Post by nu5ncbigred on Nov 20, 2024 12:27:25 GMT -5
In The 21st Century Is "More Dogmatic Than The Catholic Church In The 17th Century"
Peter Thiel during an interview with Bari Weiss last week spoke about how modern science is failing to balance skepticism and dogmatism.
Today’s science has become more dogmatic “than the Catholic Church in the 17th century,” Thiel said. "If we fast-forward to 2024 and you asked scientists, ‘Where is science too dogmatic, and where are people too skeptical?’ I think there would be a long list of issues where they’d say there are climate-change skeptics, vaccine skeptics, Darwin skeptics—people who are too skeptical in ways that are undercutting science."
"If you asked those same scientists where they believe science itself has become too dogmatic, I don’t think they could point to a single thing where they see science as being overly rigid. And doesn’t that tell you that we have completely lost the sense of balance?"
PETER THIEL: The way I always think of the history of science was that it started as a two-front war against both excessive dogmatism and excessive skepticism.
In the 17th and 18th century, a scientist was a Heterodox thinker who didn't believe in, let's say, the decayed Aristotelian scholasticism of the Catholic Church, and you were maybe were empirical and there were these dogmas that,, that you were open to questioning.
But you also couldn't be extremely skeptical. So if you, you know, can't trust your senses, and if I don't believe you're sitting there, Extreme skepticism is also incompatible with science. So extreme dogmatism was incompatible, extreme skepticism is incompatible. The problem is, yeah, it's easy to be against one, but if you're if you're always just against dogmatism, then maybe you're too skeptical of everything. And if you're always against skepticism, you know, maybe you're too dogmatic.
So there's this very complicated balance where we need to be both anti-dogmatic and anti-skeptical, and You know, and probably my feel for it would be that in the 17th and 18th century, it's probably more anti-dogmatic than anti-skeptical, but it was some of both.
If we fast forward to 2024, and you asked scientists where is science too dogmatic, and where are science and people too skeptical, where are people being too dogmatic?
I think there is a whole long list of things where they say there are climate change skeptics, there are vaccine skeptics, there are Darwin skeptics, there are all these people who are too skeptical and the skepticism is undercutting science. So we're on war of skeptics of all sorts.
And then if you asked the scientists, where are the scientists too dogmatic, I don't think they could tell you a single thing where science is too dogmatic, and doesn't that tell you that we have completely lost the sense of balance and we are way too that, you know, we are, what, what, what has become science, you'll use square quotes around science is something that is more dogmatic than the Catholic Church was in the 17th century.
www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/20/peter_thiel_what_has_become_science_in_the_21st_century_is_more_dogmatic_than_the_catholic_church_in_the_17th_century.html
Peter Thiel during an interview with Bari Weiss last week spoke about how modern science is failing to balance skepticism and dogmatism.
Today’s science has become more dogmatic “than the Catholic Church in the 17th century,” Thiel said. "If we fast-forward to 2024 and you asked scientists, ‘Where is science too dogmatic, and where are people too skeptical?’ I think there would be a long list of issues where they’d say there are climate-change skeptics, vaccine skeptics, Darwin skeptics—people who are too skeptical in ways that are undercutting science."
"If you asked those same scientists where they believe science itself has become too dogmatic, I don’t think they could point to a single thing where they see science as being overly rigid. And doesn’t that tell you that we have completely lost the sense of balance?"
PETER THIEL: The way I always think of the history of science was that it started as a two-front war against both excessive dogmatism and excessive skepticism.
In the 17th and 18th century, a scientist was a Heterodox thinker who didn't believe in, let's say, the decayed Aristotelian scholasticism of the Catholic Church, and you were maybe were empirical and there were these dogmas that,, that you were open to questioning.
But you also couldn't be extremely skeptical. So if you, you know, can't trust your senses, and if I don't believe you're sitting there, Extreme skepticism is also incompatible with science. So extreme dogmatism was incompatible, extreme skepticism is incompatible. The problem is, yeah, it's easy to be against one, but if you're if you're always just against dogmatism, then maybe you're too skeptical of everything. And if you're always against skepticism, you know, maybe you're too dogmatic.
So there's this very complicated balance where we need to be both anti-dogmatic and anti-skeptical, and You know, and probably my feel for it would be that in the 17th and 18th century, it's probably more anti-dogmatic than anti-skeptical, but it was some of both.
If we fast forward to 2024, and you asked scientists where is science too dogmatic, and where are science and people too skeptical, where are people being too dogmatic?
I think there is a whole long list of things where they say there are climate change skeptics, there are vaccine skeptics, there are Darwin skeptics, there are all these people who are too skeptical and the skepticism is undercutting science. So we're on war of skeptics of all sorts.
And then if you asked the scientists, where are the scientists too dogmatic, I don't think they could tell you a single thing where science is too dogmatic, and doesn't that tell you that we have completely lost the sense of balance and we are way too that, you know, we are, what, what, what has become science, you'll use square quotes around science is something that is more dogmatic than the Catholic Church was in the 17th century.
www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/20/peter_thiel_what_has_become_science_in_the_21st_century_is_more_dogmatic_than_the_catholic_church_in_the_17th_century.html
