There are two ways of understanding the term. By looking at how it manifests in today's world, and by looking at the historic context. I'll start with today..
"" The Science ""
Most people will be familiar with the "Trust the Science" mantra. This idea that Science, with a capital S, must not be questioned. It's pretty easy to see the parallels with religion, and this is often commented upon. However, what is not as well acknowledged is something more fundamental to this worldview, and that is that the "Trust the Science" types (in fact, most people in today's world really) fail to recognise the difference between mathematics and science.
Science is about observation. Fundamentally it's about making observations of the actual world. Whereas mathematics is a language. It's symbolic and abstract. Sure, maths and science make good bedfellows, and maths can be applied to science, but maths is not the real world.
A graph or table of data might be a model or symbolic representation of the real world, but it is not the real, actual world.
Even if you believe the real world can be entirely represented and understood as data, the data in a model will always be less than the real world data. Likewise data is collected and compiled by humans, with all the biases of thought and circumstance that come with that. So when it comes to science reality is primary, and models are always inferior and secondary.
However, as the "Trust the Science" people don't recognise this, and conflate the two in their minds, the data becomes more real than the actual observed world. In fact, if you find yourself debating these people you'll often be confronted with the refrain of, "Where's Your Science?!"
And what they really mean when they say this is "Where's your data?". They're not asking for an observation they can repeat. They want a study with data. They want some graphs and numbers - and if you do not have that then no appeal to logic or observation will sway them. In their minds data is the ultimate and primary source of truth.
An Example.
To give an easy example we can return to the pandemic and the issue of masking. One of my arguments against wearing a mask was that I feared they'd be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus. This wasn't based on data, but upon observation. We know that dark, damp, warm and poorly ventilated places are good breeding grounds, so it's not illogical to surmise that wearing a mask for eight hours a day might have a similar effect. However, if I raised this argument the reply would come back, "Where's your science?!" - again, in reality meaning, "Where's your study/data?".
As I had no data, I therefore had no science in their eyes.
Of course, when studies finally appeared backing up the notion that bacteria and fungus might be an issue they begrudgingly accepted it. (Though even here, once studies with data are presented there are often appeals to counter studies and different interpretations of the data. Or claims that the studies were flawed, or conducted by "discredited" people. -- The issue of authority and interpretation will be familiar when we get to the historical context.)
As you're reading this you may be thinking that my views on masks are wrong. That the issue of bacteria on masks is negligible, or that my reasoning is faulty. You could be right. However, this isn't the point. The point is that these people on the other side of the debate are so enthral to the notion that data is reality that they root their worldview in data - that is, they root their views not in first-hand experience and observation, but in abstract models and studies.
If there is no data then it doesn't exist to them, and if there is data then they believe it to be as real as the ground beneath them.
Consequently, as they're not rooted in reality, it's easy for them to get lost in fairy tales written in mathematics. Fairy tales written by men.
First there was the Word..
Now for the historic context. It's no coincidence that not long after man discovered the art of writing, books - or bibles - became the source of all truth. This wonderful new technology came along - a way of putting ideas down into stone or clay - and lo, it became the true authority.
We still have this sense now - "It was written in a book, it must be true."
Of course, most "intelligent" people today understand only too well that books are written by men, and that like men they can be false. Still though, this appeal to text has never quite went away.
"Source?!"
A written source is seen as something more solid and authoritative than a general opinion. It's afforded more weight and gravity. Even the "intelligent" academics that pooh pooh the various Bibles will get very angry if you doubt a historic source that backs up their particular worldview. "It's written down, we have the evidence!"
Nevertheless, in spite of this lingering reverence, since the advent of the enlightenment we've left the true worship of books behind. We now have a purer symbolic language to etch the word of God down in: mathematics.
Maths, with its universal beauty, has transplanted the written word, and it's no coincidence that with the rise of reason and science it has become the true language of scribes and priests. Now, just as Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religionists once took a book to be more true than reality itself, so Scientists take data to be truer still. The graph is more real than the outside world. The table of data is sacrosanct and must not be questioned.
Lo, we have the data.
And lo, once we get enough data - once we have a book big enough - we will have all the answers.
I'm getting a little bit heady and over the top here, but you get the point I'm making. The modern hierophants, arguing over graphs and making appeals to authority, are little different to priests arguing over different textual interpretations. Lost in abstract things, their egos tied up in the arcana, unable to come back down to earth from the ivory tower.
"Following the Science."
Followers for sure, but it is not science they're following. It's data - again, data that is collected, collated and divined by men. In fact, there's that other common saying we hear from governments these days that implies the same thing,
"We're led by the data."
At least this one is more accurate in its literal sense.
Anyway, this is what I mean when I say the 'worship of numbers,' and in my view it's actually quite dangerous - as dangerous as any past religion. As all these politicians, academics and experts are true believers in the data, and are simply incapable of understanding that data is not reality.
They'll bow down to the holy graph (or to the infallible AI algorithm) and lock us down or execute some other political policy in a heartbeat. Even the ones that disagree with the action will only be able to provide counter arguments by making different appeals to scripture (that is, appeals to different interpretations of the data). So fully immersed in this religious worldview are they. Unable to step outside the book of numbers.
It's like the Matrix, but the pods aren't needed.
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