The Probable Extinction of Science and of Modern Social and Political Ideas with Technological Civilisation.

This paper will argue that, given the demise during the remainder of the 21st Century of global capitalism and of the global technological civilisation that is its corollary, it is not to be reasonably expected that scientific ideas, as they have been known since the 17th Century, and the science based on them, or post-Enlightenment social and political ideas, will survive that demise. Already, it must be noted, scientific ways of thinking, and liberal (or ‘woke’) political perspectives are being increasingly challenged by an evermore energised and fervent populist Right on a global scale. The Trump Administration’s recent attacks on academia and scientific research in the United States may be seen as an extension of this trend, as may the Republican-inspired banning of books in American school districts.