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Scientism

"Trust the science" is not a scientific statement. It's a demand for obedience dressed in a lab coat.

Science is a method. Scientism is what happens when that method gets elevated into a belief system — when "science says" becomes a way to shut down questions rather than open them. The scientific method invites scrutiny, values doubt, and expects every claim to defend itself against challenges. Scientism does the opposite: it treats scientific consensus as sacred, positions experts as priests, and frames scepticism as heresy.

You can spot scientism whenever questioning a claim gets you labelled "anti-science." The method itself welcomes challenges — that's how it works. An institution that punishes questions isn't practising science. It's practising authority with scientific branding. When a politician says "the science is settled" to end a debate, they're not making a scientific argument. They're making a political one.

This matters because real science is messy, uncertain, and constantly revising itself. Scientism flattens all of that into neat certainty, which is exactly what science isn't. The irony is sharp: the people who most loudly claim to defend science are often the ones most hostile to its actual method — which starts with the willingness to say "I might be wrong."

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