Peer Review Shields SCIENCE™© from Critics & Amplifies the Signal: “Trust SCIENCE™©”
Part 2: The inculcation of “scientific” authority & the emerging technocratic NWO
…it makes them—to borrow a phrase from Shelley—“the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” And yet, they are immune to—and isolated from—challenges and questioning.
My previous essay and the first in this series—Peer Review as Secular Imprimatur—somehow touched a raw nerve. Why otherwise the raft of impassioned emails? And why so hotly debated and excoriated on internet forums and discussion boards?
Perhaps the reason for the fervent response—mostly cheers; though, alas, more than a few jeers—is not hard to find. It almost seems as if my readers, whatever their ultimate position on the matter, share at least this conviction, however implicitly: that if Peer Review indeed functions as I say it does, then our world is in very serious danger.
At the outset, however, allow me to clarify something: the problem isn't with Peer Review per se; or with what Peer Review properly does: which is, chiefly, to provide a narrow sub field of science with a gatekeeping function, however imperfect. In this sense, Peer Review simply is what it is, and is frankly no one else’s business but the participating scientists.
Rather, the problem is how the public has been “entrained" (hi Amy! 👋) to regard Peer Review for what it’s decidedly not: an arbiter of scientific “truth”—signaled by its symbolic imprimatur—even within that narrow field. And far worse: the dangerous but highly-useful misperception that Peer Review has any truth value whatsoever beyond that small group.
In other words, the problem is how Peer Review broadly functions within our world as an unchallengeable purveyor of SCIENCE™©. (And SCIENCE™©—as distinct from science—is an ideology at the toxic nexus of media, military agencies, research institutions, international agencies, corporations, universities, and popular understanding.)
And when the world’s population is coerced and cajoled and forced into affirming, conforming to, and obeying “Peer-Reviewed” claims, Peer Review becomes everyone’s business.
It’s in this sense that I have argued that Peer Review’s imprimatur can be called—without hyperbole—an “instrument of mind control” for the world’s population.
First the “cheers”
A very large number of readers emailed me to recount their own personal experience (in education, in court systems, in the corporate world, etc.) regarding how Peer Review has come to be considered a kind of “indisputable” (re: not legitimately challengeable) authority.
What these readers describe—especially given what we know about Peer Review’s flaws—is truly a perilous level of deference to an “authority” that is as pervasive as it is unchallengeable.
This authority not only grows every single hour, but asserts itself as a kind of vast but invisible power that compels compliance throughout our private and public worlds: in boardrooms, legislatures, medical facilities, courts, schools, homes, etc.
Which means essentially granting to Peer Review—and the SCIENCE™© it conveys, and the handful of experts who control it—unprecedented power over nearly every aspect of our public and private lives.
Indeed it makes them—to borrow a phrase from Shelley—“the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
And yet, they are immune to—and isolated from—challenges and questioning.
In future essays of this Series, I’ll present and discuss reader’s examples.
And now for the “jeers”: Answering Critics
Much of the criticism consisted of vituperative insults (from the expected “you're an idiot" or "you don't know anything about science;” to the bizarre: that I am a “sociopath.”) And, of course, there were also the inevitable “straw man" arguments; as well as attempts at refutation, which were actually unwitting confirmations of my essay.
Yet, notably, there wasn’t a single actual and coherent counterargument.
One very common response was something I’ve seen time and again in my lifetime of challenging the assumptions of those around me:
"You can't be right, I know you're not right, but I can't say why…”
And here^^ folks, is exactly where we come up against a person’s programming.
The prevailing groupthink must be true because it’s what “everyone knows to be true”; and conversely, my essay must be wrong because it doesn’t accord with the any number of overlapping groupthink patterns in which such a person is enmeshed.
No evidence, no argument. Just a helpless, “you must be wrong.”
It's exactly what my college Russian teacher encountered when she returned from the Soviet Union to tell her colleagues what life there was actually like; or what Mattias Desmet says about Mass Formation Psychosis; it’s also precisely what Yuri Bezmenov—Soviet informant and KGB operative who defected to the United States in the early 70s—said in a series of interviews:
…eventually, the “brainwashing” will get so bad that no amount of reasoning and evidence will be able to penetrate their programming. (Paraphrased from above video and here.)
In other words: it’s almost as if they are under a spell: they just believe what they believe; and whatever conflicts with those beliefs somehow must be wrong, but they cannot say how or why.
This is what happens when closely held but unexamined, if even unconscious, assumptions and beliefs are challenged. To call such assumptions and beliefs into question is somehow threatening; it usually provokes anger. Thus the insults and inability to articulate reasoned answers.
That being said, the most cogent criticisms went more or less like this:
"What do you mean? Darwin was thoroughly Peer Reviewed! No question about it. What do you call all those years of debate, letter writing, hand-wringing, haranguing, conferences, newspaper editorials, sermons, shelves of books coming out every month from every quarter of the earth and every level of society…?” etc.
Actually, I addressed this very issue throughout the piece. Particularly here.
Nevertheless, allow me to more directly field these and other criticisms. And as iron sharpens iron, doing so will help me to clarify and develop my overall argument in this Series.
II. How actual science works: Darwin's work was challenged and debated—not “Peer Reviewed”
It is of course true—as some of my critics have argued—that Darwin’s work was debated. And on the basis of the sciences, but also philosophy, ideology, religion, theology and countless other disciplines and perspectives, etc.
However, all that debate around Darwin’s work—which, not incidentally, is still raging 150 years later—isn’t indicative of some kind of proto-Peer-Review.
Indeed, the opposite is true: actual and sustained and healthy debate is a sign of the absence of Peer Review.
Peer Review doesn’t facilitate scientific debate; it tightly-controls, shields, and terminates it.
Darwin and his advocates did not (yet) have the dubious “advantages” of Peer Review (see Sections III & IV below). Instead, Darwin and his advocates had to resort to “old fashioned” argumentation: that is persuasion based on evidence and reason.
And “persuasion based on evidence and reason”—and decidedly not authority and force—is how actual science proceeds, whereby:
A theory is proposed to explain an observed set of facts. This theory is then subjected to systematic questioning in an attempt to invalidate it. These questions are, in turn, “answered” by the proponents of the theory via experiment, research/information, and formal reasoning.
And it is through this question & answer dynamic—whether over a period of years, decades or centuries—that all good scientific theories are corroborated and strengthened.
It’s also how weak theories are found to be wanting; and, if irredeemably flawed, discarded.
But if we’re not allowed to question a theory—if questions and challenges are deemed irrelevant because the “science” is said to be “settled”—then we’re no longer in the realm of science, but in the realm of authority and ersatz religion: believe this on our say-so.
In other words, we’re in the realm of SCIENCE™©1
Actual science—not SCIENCE™©—is thereby characterized by the following three keynotes:2
Genuine science is strictly limited to the material order; and any specific scientific field to a limited aspect of matter (for example, matter in motion for physics, or composition of matter in chemistry, or living matter in biology, etc.) and does not legitimately encroach upon metaphysics and, more broadly, philosophy.
Genuine science proceeds by a slow and disinterested process of discovery and affirmation or rejection, often measured in decades if not centuries.
Genuine science is characterized by epistemic humility: it proffers claims and conclusions that are limited, conditional and transient: this is because science has matter as its object; and, even when a scientific theory is affirmed, it rarely lasts more than a century. Very rarely can anything in science ever be said to be “settled.”
But somehow in the rush to embrace SCIENCE™©—and the power it promises to a very few—we have been “entrained” (hi again, Amy! 👋) to forget the nature of actual science.
It’s almost as if much of the population do not remember what science is; and cannot perceive the vast differences between science and SCIENCE™©.
And this blindness has the character of a spell.
Consider an example: Darwin’s work was and is actually debated. But Climate Change papers/theories? Not so much.
[By “Climate Change” here and elsewhere, I mean Anthropogenic Climate Change: that the actions of human beings are catastrophically changing the climate of planet earth.]
If scholarly, intellectual and public debate around Darwin’s work was rich and varied, there is something else to notice about it: it continues unabated, and even now, 150 years later.
The contrast to Climate Change theory could not be greater, whereby scientific debate never actually occurred.
It was never—ever—legitimate to question Climate Change “science,” not even from the very beginning of the alarmism. Why? Because of the “authority” of Peer Review and SCIENCE™©. That’s why.
Remember the fraudulent hockey stick graph from decades past?
The “hockey stick” graph was based on data and algorithms that were shielded from inspection and challenge by actual experts in the fields (geology, statistics, etc.) upon which the modelers were trammeling.
But a model is just a model, not reality; and even if the data are valid and accurate (are they?), whoever creates the algorithm can shape that data any way they wish to show anything they want. How can I say this more directly and simply? How about: if you write the algorithm, you control the output.
Yet, this ludicrously-contrived graph somehow established in the population’s mind the “reality” of Climate Change.
(Incidentally, this “graph” has not aged well. But that doesn’t matter because much of the population has been “entrained” (👋) by the media to have the memory capacity of a flea; just like they have amnesia with respect the stunning number of erroneous SCIENCE™© prognostications in just the past fifty years.)
We were told from the very earliest days of “climate change” alarmism:
“You cannot argue with science. It’s Peer Reviewed. The “science” is settled. Discussion over. It’s time to act.” Et cetera.
Everyone from Al Gore to media operators to pundits to President Obama and other “leaders” repeated these phrases over and over again.
And any opposition was designated “anti-science.” And effectively silenced.
From the very beginning, anyone who wouldn’t go along with Climate Change “science” lost their jobs. Or were not promoted. Or were denied tenure. Or didn’t secure graduate positions or fellowships. Or didn’t apply in the first place. Or were ridiculed in the media. And so on. This is, in part, how “consensus” is generated.
Anthropogenic Climate Change was packaged and presented as a foregone conclusion
One that everyone—scientists and laymen alike—simply had to accept as somehow beyond questioning.
And not only accept, but affirm and conform our lives to it, as Climate Change “science” soon metastasized into institutions and legislative initiatives that began the marxist process of revolutionizing our world.
And on the basis of something that hasn’t been demonstrated to exist. And yet, bizarrely, much of the population affirms it.
Why? Not because of reason and evidence. But because of the powerful nexus of Peer Review and SCIENCE™©.
If that isn’t an example of “an instrument of mind control,” then nothing is.
III. Peer Review doesn’t facilitate scientific debate; it tightly-controls, shields, and terminates it.
Some of my critics appear to have confused Peer Review with “discussion and debate;” and seem to misperceive Peer Review as merely a formalized version of what has always existed. But this is false.
Indeed, as I shall describe in more detail in Section IV below, Peer Review tightly-controls, shields, and terminates scientific debate:
Peer Review is a tightly-controlled process whereby the like-minded “review” the like-minded.
The very people chosen to “review” are pre-screened for conformity to the “scientific consensus” around a given field; which almost guarantees that they share assumptions and “professional blindness” (see the Semmelweis Effect.) One would think that Peer Review would be designed to remedy this; when it almost seems intended to facilitate and reinforce this blindness. (Once again, the process of Peer Review becomes everyone’s business when we are expected to affirm and conform our lives to—and revolutionize our entire world in accordance with—Peer Reviewed-claims.)
Peer Review functions talismanically with respect to the population: “Trust the SCIENCE™©” without reasoning or evidence.
Large swathes of the population are persuaded to affirm and conform to the claims of SCIENCE™© entirely without reasoning or evidence.
Peer Review signifies to the population the end of discussion and debate: “It’s Peer Reviewed SCIENCE™©: it’s settled.”
Peer Review—a conveyor of SCIENCE™©—functions to signify the end of discussion and debate. (This is the obverse of actual science, in which debate is rarely, if ever, over.)
Peer Review functions as a kind of ultimate “trump card” in virtually any dispute, or with respect to seemingly any question, and in any realm whatsoever; often having overwhelming yet unjustified authority and even effectively the force of law—as we shall see in future essays—in court systems, boardrooms, legislatures, medical facilities, schools and homes.
And this, even though Peer Review is in no way an arbiter of “truth” even within a given narrow field, much less possessing any truth authority whatsoever beyond that small group.
And yet, to doubt or be skeptical of this authority—either with respect to a particular claim or more broadly Peer Review itself—is to be discredited as being somehow “anti-science.” (Which, again, abrogates the very nature of science while appearing to value it, at least verbally.)
In short, Peer Review isn’t about debate; it’s about authority. It’s about obedience. It’s about silence.
In other words, nothing like Peer Review existed in Darwin’s time; or Einstein’s, or even Watson and Crick’s time.
Now, of course there are—as I have described in Part I of this Series—a great many historical continuities between between the informal process of peer-to-peer discussion in Darwin’s time and Peer Review as a formal process since the 1970s.
However, there are also many historical discontinuities. And they are decisive. And germane to the entire point of this Series.
Having summarized them above, allow me to me enlarge upon three of these historical discontinuities.
IV. Three Historical Debate-Terminating Discontinuities of Peer Review
Historical Discontinuity #1: Peer Review is a tightly-controlled process whereby the like-minded “review” the like-minded.
“Peer review” in the past: scholars, intellectuals and researchers with multiple perspectives and from multiple disciplines participated in ongoing, informal exchanges and conversation, as well as informal and formal debate about a given study or paper; and moreover, most of them, and significantly the scientists themselves, had a strong general education — that is, broad training in many fields, and beyond what we now call ‘science.”
Formal Peer Review now: the only participants in the Peer Review process for a given paper or study are those who have been identically trained/educated in a narrow field and are selected for conformity with the prevailing groupthink in a given sub-field. (Once again, if Peer Review weren’t foisted upon the population in a myriad of ways—as it was during the pandemic psy-op—this would hardly be an issue worth noting. But since it increasingly is so, Peer Review is everyone’s business.)
As I pointed out in Part I, during the course of the 20th century, scientific research became increasingly understandable only to an evermore-specialized and smaller subset of scientists. So there are good reasons why Peer Review as we now know it emerged.
Nevertheless, not only did Peer Review not solve the problems that have always plagued science (rampant error, fraud and professional blindness), it normalized, institutionalized and extended them to virtually the entire population.
Now, it seems inarguable to me that identically and narrowly-educated people are likely to have similar if not overlapping professional assumptions and blind spots (for example, see the Semmelweis Effect); and this is especially true when the very people chosen to “review” are pre-screened for conformity to the “scientific consensus” around a given field.
One would think that Peer Review would be designed to remedy this; when in fact it seems to be intended to facilitate and reinforce this professional blindness .
And as we’ll see in future essays in this Series, the implication are enormous.
What do I mean “pre-screened for conformity to the “scientific consensus””?
Think about it: what are the chances that a Climate Change skeptic—that is, someone who doesn’t conform to the “scientific consensus” on Anthropogenic Climate Change, which is to say a dispassionate and scientifically-minded person—will:
Be chosen for a Peer Review panel on a Climate Change paper/study?
Or even be in a position to be potentially “chosen” in the first place? Would such a person even apply for such jobs, scholarships, professorships, internships, and graduate school positions? It’s doubtful that they will even survive undergraduate school.
Even if such a person intrepidly applied and were miraculously admitted to a graduate program and/or secured a fellowship: how well would such a person fare? At coming to know the "right" professors? At securing positions and grants? At obtaining a professorship? Or tenure? At graduating?
How about close to zero? Such a person wouldn’t even survive the “grooming process” socially.
And conversely, it’s also worth asking: what sort of person seeks to enter such a groupthink-dominated system in the first place? Perhaps a person who wants to fit in? Who is consensus-driven? Who wants to be secure in being in overall agreement with those around him/her? Who is submissive to superiors; and who, in turn, “grooms” novices to conform to the prevailing groupthink?
The overall effect of this “pre-screening” is as simple as it is disturbing: The participants in the Peer Review process are a highly narrow selection of identically trained people who are predisposed to conform to groupthink.
Peer Review is the like-minded reviewing the like-minded. In other words, to put it crudely, it’s a circle jerk.
Do you suppose all of this has an effect on the generation of “evidence”? Or on what appears to be “settled science”?
Or on creation of a “scientific consensus”?
Let’s silence Galileo mRNA skeptics! He doesn’t They don’t conform to Scientific Consensus!”
Neil deGrasse Tyson—described in the popular media as a “science communicator”—recently opined about the censorship of scientists skeptical of the pandemic and mRNA "vaccines.” In case you missed it, he was just fine with censoring anyone who didn’t affirm, conform and comply with the pandemic/mRNA “consensus.”
During this interview, Tyson said at one point “the quiet part out loud”:
"I'm interested in medical consensus and scientific consensus...The individual scientist does not matter."
Let’s say that again with Galileo—or, countless other examples—in mind, and consider how that actually sounds.
“I’m interested in scientific consensus. Galileo’s work does not matter. The science is settled.”
How does that sound now? How is it different from what Tyson actually said? You cannot coherently condemn the one statement but not the other.
And big gleaming SCIENCE™© talking head Tyson misunderstands both basic logic and science.
A thing may be true even if no one believes it; a thing may be false even if everyone believes it. Trillions of people believing something doesn’t make it even more likely to be correct. Even if they have believed it for centuries or even millennia.
It is simply a logical fact: all it takes is a single person, with a single argument, and or a single bit of evidence, to upend their “consensus.”
If Tyson actually understood science he would have said: “I’m interested in evidence and reason; the “consensus” is irrelevant.”
And of course, to the public the “consensus” seems unassailable.
That is how it works: the only “scientists” allowed to speak publicly about SCIENCE™©— especially in the media—are those who, like Tyson, conform to the SCIENCE™© “consensus.” So it appears that all scientists “agree.”
And it’s worth asking: with respect to the mRNA “vaccines” or Climate Change “consensus”: from where did anyone derive this claim of “consensus” anyway?
Did someone conduct a poll? Was it scientifically performed? Where is it?
Because as far as I know, no one has ever produced anything in support of any of these alleged “consensus.” Which is rather ironic, no?
Peer Review doesn’t facilitate scientific debate; it tightly-controls, shields, and terminates it.
Discontinuity #2: Peer Review functions talismanically with respect to the population: “Trust the SCIENCE™©” without reasoning or evidence.
As I argued in Part I, Peer Review is in no way an arbiter of any kind of truth; and has zero authority beyond the narrow field within which it was conferred.
A paper or study or claim may be true or valid, or not: but that fact is irrespective of its status wrt "peer review." And Peer Review confers no special status as to its truth value. In other words, we should be skeptical of all scientific claims, whatever their status wrt Peer Review.
And yet, its imprimatur wields enormous power—operating almost as a talismanic symbol of truth—over the minds of large swathes of the population, who accept and submit and conform their lives to the claims of SCIENCE™©, and wholly in the absence of reasoning or evidence.
“Trust the SCIENCE™©” and similar locutions are heard everywhere in the media and repeated by those in the population who have been conditioned by the media to say such things.
Since when in human history are we supposed to simply “Trust the SCIENCE™©”? How is it even remotely wise to do so? Especially when we are revolutionizing our entire world on the basis of their unchallengeable claims?
It’s madness, really.
The population has been neutered intellectually.
They no longer feel “qualified” to ask simple questions, even if they are simply wondering aloud whether the emperor is wearing any clothes.
And perhaps worse, the scientists themselves are increasingly isolated from questions originating outside their peer group; and don’t feel they have to answer questions, are even offended by them when challenges are not from their selected “peer group.”
And when they are challenged and cannot coherently answer—as I described my asking a few simple questions to a world-renowned string theorist—they are often genuinely bewildered that they are unable to do so.
The questions hang almost palpably in the air…
“All that money, all that prestige, and all that human capital—and I cannot answer even a simple question?”
And,
“Perhaps I need to rethink my entire enterprise?” (Which is how the world-renowned string theorist wistfully ended the night)
And still another…
“why has no one else asked these questions?”
Or, is that last one precisely why questions originating from outside the groupthink-community are verboten?
For all that money, prestige and human capital, all it takes is a few simple question to bring down the entire Anthropogenic Climate Change project
For example, ask climate change alarmists and “experts” a few simple questions and watch for the deer-in-headlights look.
Here’s one question that won’t be answered because it cannot be; yet it must be if “climate change” theory is to be coherent:
How do you determine the average temperature of the entire earth? What does that even mean? Up to what level in the atmosphere? Down to the surface of the ocean and earth? Or below?
How do you know your measurements or your “averages” are accurate? Compared to what? Even now, let alone for thousands of years past?
Via some proxy, you say? How do we know the proxy is accurate? Really? Against what independent variable?
Come to think of it: how exactly do you determine the average temperature of even a single, small room in a house? And again, what does that even mean?
What is temperature gradient? With respect to a room? Or the entire planet? What does that mean about our ability to measure the average temperature of the entire earth, or changes therein? How about hundreds if not thousands of years ago? How about predicting “average temperatures” decades if not centuries hence?
“REAL EXPERTS” cannot answer this question coherently; nor the other 26 questions I have posed. Try it yourself.
Now, it must be admitted, that actual scientists will aver privately: yes, of course, Anthropogenic Climate Change is in no way “settled.” (Very few things in actual science are.)
In fact, some of them have said the “quiet part loud” and say that the climate change graphs and so forth are “useful fictions."
So then the question almost asks itself: if not “settled science,” then why in God’s name are we coercively remolding, if not forcibly revolutionizing, the entire world on the basis of Climate Change theories?
Because that was the whole point all along: mind control in pursuit of power. The end was a technocratically-run global village where you own nothing and have no sovereignty over your life or body; where everything you have access to (education, housing, jobs, money) will be conditioned by your affirming and complying to the SCIENCE™© dictates of the technocrats. Indeed, it has already started happening.
But how is this happening? Because large portions of the population “believe” (their word choice gives away their religious devotion) that something called “Climate Change” is real, when we have little to no evidence to support this theory. (So who are the people who value science? Those who “believe” without evidence? Or those who refuse to affirm “Climate Change” in the absence of it?)
So why does the population “believe in” Climate Change?
Because big shiny talking heads brandishing big shiny graphs issuing from big shiny studies conducted by big gleaming institutions.
^^^That’s why.
And all of that boils down to a single thing in the end: Peer Review’s talismanic power over the population.
Peer Review doesn’t facilitate scientific debate; it tightly-controls, shields, and terminates it. It is the like-minded “reviewing” the like-minded.
Discontinuity #3: Peer Review signifies to the population the end of discussion and debate: “It’s Peer Reviewed SCIENCE™©: it’s settled.”
Once a study or claim or paper is granted the imprimatur of Peer Review, it is positioned in the media and public as now being beyond question; it is now beyond discussion and debate. It’s “settled.”
And locutions such as “the science is settled” and “trust science” are repeated over and over again in every venue around the given claims.
For examples, we only need to look to the (increasingly urgent) language around Climate Change—or that around the “pandemic” and the mRNA “vaccines”—to see this dynamic in operation.
There are at least three things to notice about this dynamic:
First, Peer-Review’s authority must be affirmed personally: every single person is required to repeat certain words and phrases (as if they were reciting a catechism) and demonstrate that affirmation by actions (wearing masks, injections, etc.)
Second, it’s authority must be conformed to globally; which means in part that it will be encoded either in fake laws (“mandates” or “guidelines”) or in actual law/legislation.
And finally, these conclusion and claims cannot be legitimately questioned. If you do, you will lose credibility as being “anti-science.” So it’s the classic double-bind situation: if you’re a skeptical, thinking person you have two choices:
Refuse to conform => deemed “anti-science,” a “voice spreading mis/disinformation” => you are thereby silenced.
Passively conform => you are thereby silenced.
Either way, same result. And so we have a “consensus.”
And so we are witnessing an emerging global “community” that espouses an identical groupthink.
And anyone not part of that community is effectively—and dangerously—shamed, demonized, and excommunicated.
It’s hard to imagine anything more purely authoritarian; or inimical to actual science.
And to what purpose? To control and cull the population; and with military precision. It’s hard to imagine anything more evil.
And here they are—in finely coordinated fashion—shaming, demonizing and excommunicating:
Peer Review doesn’t facilitate scientific debate; it tightly-controls, shields, and terminates it.
V. Segue to Part III in this Series: The nature & purpose of SCIENCE™©
Thus far, we have focused on how Peer Review operates in the world.
In reality, however, it is the powerful nexus of both Peer Review and SCIENCE™© that controls the population.
They form a seamless whole: Peer Review conveys SCIENCE™©.
And while not separate, we need to distinguish them to better understand the dynamics at play.
In Part III, we’ll focus on SCIENCE™© itself as a phenomenon….
