By Mark Keenan
November 12, 2025
For most of modern history, science meant freedom to question. Today, that freedom is vanishing. Across universities, journals, and digital platforms, critics argue that dissenting scientists are being erased from public discourse. Two issues have revealed this transformation more clearly than any others: climate change and Covid-19.
In both cases, complex debates were reduced to slogans - "the science is settled," "trust the experts," "follow the science." But in reality, "the science" became a brand - one owned by governments, corporations, and media institutions whose financial and political interests depend on consensus, not discovery. What was once a process of questioning has been replaced by a culture of obedience. And for those who refuse to conform, the punishment is swift: censorship, professional exile, and public shaming.
From Inquiry to Ideology
Science, at its best, is self-correcting. It thrives on challenge, replication, and revision. Yet the modern scientific establishment - heavily dependent on state and corporate funding - now treats questioning as subversion.
When I worked within the climate bureaucracy - first at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, and later as a technical expert for United Nations Environment - I saw how scientific uncertainty was quietly managed. The incentive was always the same: simplify the message, exaggerate the threat, suppress the doubts.
Dissent wasn't just inconvenient; it was dangerous. Careers depended on maintaining the illusion of consensus. This was the birth of what I call "science by decree" - where truth is not discovered but declared.
The Climate Creed
Nowhere is this clearer than in climate science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded to study human impact on global temperatures, but its political utility soon eclipsed its scientific mission.
By the mid-1990s, evidence that didn't fit the carbon narrative was quietly minimized. Signatories to the Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) Declaration have asserted that there is no CO₂-induced climate emergency. But their findings rarely see daylight.
Consider the case of Australian marine geophysicist Dr. Peter Ridd, who was dismissed from James Cook University after publicly challenging research that reported severe climate-related damage to the Great Barrier Reef. Ridd maintained that he was punished for academic dissent, while the university argued he had breached workplace conduct rules. The dispute moved through multiple courts and ultimately became a national debate over academic freedom.
In the United States, climatologist Judith Curry-former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech-chose early retirement, saying the academic environment had grown "anti-intellectual" and hostile toward scientists who questioned consensus.
And in 2014, renowned meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson resigned from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate-policy skeptic think tank, after colleagues warned his involvement could damage his career. Bengtsson described the backlash as "severe" and "McCarthy-like."
When dissenting climatologists like Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner - once chairman of the UN IPCC's Sea Level Committee - challenged alarmist projections, they were smeared or ignored. In today's discourse, to question climate orthodoxy is not to debate - it is to commit heresy. I examine the scientific evidence refuting CO₂-driven climate claims - and the UN's deceptive policy agenda advanced through the Sustainable Development Goals - in the book Climate CO2 Hoax.
The Pandemic Playbook - Controversy Surrounding PCR, Death Counts and Virus Isolation
Then came 2020. The Covid-19 "crisis" accelerated what climate politics had already begun: the fusion of science and state power. Governments worldwide adopted unprecedented control over speech, medicine, and movement - all in the name of "public health." Big Tech enforced the new orthodoxy, censoring dissenting doctors and studies in real time.
In my 2023 book No Worries No Virus, I examined the gaps and inconsistencies in the official Covid narrative - and explored whether aspects may have been planned or structured in advance to serve political and corporate interests.
Concerns about PCR methodology were not limited to social media. Some peer-reviewed critiques of PCR testing struggled to gain visibility on major platforms, and in at least one case, publication prompted a formal re-evaluation of the methodology used in a widely-adopted protocol. In late 2020, the journal Eurosurveillance announced it was re-evaluating an influential PCR paper by Corman and Drosten after multiple scientists submitted a peer-reviewed critique alleging methodological flaws and unusually rapid approval (Retraction Watch, Dec. 7, 2020).
Critics argue that thousands of medical professionals were silenced through fear and intimidation. In Ireland, for example, Dr. Pat Morrissey was dismissed after publicly criticizing the government's Covid-19 policies. He condemned what he called " megalomaniac bureaucrats," warning that "there is very little scope for free speech - and those who stick their heads up are liable to get them knocked off." The message was unmistakable: there is only one science, and it is the science of the state.
I was one of the many researchers that have claimed that export records show large quantities of test kits labelled for Covid-19 moving across borders long before Covid-19 was officially announced in 2019. Trade records appeared to show COVID-related test kits listed in databases before the virus was officially identified. Critics argue these entries were the result of retroactive commodity code updates - yet the timing still raises questions from analysts about how early institutional planning began.
My research also traced pandemic simulation exercises dating back to 1999 and the Rockefeller Foundation's 2010 Lockstep scenario, both promoting authoritarian controls under the guise of public health.
There was also controversy surrounding Covid death counts. Drawing on official documents and expert testimony, I examined how reporting systems often classified deaths as Covid-related based solely on a positive test. For example, a Northern Ireland government document I downloaded from August 2020 stated that deaths were counted if the deceased had tested positive within 28 days,"whether or not Covid-19 was the cause of death."
A similar approach was confirmed in the Republic of Ireland. At a 2020 meeting of the Government's Covid-19 Special Committee, TD Michael McNamara questioned the Health Service Executive, which acknowledged that fatalities were recorded as Covid deaths whenever a test was positive-even in cases such as heart attacks or accidents.
In the United States, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike explained that anyone dying with a positive test was counted as a Covid death, even if a different cause was evident. As she clarified: "technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had Covid at the same time, it's still listed as a Covid death." A CDC report from August 2020 also showed that the majority of recorded Covid deaths involved additional serious conditions. Critics argue this demonstrates how deaths 'with' Covid were not always distinguishable from deaths 'from' Covid.
Furthermore, mentioning vaccine side effects could trigger bans as I found out myself when I was banned from Twitter for posting publicly available data related to side-effects.
Beyond debates about counting, some scientists went further, challenging the foundations of virology itself. A small but vocal group of scientists, including Dr. Stefan Lanka, Dr. Claus Köhnlein, Dr. Thomas Cowan and Dr. Sam Bailey challenge conventional virology. They claim that viruses such as SARS-CoV-have not been scientifically proven to exist in the way conventional virology claims. They question whether SARS-CoV-2 has been conclusively isolated under the standards they believe are required, suggesting that current tests may capture fragments of human genetic material rather than an entirely new virus. Lanka contends that modern virology took a wrong turn in the 1950s and argues that it has since been perpetuated for profit. I examine their work in detail in the book No Worries No Virus. Their position is not accepted by mainstream virologists, who dispute these claims.
In sum, my research suggests that what the public experienced as a health emergency functioned instead as a system of control shaped by political interests, flawed science, and significant financial incentives. From my perspective, the real story of Covid-19 was less about medicine than about power. Institutional censorship suppressed dissenting voices - including my own, after I was suspended from social media for sharing procurement documents that appeared to show advance planning for vaccine injury management.
The Spiritual Crisis Behind "Science by Decree"
The deeper problem is not only political but philosophical. Modern technocracy has replaced truth with materialism and belief in progress with belief in control. My research indicates that various areas of establishment "science" - from climate science to pandemic policy - been bent to serve profit, corporate agendas, and ideology; while excluding God, consciousness, and meaning.
Critics argue that by severing science from broader philosophical or spiritual questions, modern institutions emphasize data while overlooking deeper questions of meaning and truth. In this view, a kind of technocracy has emerged-one in which scientific institutions can appear less like explorers of reality and more like gatekeepers defending established doctrine. Real science seeks understanding; fake science seeks obedience.
If we are to restore genuine inquiry, we must recover not only intellectual freedom but moral and spiritual humility - the recognition that truth cannot be owned by the state, the market, or the algorithm.
The Machinery of Censorship
This transformation did not happen by accident. In 2023, investigative reports revealed the existence of what researchers now call the Censorship Industrial Complex - a sprawling alliance between government agencies, think tanks, universities, and tech corporations.
The "Twitter Files" disclosures indicated that agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the CDC collaborated with social media companies to flag, downrank, or remove "misinformation." The targets were reportedly often credentialed experts, journalists, and ordinary citizens whose views deviated from official policy.
This system now operates globally, under new names and with new funding - often justified by the need to combat "climate misinformation" or "medical disinformation." It is not censorship in the old sense of banning or burning books, today's suppression often takes the form of reduced visibility - algorithms that downrank or bury dissenting views until they are difficult to find. This is a form of digital erasure where dissent simply ceases to exist.
The Economics of Obedience
Today's scientific enterprise is often described as a multi-billion-dollar system in which careers, funding, and publication often depend on staying within approved narratives - funding and advancement often reward compliance rather than open debate. Researchers who question climate or pandemic dogma risk their careers, funding, and livelihoods. Governments now fund studies that confirm policy rather than challenge it - producing policy-based evidence instead of evidence-based policy. Corporations, too, have weaponized "science" for profit: pharmaceutical firms use it to silence scrutiny, while energy giants use it to justify carbon markets that enrich elites and burden poorer nations.
The rhetoric of "saving the planet" or "protecting lives" can mask what critics argue is ultimately a transfer of power from the public to a technocratic class. This dynamic unfolds as governments allocate large sums of public money to climate and pandemic responses. Renewable energy firms have received substantial subsidies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers such as Pfizer and Moderna reported record revenues during the pandemic.
When Truth Becomes Treason
The moralization of science has turned dissent into sin. A climate skeptic is not "wrong" - he is a "denier." A doctor questioning mandates is not "debating" - he is "spreading misinformation." This is the language of religion, not reason. Science without dissent is not science at all; it is propaganda. But the cost of silence in the present is immense: an entire generation is being taught that conformity equals integrity.
Restoring Scientific Freedom
The answer is not to reject science, but to depoliticize it. That begins with transparency: open data, open debate, and open funding. Research should not be filtered through bureaucratic agendas or corporate interests. Independent journals, decentralized platforms, and citizen-led inquiry offer a path forward - if the public demands it. Science belongs to everyone, not to the technocrats who manage its narrative. True environmental and medical progress will never come from censorship, but from curiosity - the very trait that built civilization itself.
A New Age of Technocratic Faith
We are entering an era where "belief in science" has replaced belief in God - but without humility or grace. Many worry that a small number of technology platforms now have extraordinary power to shape what information is visible-effectively influencing via algorithms which viewpoints are elevated or ignored.
Unless we restore the freedom to question - whether about carbon, Covid, or any future crisis - we will find ourselves living not in a knowledge economy, but in an information prison. To critics, parts of institutional science now function almost like a new secular authority-one that emphasizes compliance and control. And its heretics are, once again, the last defenders of reason.