“"public action" and "legal steps" were needed to prevent XXX." Such steps should be "dictated by science and not by political expediency,"”
Who does not recognise this pattern? Every other day someone tells us we have to “follow science” and listen to this or that expert. It has to be done as quickly as possible, because the science (or expertise) is clear and further deliberation not required.
So, what could XXX be? Described by Thomas Sowell in Knowledge And Decisions this is an example that is about 100 years old. In this case it is: "the "decline of American intelligence."
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| 1930s exhibit of the Eugenics Society |
It was the pressure of intellectuals about 100 years ago to implement their recent fashionable idea: eugenics. Let's decide who is supposed to procreate and who is not. Who decides? Obviously the infallible experts and scientific counselers.
(1) the almost casual ease with which vast expansions of the amount and scope of government power were called for by intellectuals to be used against their fellow citizens and fellow human beings, for purposes of implementing the intellectuals' vision,[…]
(2) the automatic presumption that differences between the current views of the relevant intellectuals ("experts") and the views of others reflect only the misguided ignorance of the latter,[…]
(3) the confidence with which predictions were made, without reference to any prior record of correct predictions nor to any monitoring processes to confirm the future validity of current predictions,[…]
(4) the moral as well as intellectual superiority that accompanied the implicit faith that the current views of the "experts" represented[…]
(5) a concentration on determining the most likely alternative conclusions rather than whether any of the conclusions had sufficient basis to go beyond tentative cognitive results to sweeping policy prescription.
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