Why Scientists, Scholars, and Experts Are Not—and Cannot Be—Neutral Authorities

Excerpted from Pandemic of Lunacy: How to Think Clearly When Everyone Around You Seems Crazy (Creed & Culture), published on February 3, 2026.

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“Through the aid of applied science we shall rise from partisanship into patriotism.” — David Starr Jordan, The Call of the Nation (1910)

In 1927, Julian Benda published a book provocatively titled The Treason of the Intellectuals, arguing that although in former days, most of the intellectual class stood apart from political passions, today they plunge into them, scorning the attitude of critical suspension from rivalries.