Science is changing — on Twitter, at least.
On Wednesday, new CEO Elon Musk continued his shaking of the social site’s Etch A Sketch. He announced a new science policy:
New Twitter policy is to follow the science, which necessarily includes reasoned questioning of the science
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2022
It’s a noted departure from the past. The old policy wasn’t so much a scientific policy as a political one. For quite some time online and elsewhere, Trust the Science™ has appeared to be more of a “You are not allowed to express distrust in the science” dictate. And unfortunately, “the science” has been repeatedly wrong. Also lamentably, not being able to say things that may be — or even are certainly — incorrect isn’t so classically American.
But what is science, anyway? Contemporarily, it seems to be a combination of science and ideology:
University Seeks Science Professor Who Can Be Anything but a One-Spirit Man With a Penis
State University of New York Trains Nurses on the Anatomy of the ‘Genderbread Person’
Biology Professor Insists More Transgender Scientists Will Produce ‘Much More Robust Science’
Scientific American: The Racist Myth of Binary Sex Wasn’t Invented ‘Til Nearly 1800
Nearly a Dozen Medical Schools Undergo an ‘Antiracist Transformation’
University Renames Its Women’s Clinic Because ‘Women’ Was Medically Inaccurate
And if those weren’t enough:
Hospitals Are Starting to Ask Men if They’re Pregnant
Mental Health Journal’s Article on ‘Parasitic Whiteness’ Laments There’s ‘Not Yet a Permanent Cure’
Report: ‘DEI’ in Science Publications Has Surged by More Than 4,000 Percent
‘New Scientific Evidence’: World Health Organization Discovers There Are More Than Two Sexes
Science Journal Decries Racism in Geology, Claims Black People Are Too Scared to Hold Hammers
Back to Twitter, Elon took a pointed jab at Dr. Anthony “The Science” Fauci. You may recall a few of America’s highest-paid taxpayer-funded employee’s quotes:
- “A lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science…”
- “[I]t’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.”
- “[P]eople who…criticize me…are actually criticizing science.”
Mr. Musk revealed a personal science policy of his own:
Anyone who says that questioning them is questioning science itself cannot be regarded as a scientist
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2022
The nature of science, as Elon points out, is the questioning of what we think we know. Twitter’s now making room for that; before, posts were limited to what only one cultural contingent insisted it knew but didn’t.
And that’s a very good thing for the world. After all, questions provoke answers not yet found. Hopefully, other institutions will follow suit. Some may take longer than others — see “Deftly Defying Reality, California Still Insists COVID Vaccination Protects ‘Everyone Close to You.'”
Science must make room for challenges. There are very real problems in the world that require real science to solve them:
As if cat calls weren't bad enough already…
Man's Lungs Collapse Due to a Rare Case of 'Whistling Scrotum'https://t.co/2OMe9Hge1t
— Alex Parker (@alexparker1984) July 14, 2022
-ALEX
See more content from me:
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