| I find that idea quite amusing as well, and as I pointed out, there are areas, including the subject at hand, that we know very little about. Hell, much of medicine probably still falls under this umbrella. I did not mean to imply that we no longer live in a world where many ideas are wrong, just a world where we’ve gotten a hell of a lot more right than the era in question. My issue was more with the claim that the success of “epistemological anarchism” of the past was a sufficient reason to justify it presently, with no acknowledgement of the major shift in the landscape that has occurred as a result of those breakthroughs and continuing progress. I say all of this while still finding the ideas presented to be interesting, especially in light of others emerging research. I just think the anarchism angle didn’t help the content much. In areas that are sufficiently understood, such deviations should become increasingly rare. That doesn’t mean there is no room for this - there certainly is! > The way you tell "epistemologically anarchist theories" from quackery is the same way you tell any other theories from quackery: you test them. The problem here is not one of testing, but convincing someone that an idea is worth the $$$ required to carry out that testing. It’s impossible to test every form of quackery, which puts the modern “anarchist” in a difficult position. These are musings about the challenges presented, not conclusions about the state of things. |