Bacon imagined rule by scientists deciding unaccountably what knowledge to conceal

Evidence

In the New Atlantis, politics was replaced by scientific administration. No real political process existed in Bensalem. Decisions were made for the good of the whole by the scientists, whose judgment was to be trusted implicitly, for they alone possessed the secrets of nature. … Scientists decided which secrets were to be revealed to the state as a whole and which were to remain the private property of the institute rather than becoming public knowledge: “And this we do also, we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and all take an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret, though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state, and some not.” — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 716

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the eco-justice course thread on institutions — scientist-led secret institutions duplicate church secrecy rather than democratic politics.
• XREF: Links to Orwell’s vision of experts controlling truth and to the reader’s ‘law/institutions’ polyad thread. — connects to: Bacon’s New Atlantis converted scattered utilitarian prefaces into a state program of science — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 715; Bacon framed scientific method as the capture and enslavement of a female nature — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 676; Bacon reconciled astronomy with Revelation by invoking biblical numerical concealing — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1161

Broader Connections

• Bacon framed scientific method as the capture and enslavement of a female nature #expands (0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 676
• Bacon reconciled astronomy with Revelation by invoking biblical numerical concealing #qualifies (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1161