A Stitch in Haste

Pharyngula, for those who don’t know, is a leading science blog run by PZ Myers, a vital lieutenant in the war against “intelligent design” shamanism.

Today, weary of the ID campaign, he turns his sights to some of the other “loony ideas” he “despises”: acupuncture, astrology, ESP, Feng Shui, ghosts, homeopathy, UFOs, Velikovsky, chiropractic…

…oh, and libertarianism, which he describes as “the new religion for the self-centered.”

How embarrassing for him.

Of course, one wonders just how “scientific” a mind truly is that would conflate a political philosophy (i.e., a system of normative principles) with various systems that all rely on demonstrably false positive descriptions of metaphysical reality. Alchemy is demonstrably false. Astrology is demonstrably false. And so on.

Libertarianism, or any political philosophy for that matter, cannot be similarly debunked metaphysically. There are other ways to evaluate and critique political philosophies, to be sure. But just as religion is never “hard science” so too is political philosophy never “hard science.” That is, after all, why we distinguish “social sciences” from “physical sciences.”

Myers is more than entitled to despise libertarianism. He’s also more than entitled to know that nobody gives a damn. Scientists should stick to science and leave multidisciplinary blogging to multidisciplinary minds.

POST SCRIPT: For more objectively demonstrable evidence that PZ does not even understand what libertarianism actually is, see his previous post, about which he is now boasting. On the bright side, he seems to confuse big-L Libertarianism with small-l libertarianism. Perhaps someday he’ll educate himself on the difference.

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