Take Bacon’s criticism of medieval science: that knowledge was handed down from authority figures. This tallies directly with the dogma of top-down knowledge in the social sphere today. We see this phenomenon when politicians talk about their pet ideas and ideologies – school uniform improves discipline, delinquents can be scared out of crime through prison visits, and so on. They don’t see the need for experiments or data because they think they have reached the answer through conviction or insight.
