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by Uehreka
332 days ago
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> Robert A. Sungenis I wish Hacker News would let me use emojis so I could put three red sirens after this man’s name. Sungenis isn’t a good-faith investigator trying to shed light on nuances around Galileo’s argument. He’s a tradcath (old-school Catholic who rejects Vatican II) hack who wants to cast shadows on Galileo from as many directions as possible in the hopes that he can soften people up on the idea of Geocentrism. His approach is very cautious and incremental and relies a lot on innuendo; he makes it difficult to really pin him down on the things I just said about him. But if you look up the things this guy’s written and the kinds of people he hires to “write the dirty work” when necessary, it’s pretty clear what his project is. Edit: I will note that I am not familiar with Paul Feyerabend and the book mentioned in the top comment, it’s totally possible that those are from a different school of thought more interested in good faith discussion about the scientific method (or not, I don’t know). I would just advise taking any “turns out” argument about Galileo and the Church with huge grains of salt, given that this topic attracts some very slippery people with ulterior motives who intentionally appeal to contrarians like many of us on this site. |
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I haven't read Against Method yet, but my understanding is that Feyeraband's point is that the scientific process, as it is actually practiced, is a lot less sterile than is generally described. He argues it involves a lot of ad-hoc hypothesis and unjustified intuitive leaps. He's not saying the Church was right to believe in Geocentrism, he's saying that strict adherence to a particular methodology is neither desirable nor how science is actually practiced.
The tagline is "anything goes," as in any methodology may or may not be useful in creating knowledge, and it's utility is subject to change. So we can't rule any of them in or out and must constantly test them against reality.