Not Being Cynical Enough

We speak of prudence and wisdom.  Cynicism is a useful tool in the wise man's kit.  The problem is that we are apt not to use it as indiscriminately as we should.  We fail to be cynical about cynics, especially the one in the mirror.  If you peel cynicism down to its core, what you will find is a tendency to look for ulterior motives.  For example, my wife didn't like some of the brick work on our house so she called a couple of specialist contractors out to look it over.  They completely agreed with her assessment that expensive and extensive repairs were needed.  What's the problem?  The specialists were going to profit if we hired them to "fix" the work.  If a man stands to make money by telling you that something is wrong, a significant percentage will tell you something is wrong. 

The Circle Bastiat offers an excerpt about Scientism from Austin Hughes in the New Atlantis: 

The fundamental problem raised by the identification of “good science” with “institutional science” is that it assumes the practitioners of science to be inherently exempt, at least in the long term, from the corrupting influences that affect all other human practices and institutions. Ladyman, Ross, and Spurrett explicitly state that most human institutions, including “governments, political parties, churches, firms, NGOs, ethnic associations, families … are hardly epistemically reliable at all.” However, “our grounding assumption is that the specific institutional processes of science have inductively established peculiar epistemic reliability.” This assumption is at best naïve and at worst dangerous. If any human institution is held to be exempt from the petty, self-serving, and corrupting motivations that plague us all, the result will almost inevitably be the creation of a priestly caste demanding adulation and required to answer to no one but itself.

I have often suggested to various people who trust in Science! that Science! is hardly to be trusted because it often comes down to funding.  The usual rebuttal is that Science! -- unlike, say, religion, is self-correcting because there's money in that, too.  And that may be true on occasion.   But right now, for something like climate research, the money goes to the climate change advocates.  So everybody will find evidence of anthropogenic climate change and the disastrous impacts of it. 

Do you trust the police to police themselves?  Do you trust the Justice Department to arrest itself over Fast and Furious?  Do you trust the Obama Administration to accurately assess its mistakes and cover-ups in Benghazi?  If you do, you are not nearly cynical enough.  I would suggest the same is true within the realms of science.