become distrusting of science, and thus the word 'science' itself becomes diluted or meaningless to them.
The people need to hear opposition. They need to see questioning, testing and retesting from various sources. They need real science to flourish again, because not all scientists agree with what's being marketed by the CDC and Big Tech as the final 'truth'.