Anything—and I really mean anything—that is exposed to humans will also be exposed to the full catalog of human defects. Science is not exempt. It never was. The lab coat does not confer immunity from ambition, greed, vanity, or fear. It merely disguises them in footnotes and grant proposals.
If a career can be made from something, people will climb it like a ladder. If money can be extracted from it, they will tap it like a spring. If status can be derived from it, they will inflate it until it matches their ego—and some egos, as we know, are capable of astronomical expansion. Science is no different. It just pretends better.
The unspoken rule is simple: if you are not swimming with the current, you get nothing. No career. No funding. No tenure. Your status will end up not far removed from that of a bum at Grand Central Station—just with better vocabulary and worse health insurance. So don’t expect too much real thinking. In science, independent thought is more often a recipe for personal ruin than a path to any of the three prizes that actually matter.
Access to those prizes requires a long initiation ritual. Years in school. Grueling learning routines. Endless credentialing. And, of course, prolonged and enthusiastic kissing of professorial backsides. After investing that much time, money, and dignity, who in their right mind would risk it all on dangerous ideas? Why improvise when the path is clearly marked and well-policed? Everything can be bought—especially people with no alternatives. And once you hold that degree, that carefully laminated permission slip to exist, the question becomes brutally simple: what exactly will you do with it if you don’t comply?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/01/06/science-without-skepticism-is-just-politics-in-a-lab-coat/