This is day Zero of a trip, and I am sitting in my work office doing this at lunchtime: I was up most of the night and my next sleep will be on a plane: the next bed is 48 h away. I have been worried about leaving my grown sons at home, despite the fact that they are quite capable and the fridge and pantry are overflowing with supplies and all the church and family know them and are available.

(Yes that is a jersey: it could be warmer in a Vienna Autumn that I will be here)

Now, after the discussions about truthiness and clarity of speech, we need to also remember that Jesus was gentle and he was good and he was loving. He was just not a wimp about it. In fact, he did not seek publicity, he shunned it. He did not proclaim his healing by getting his disciples to publicize he was coming (a bit like TV ads do now), he just turned up.

WOrd travelled. He did not need publicity: at times he needed space.

Matthew 12:15-21

¹⁵ When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, ¹⁶and he ordered them not to make him known. ¹⁷This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
¹⁸  “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. ¹⁹  He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. ²⁰  He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick until he brings justice to victory. ²¹  And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

What we should not forget is that Jesus also offended a bunch of people. He was gentle with the weak, but he spoke true truth to false power and demonstrated their flaws. ANd, as there was no peer review and no ability to thus shut him up, word got out.

The term is: Seamless Transitions. These occur when material conditions of consensus change, when the paradigm changes. It’s as if the science textbooks of the former era which you clung to with all your might never existed. The casualties and livelihoods ruined are swept under the rug. The paradigm is quietly integrated into the everyday practices of the industry, and no one mentions it again. That is, until everyone who was alive to know what happened died off. Only then can they claim that they were the ones instrumental in facilitating the paradigm transition in the first place.

That old drug we used to treat X and scoffed endlessly at those who disagreed? Oh, let’s not talk about that. I’ve seen this personally. I’ve seen it. They have a reputation. They all know it. The medical field, the scientific field, they all have reputations. They’re supposed to be right. They’re supposed to be open to alternatives—to go where the data is.

And they all repeat it over and over and over again: well, just show me the data! Show me the data.

And then they block every single attempt to request research grants and funding, in order to procure the necessary data. And they take notes of who applied. And they destroy their careers.

It’s not peer-reviewed because it’s not science, and it’s not science because it’s not peer reviewed, it’s not peer reviewed because it’s not science, and it’s not science because it’s not peer reviewed, it’s not peer….

So I am off to Vienna to talk about something that has been peer reviewed. You can see the structure, but you cannot deal with the structure. I have to consider my outputs and my H index. It’s part of the job. And some days, you feel like a smouldering wick.