Sophomoric: They are, if one may generalize, a people who tend to have a sophomoric and starry-eyed understanding of science and what science can do in the lives of people. One gets the impression when reading one of their articles that one is speaking with a 12-year-old nerdy sort of boy explaining the intricacies of atomic particle accelerators. A single, pertinent question will often stop their narrative cold - as if they hadn’t thought it through.
Uncritical: The writing often comes across as a Mechanics Illustrated, Gee Whiz, Who’d a Thunk It sort of writing, lacking in elegance and grace, and without the requisite skepticism that would prompt other writers to look more critically at the subject matter. At times, popular science writers fulfill the role of cheerleaders; other times, they function as ordinary mystics. Always, they come across as unthinking, uncritical, and undiscerning writers - clownish, really, if I may say so.
Shibbolethic: Certain words seemed to appear with monotonous regularity in their writing, especially words such as, “peer review.” The writers often give the impression, that by using such words, they have “nailed” those who might raise objections to their silly writings. Of course, nothing is further from the truth. “Peer review” simply means that like-minded people have looked at a document. Period. Peer review does not mean that knowledgeable people have expressed independent opinions about an article. Rather, it means that like-minded people have looked at a document and nodded their heads in unison. Peer review’s nearest analogue would be something more akin to American Legion members holding both, 1) pro-military views, and 2) saluting the American flag on Memorial Day. In both cases, it would answer the simple question, “So, what else would you expect?”
To state that a particular piece of scientific work “has been peer-reviewed” is not to make an argument for the efficacy or merits of an actual scientific work. “Peer review,” to be sure, is not a magical incantation, although it is often used as such. Rather, it is a description of misplaced enthusiasm for a particular scientific project. Most tellingly, it is an assertion of one’s complicity in current scientific beliefs. In itself, it is harmless and simply reflects the boot- polishing mindset of the modern, popular science writer. “Peer review” is an abbreviation for the longer, more complex argument that seems to say, “We just know better, so don’t argue with us.” Its effect is to tell us to close our mouths and not to question what is being said. “Peer review” is a science writer’s way of telling others to shut up because, hey, this is...Science.
Useless: Ultimately, the modern science writers’ articles are useless. And that is because they hardly ever express scientific facts and principles. Instead they present wild fantasies that cannot be verified. There is always some Big Bang that travels through an evanescent Wormhole and gets lost in a Black Hole in some outlying Nebula so remote in history as to be incomprehensible. We are expected to sit there and nod our heads up and down slowly as though we understand what is being said and as though we agree with the nonsense being spouted. The popular science writer’s audience is filled from sea to shining sea with naïf dolts who possess an extensive science jargon and - this is the important part - an empty empirical platter.
Magical Thinking: There is a catechism among science writers which seems to teach that even the smallest instance of water on the planet is proof in itself that life once existed there. How happy they are to report that a piece of ice the size of a man’s fist was found on some remote planet that has no hospitable atmosphere and gravity strong enough to sink a man to his armpits in the barren soil. And, of course, they postulate that an abundant zoology exists there without any evidence other than that dirty chunk of ice the size of a man’s fist.
There is such an insistence upon supposing that life exists among the billions and billions planetary systems beyond our own. Logic and reason alone suggest as much. And to doubt that postulate itself is to doubt the very foundations of science. But all they can show us for evidence is that dirty chunk of ice the size of a man’s fist. Then, they pretend that we are really weird because we don’t believe their asseverations. Show me life (as we know it) on that planet with a 900̊F surface temperature and an atmosphere mostly composed of ammonia gas - and I’ll eat my hat.
Subjunctive Mood: Have you ever noticed how often modern science writers use such words as “could,” or “might,” or “may,” or “possibly,” or “maybe,” or “probably” whenever they write about planets hundreds of light-years away from our own. Granted, they do not flaunt the subjunctive mood when they talk about their big-as-life neighbor next door. That’s because anyone can knock on his door and take a good look at him. But when they consider something that is so far away that nothing can be verified, then they lapse into thinking that is wondrously sprinkled with coudas, wouldas, and shouldas: “Life could have arisen from that expanse of sand and rock so far away because we have found a chunk of dirty ice the size of a man’s fist nestled in the penumbra near the pole, and that probably means that there is life on that planet.” Indeed. But how could we ever disprove such ineluctable logic?
The subjunctive mood seems to work best when its object can’t be examined close up. The part of the universe that is so remote and so far away - both in terms of distance and time - is often found to be dotted with subjunctive descriptors as numerous as the pimples on a teenage boy’s face. Happily, all of those remote and distant planets and objects are beyond practical observation and examination. Science, which normally cries out for empirical examination and experimentation, simply cannot be performed on something so remote and so far away. The so-called Big Bang Theory is the most pertinent example I can imagine that is wholly beyond the possibility of examination and experimentation. It is, to be sure, a theory that falls completely outside the realm of science. And yet, it is treated as a serious scientific theory and is taught regularly in the science classroom. Have these people got any idea what science really is?
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