[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Dave, et al., 

 

As long as any idea  proposed is taken modestly seriously by the proposer, I am interested in it.  You are not the only person at the table that speaks of experience beyond experience, so I definitely I have to take it seriously, no matter HOW crazy it drives me.  

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 12:02 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

 

Dave -

As for me, I'm not irritated with your keeping these discussions going.  

I *am* irritated with the larger (cross-domain, national/global) discussion of "Truthiness" and the various bimodal fallacies introduced thereby. 

Science and the Scientific Method, for example, have built into them a certain kind of contingency which is as absolute as Religion's *lack of contingency* (Absolute Truth).  This leads Creationists/PseudoSciencers/AntiSciencers/FlatEarthers/Deniers to use the truism from science "It's just a theory" as a bludgeon to beat out a hole in the conversation to plop down their received-knowledge and/or made-up-shit into, as if it were made of the same stuff as what it is displacing.

Conversely (and I think this is where you are prone to harp), the Establishment (you pick your domain: Science, Religion, Politics, Society and subdomain:Physics/Chemistry/Biology, Ibrahamic/Vedic/Pagan/Animist, Red/White/Blue/Green/Purple,  Authoritarian/Libertine/Egalitarian/Anarchic) vs radical/progressive views on the same subjects yields a whole other false-dichotomy.    

1.	Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it right.
2.	Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it *wrong*.
3.	Just because all scientific breakthroughs were presaged by "radical ideas" doesn't mean that all "radical ideas" represent incipient genius.

Yet I often hear these arguments (barely concealed?) in the larger discourse...   

I will try to follow this up with some questions/observations about PostModernism and a reflection on the ways it has been "weaponized" by the unlikely? folks like Stephen Bannon?

- Steve

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