What’s Wrong With Science?
Since it is so rare to find someone that appears to agree so well with my current thoughts, I felt compelled to share the transcript of Dr. John Campbell’s forward to the newly published book by Professor Paul Goddard and Professor Angus Dalgleish: Profiteering from Doom, via Clinical Press.
YouTube Video Link (for those that prefer to listen over reading):
Here is a fairly clean, readable version of the transcript. The spoken filler words, repetitions, and vocal interruptions have been removed, and the text has been organized into logical sections: Dr. Campbell’s opening conversational remarks, the formal text of his foreword, and his concluding thoughts.
Introduction: The Background of the Book
I was recently asked to write the foreword for this new book, Profiteering from Doom, by Professor Paul Goddard and Professor Angus Dalgleish, published via Clinical Press. Both are friends of the channel whom we have hosted quite a few times—especially Professor Dalgleish, a leading oncologist, immunologist, virologist, and a great communicator.
They previously wrote The Death of Science, which pointed out the immense difficulties of maintaining objective, negotiable science in our current economic and political climate. Profiteering from Doom is the sequel to that work. They asked me to write the foreword, and I thought the book’s content provided a good opportunity to offer an objective review of the state of science and, by extension, the state of affairs in the Western world.
What follows is the text of the foreword I wrote.
The Foreword to Profiteering from Doom
In a sense, this book is a logical sequel to the well-received and provocative anthology The Death of Science, published by Professors Dalgleish and Goddard.
Having developed largely in the Judeo-Christian West and flourished for the past several hundred years, science is now threatened by vested interests and specific individual groups. This is arguably the biggest threat to science—and by extension, to the wider aspects of free speech and a free society—since the time of Galileo.
Threats to current scientific development became all too obvious during the COVID debacle. During that period, modern science was systematically undermined by political overreach and the weaponization of “the science” as a modality for extending political control and manipulation. We witnessed state control, authoritarianism, the manipulation of information and data, outright lies, and the wasting of billions of pounds through government ineptitude across various countries.
Other identified threats include managerial overreach and the imposition of ideological conformity. Such top-down control mechanisms are the absolute antithesis of open inquiry and the collection and analysis of robust empirical evidence, which are required as we strive to understand the nature of reality. Science, at its core, is simply a quest to understand reality. It is not inherently complicated, though biology, chemistry, and biochemistry certainly present intricate exceptions.
It is intriguing, but sadly not surprising, that so many aspects of history, finance, industry, management, government, and the current practice of science have afforded opportunities for the unethical acquisition of money and power. We see many different areas of human endeavor corrupted in a similar manner, leading to a common, adverse conclusion.
As ordinary men and women, we might find it hard to comprehend how someone can so willingly abandon an ethical way of life in order to acquire wealth, power, and control. However, the situation makes more sense when we look at the traits of psychopathy. These personality defects include pathological lying, a grandiose sense of self-worth, a lack of remorse, and callousness. Behavioral abnormalities also include antisocial deficits, impulsivity (such as rushing to try experimental gene therapies on entire populations), a parasitic lifestyle that preys upon the working man and woman, and poor behavioral controls.
Such individuals probably represent only about 1% to 2% of the population. However, because of their intense craving for power, they disproportionately manipulate their way into influential positions. The effect of this psychopathy is amplified as it ripples through establishments and power structures. While most individuals within corporations, governments, and organizations are perfectly decent people, the risk is that the organizations themselves begin to function in a psychopathic way, operating pragmatically solely for their own benefit. Most people conform—as Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch so ably demonstrated in their conformity experiments—and those given unchecked power frequently abuse it, as Philip Zimbardo showed in the Stanford Prison Experiment.
While this text is largely written from a medical and scientific background, it goes much further by identifying broader threats to human civilization. “Existential threat” is a somewhat overused term, yet we see a distinct new fragility and vulnerability in our Western culture and nations. The possibility of a new dark age is real—a danger identified by Winston Churchill in 1940, who warned it could be made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science.
The risk posed by external manipulators who seek power, division, and control is contextualized throughout this book by historical developments. We desperately need to learn from the past. This has particular poignancy in British culture today, where historical revisionism seeks to rewrite objective history to fit modern ideological perspectives. Ironically, history itself reminds us of the inherent dangers of this practice—from Joseph Goebbels’ mythical Aryan golden race to Pol Pot’s “Year Zero” in the Cambodian killing fields. These examples remind us that revisionism is not a detached academic exercise; it has real-world consequences for the well-being and very existence of millions of people.
Today, we are under threat from similar malign forces: violent dictators, criminals, drug dealers, arms dealers, human traffickers, profiteering corporate entities, super-rich oligarchs, and theocratic bigots. We have survived threats from such entities in the past and can do so again, but we must recognize these threats for what they are and expose them to the disinfecting effects of sunlight.
Alongside generalized threats, the book highlights many examples that directly affect the health and well-being of individuals, families, and small communities. For instance, corporate interests have weaponized our natural predisposition to addiction against us. The promotion of tobacco is a classic example. However, it also serves as an example of how accurate information allows individuals to make better choices; as public knowledge of the risks grew, smoking rates declined. In response, cynical, self-serving interests sought to replace tobacco with numerous other addictions, such as ultra-processed foods, or they promoted tobacco in areas of the world where public knowledge of the risks remains limited. Similarly, gambling and pornography have been made ubiquitous by the internet. Regardless of the specific addiction, the end result remains identical: lives are ruined or cut short, and wealth is transferred from the vulnerable to rich controllers.
Ultimately, we face a fundamental question: which is more important—the individual acquisition of power, control, and money, or the well-being of individuals and the sanctity of human life?
We are all capable of independent thought and possess the ability to evaluate information using our own minds. One of the most ominous developments of our time is the attempt to control and police thought through institutional manipulation. Just as previous regimes used propaganda to get their own way, we must choose to use our brains based on objective external criteria.
Unfortunately, ideas prescribed by vested interests—often completely erroneous—spread easily through a susceptible population. Consider how many times politicians repeated the phrase “safe and effective” when the reality was precisely the opposite. This phenomenon of widespread population delusions is not new. In 1841, Scottish journalist Charles Mackay published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, critiquing the widespread popular beliefs of his day. What has changed today is primarily the unprecedented scale and speed afforded by the internet.
When delusional ideas become normalized and acceptable, they become dangerous. As Salman Rushdie observed, one of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable. What was unthinkable to our parents’ generation is thinkable to us, and is routinely done by our children’s generation. The changes we have seen in Western society have occurred within a single generation. Members of past generations would consider it unthinkable that babies could be aborted up to the point of birth in the UK without criminal sanction, or that the Parliament would pass a third reading of a terminally ill adults’ end-of-life bill.
In his 1979 publication Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Francis Schaeffer observed that each era faces its own unique blend of problems, and our own time is no exception. Those who regard individuals as expendable raw material to be molded, exploited, and discarded do battle on many fronts with those who see each person as a unique, special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable individual. We are at risk of allowing vested interests to take priority over human well-being, and it has become necessary to resist these malevolent forces.
In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Generals Franco and Mola had four military columns approaching Madrid. However, they famously relied on a “fifth column” within the city to covertly undermine it from within through espionage, sabotage, destabilization, disinformation, intimidation, and the clandestine mobilization of internal sympathizers to aid the external attack. The reader may well see parallels with modern problems here. The issue with Madrid in 1936 was a disparate population ideologically divided in thought and fundamental political beliefs. These internal divisions, fermented by the fifth column, made the city brittle and vulnerable to a fascist takeover.
Conversely, group cohesiveness gives strength through unity of purpose, whereas internal divisions lead to weakness and existential vulnerability. This principle of unity within a nation or group, predicated on shared fundamental beliefs, is as ancient as it is obvious. Nearly two millennia ago, Jesus stated: “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3:24-25). Once internal divisions reach a particular threshold, any kingdom, household, or organization will inevitably fail.
It is time to look more analytically at what is happening in our modern world, and this book is a reasonable place to start. Many of the maneuvers of those who would subjugate and control us are executed by secret groups maneuvering behind closed doors. However, just as we cannot see an area of high atmospheric pressure but can feel the wind hitting our faces, we can clearly see the effects of these manipulators—even if they are too cowardly to show their faces overtly. Instead, they work through hidden, cryptic methodologies.
As Dr. Miles Bennell observed in the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers: “At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn’t.” Something evil had taken possession of the town.
Conclusion
The problems we face in science and the problems we face in society at large share a massive amount of commonality. We need to recognize them and take action before it is too late. That is exactly what we are trying to do here: talking about good science, exposing corruption, and highlighting the amazing opportunities afforded by the natural world that are currently being suppressed because they do not suit the economic aspirations of specific individuals.
Let us be more aware and move forward, because life, friends, family, and the human race at its best are certainly well worth fighting for.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational and entertainment purposes only— it is not financial advice or is in anyway intended to provide any financial recommendation.
“Independent News Reporting by Ken Burridge”
Independent journalist, blockchain and sustainability activist, EV of the Year Judge, photographer, and author that has published over 1500 articles. Mr Burridge’s travels have taken him to over 40 countries and 300+ major cities. He is originally from the USA, but has been primarily residing in Australia since 2007. Connect to Ken Burridge on: Twitter, voice, facebook, minds, Linked in, Uptrennd, official website
