The problem with modern science is that a lot of them have adopted some sort of James Randi hyperrationalism that in many ways, shuts itself off to many forms of inquiry. And in recent years, a number of “professional skeptics” seem to be whoring for corporations. They write blogs endlessly refuting just about everything we thought we had proven recently. A lot of their refutations coincidentally tend to serve the interests of big corporations and whatever their anti-scientific agenda is. This is skepticism gone berserk, and it’s pretty much what we are dealing with nowadays. In fact, I would say that modern skepticism is almost worthless due to this ostrich attitude of theirs. It’s almost science as a religious fundamentalist belief system versus an open system of inquiry.
I would accuse these folks of scientism or being scientistic. This is where ultra-rationalist science (real science, not social science BS) has gone now. It has gone so wildly conservative that it is virtually not open to new ideas or paradigms. Anyone who wants to overthrow a paradigm or prove anything new has to jump through so many hoops that nothing ever gets proven. That and they keep moving the goalposts forever.
Further, they are almost anti-scientific in almost always opting for the null hypothesis instead of theories that, though not perfectly proven, are surely better explanations than null hypothesis fallbacks, for which the evidence is extremely poor. They keep saying, “You haven’t proven it. You haven’t proven it.” But the thing is that the null hypothesis they are pushing is often a lot crazier and less sensible for whatever new theory they hate. So they are violating Occam’s Razor right there I would think. They also hate religion and any sort of spirituality to the point of obnoxiousness. Not only is this factually wrong but it is a very depressing way to view the world.
