Unsettled Science

    In old horror movies scientists are often pictured as lab coat wearing men of independent means, paying their minions out of their personal fortune so they can pursue their peculiar scientific passions. Though we recognize that as ridiculous, somehow we still think the money for scientific research comes from wealthy philanthropists who want nothing in return--except possibly lab coats. The truth is, research institutes have corporate sponsors and competition for independent grants is cutthroat. When your dietary research is funded by say, Cheetos, you are highly motivated to conclude Cheetos are a daily nutritional need.
     Besides the desire to satisfy sponsors, scientists know that finding the biggest, oldest, or most unique ___________ practically guarantees fame and funding. No scientist wants to be the discoverer of, for example, a fossilized spork. So if they dig up such a thing, they quickly undiscover it. In addition, scientist or not, all data is interpreted through a paradigm--a set of assumptions. For many years the prevailing paradigm has been evolution. Scientific evidence that doesn't support evolution is either black-listed from mainstream publications or ridiculed like the science nerds themselves had been ridiculed in junior high, minus the swirlies. The new paradigm is global warming--particularly human caused global warming. If global warming, which objective evidence admits has been happening for 10,000 years, is man-caused, it opens a huge marketing opportunity for products to reduce greenhouse gases. Not to mention the political power that America forgoing fossil fuels would give nations who can't currently compete economically with ours. That is great incentive for climatologists to pick their data like unnaturally warm cherries.
    But editing evidence is not necessarily sinister. We do the same thing. You don't see many family Christmas photos posed in front of an open bathroom door. For pictures, we like to appear in the best light possible. During arguments, we choose to only mention things that support our position. Same goes for science. That is why viewing science through rose colored telescopes needs to go to that great ozone hole in the sky.  Science cannot be settled because it is not objective. And that makes our current worship of science a little unsettling.