Most of us love a rebel.
Whatever a person’s politics it’s a fair bet to say they weren’t really rooting for Darth Vader against the Jedi. Or the agents of the Matrix against Neo and Trinity. Or even the Sheriff of Nottingham against Robin Hood.
While we might argue about the interpretation of it, most of us are against injustice and oppression. A sense of fairness even seems to be instinctive in children:
Which perhaps explains why, when Youtube banned David Icke, I saw numerous people take an interest in his ideas as a result. ‘There must be something to it if he’s being censored!‘ was the sentiment.
In a sense, there’s nothing new to this. Any publisher knows that the key to getting a best-seller is to get the book banned.
But in the case of David Icke, a former footballer and then television sports presenter who, in 1991, decided he was the son of God, it’s a bit more troubling.
Icke is widely mocked and criticised for his claims that the world has been infiltrated by shape-shifting reptiles who live among us. That’s not why he was banned from social media. There are in fact 2 interpretations of why he was kicked off:
1. Because he was telling the truth! As Icke himself put it on Twitter: Fascist Facebook deletes David Icke – the elite are TERRIFIED.
2. Alternatively it’s because he said a Jewish group was behind COVID-19, for alleging that handshakes don’t spread the disease and for supporting the burning of 5G masts in the UK. In other words, he was promoting information that was actively harmful.
Emotionally we might react with sympathy to an individual being suppressed by monolithic corporation like Google or Facebook. It’s like David and Goliath!
It’s worth noting though that there are any number of people on Youtube and Facebook who post every day about aliens, secret conspiracies and conversations with God. They’re not banned because whether they’re genuine prophets or just hopeless deluded, they don’t really hurt anyone.
The only people who get banned are the ones who say things that might lead to harm or hate against other social groups. That’s why Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan aren’t allowed there, for example.
Rebel scientists
When you’re researching online something like cures for cancer, the effects of 5G radiation or the safety of vaccines, you will from time to time come across scientists who say something different. Perhaps they claim to have a cure for a disease for instance that your doctor says has no cure.
But it’s just lies! The big drug companies want to keep you in the dark so they can sell you their treatments instead.
Instinctively that idea might be appealing. A lone, brave scientist facing down the Evil Pharmaceutical Empire. What a hero.
The renegade scientist or doctor may even have faced persecution, being fired from their job, losing the right to practise medicine, perhaps being sued in the courts.
You see? That’s how scared they are of the truth!
It’s certainly one interpretation.
Another interpretation might be that they’re deluded. Or they’re out to make money. After all, if you’ve heard of them then the media exposure is certainly working in their favour.
Take the incredibly popular mini-documentary, Plandemic, for example. Circulating while a large population of the world was under lockdown from COVID-19, many people took the words of Judy Mikovits, a former medical researcher, to be the gospel truth about the coronavirus. She was a scientist. She spoke sciencey language and she claimed the powers that be wanted to suppress her perspective.
She had a point there.
The film was quickly banned from Youtube and other social media. But not because it contained dangerous truths. Rather it was because it was a dangerous piece of propaganda that endangered lives.
Mikovits warned the world about the money-making intentions of Bill Gates but she has now made a career for herself in speaking engagements to conspiracy theorists everywhere. No doubt her book sales have significantly improved, too.
Another tragic example is that of Andrew Wakefield. He published a study in the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, that declared a link between vaccines given to infants and the onset of autism.
It was eventually discovered that not only had he faked his data in the study but he had also been paid some £400,000 by lawyers representing families with autism.
Wakefield’s study was withdrawn and he was barred from practiising medicine. His supporters naturally see him as a prophet-like figure persecuted by the authorities for telling the truth. Whereas he made a profitable career for himself, even gaining favour with Donald Trump who echoed the disproven vaccine/autism claim from a podium.
Meanwhile the fears that Wakefield stoked have led to a decline in parents vaccinating their children and diseases such as measles, which still kill over a hundred thousand people each year, have increased considerably.
Part of the reason that we might emotionally side with frauds like Wakefield is that some of it rings true. The big pharmaceutical companies have done some terrible things.
But that’s not a problem so much with science as it is with unregulated capitalism.
What about famous scientists?
Sometimes even famous, respected scientists come out with some strange stuff. An example would be Rupert Sheldrake, a prize-winning biologist who claims that the speed of light isn’t constant but changes all the time. He also claims that dogs know when their owners are coming home.
Not many people react emotionally to ideas about the speed of light but which dog owner doesn’t secretly believe their doggy doesn’t understand them on a deep and meaningful level?
Sheldrake isn’t taken seriously by the scientific community and he puts that down to blind dogma. And who isn’t against blind dogma? He comes across a open-minded breath of fresh air in a stuffy academic world.
There’s no world government of science, however. Rather there’s a community of researchers, universities and journals who generally come to a consensus based on the available evidence.
Yes, it’s not always as interesting as pet telepathy. But you can be sure that if there really was compelling evidence for something as exciting as that then scientists would definitely pay attention.
Why would a respected scientist claim something that simply isn’t true?
Actually it happens quite a lot. Whether due to laziness, eccentricity or arrogance, many distinguished scientists have pushed all kinds of crazy ideas.
But doesn’t science progress one funeral at a time?
Sometimes, it’s true, attitudes can be slow to change.
An example would be when two Australian researchers declared that bacteria were responsible for stomach ulcers. It was a long-standing belief in medicine that bacteria couldn’t survive in the stomach’s acidic environment.
One of the researchers went so far as to do a biopsy to prove he didn’t have ulcers, then swallowed a dose of the bacteria and developed stomach ulcers. Then he took an antibiotic and cured them.
They met with terrific resistance but once the evidence was quite clear they were both rewarded with a Nobel prize for their work. Their research is now widely recognized and accepted.
Every now and then something like that happens. But you can bet it makes the news when it does.
So how can you tell the difference?
When you come across one of these renegade scientists they generally begin by laying out all their qualifications and credentials. They seem to know what they’re talking about. Certainly more than most of us do.
So here’s a quick checklist can help you spot fake science:
– are they claiming that all the big companies, the governments and the scientists of the world are all trying to keep you in the dark?
– do they already have a colourful/controversial history?
– do they associate with conspiracy theorists?
– are they making money off this?
Science that isn’t really science but sort of looks like it is called pseudo-science and it makes a lot of money out of people who believe too easily. Right now for instance many of the people who are spreading the alarm about 5G are making a lot of money by selling protective devices such as a little USB stick.
If you’re wondering how a USB stick can protect you against radiation…I’m afraid I can’t give you a good answer.
Because there isn’t one.
Further reading:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000k2mj – a podcast about how people make money off fears about 5G and similar pseudo-science
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plandemic – Plandemic thoroughly debunked.