[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[Prof David West]

Steve,

I really hope that I have not advanced any of the three types of false dichotomy you note.

I cite "authority" or "dead white guys" only because I think they have expressed an idea in a manner far more eloquently than I am able to express it, and my intent is never to say "this is so" but to always say, "if we take this seriously, these questions seem to arise, and might answers to those questions lead to interesting explorations and conversations?"

I would plead guilty to holding "rigorous science" to the same deconstructionist analysis as "vigorously asserted religion." But I would expect that analysis to reveal that "Science" does indeed have its dogma and that interferes with its own professed value system and "Method;" while "Religion" is almost totally Dogma and that creates so much interference that what little "method" is lost in the noise.

Is there a way to sift and sort a plethora of "radical ideas" into those worth further consideration and those that can safely be dismissed out of hand. Pushing them through the sieve of "established science" is not sufficient.

davew

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 8:01 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 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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