“Eppur si muove”; “and yet it moves”. These words, supposedly whispered by Galileo Galilei at the end of his 1633 trial — held because he supported the Copernican ‘heresy’ that Earth moves around the Sun — have long been a byword for how scientists should behave in the face of ignorance, intolerance and ideological inerrancy. They come to mind now, during the all-out war on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) happening in the United States.Okay, academic Jews hate Christianity and hate Trump. Galileo had a dispute with the Pope four centuries ago. So Galileo should be a big anti-Trump hero to the Jews!At the end of his trial, Galileo was made to swear that he did not believe in Earth’s motion. He was confined to house arrest and forbidden to write any more about the movement of the planet. If he had had grant funding and a website, I am sure that the Roman Catholic Church would have suspended the former and scrubbed the latter. ...
Scientists, their funders and their professional societies must follow in Galileo’s perhaps apocryphal footsteps and speak up about DEI’s crucial role in science. ... Galileo’s story should remind us all: the only way forward is speaking truth to power.
The dispute concerned reconciling some astronomical theories with Biblical interpretations. Galileo claimed that daily tides proved the motion of the Earth. The church scholars said that some official positions would have to be revised if it were true, but Galileo's proof was faulty, and he should just present the Earth's motion as a hypothesis. In other words, Galileo did some good science but made faulty conclusions, and was more dogmatic than the Pope. The tides are not daily and do not prove Earth's motion.
The Copernican theory was not a heresy. The Church did have an issue with nine sentences in the famous Copernicus book, and asked that they be corrected. The rest of the book was fine. You could argue that Galileo was later shown to be correct about the Earth moving, but the modern view is that motion is relative. Galileo would have been a better scientist if he had listened to the Church, and more clearly distinguished fact, hypothesis, and faith.
Somehow this story is supposed to inspire resistance to Pres. Trump's efforts to abolish racial discrimination by the federal government. So says the Jewish bioethicist.
I mention that he is Jewish because he defines himself as an ethicist, and Jewish ethics are very different from Christian ethics. This is crazy. It is a pity that top science journals have sunk this low.
Imagine if a Christian professor attacked a Jewish politician with an essay centered about how Medieval Jews would drink the blood of Christian children. A mainstream science journal would not publish such an essay.
Another Nature essay promotes indiginous science. These essays usually have these faults:
The assertions of adherents to this trope fall into several areas and share several characteristics:I am seeing academics get hysterical:a.) There are indigenous “ways of knowing” that are every bit as good as modern (they often say “Western”) science. These “knowledge acquisition methods” differ, but produce knowledge equally valid and important. (Note that the use of “Western” science is inaccurate, since science is now a worldwide endeavor. I will use “modern science” from now on.)
b.) The knowledge produced by indigenous “ways of knowing” has been ruthlessly suppressed by arrogant and bigoted Western scientists who think that their “way of knowing” is best.
c.) Indigenous knowledge is, in some cases, crucial in solving pressing problems for humanity. The most common example is global warming.
d.) Promoters of the value of indigenous ways of knowing usually adduce only a few examples to support their case.
Trump couldn’t care less about universities, but if you want to understand the goals of his administration, go on Twitter, which is now driven by Elon Musk, who really is in charge. The discussion there makes clear what the real goal is: burn down the elite universities, starting with their scientists.I am on Twitter, and it has plenty of Trump haters. No, Musk is very much pro-science.
2 comments:
I used to like some of the things that Peter Woit said, 'Not Even Wrong', but found him to be incredibly shallow when it came to anything remotely outside of his very narrow bailiwick. He knows very little about economic reality or the world outside his intellectually gated community. He can not imagine anyone who disagrees with his political views as ever being right.
Peter really should know better. He knows he lives in a federally funded ivory tower that is prone to powerful groupthink, he often admits this, but then excuses the fact that all his fans are on one side of the isle politically. Peter is incredibly rude to anyone who doesn't share his personal political affiliations and would be considered outright hostile in a workplace environment dispute with the language he has used to describe those he doesn't agree with. This is called 'cognitive dissonance', and even highly educated high energy physicists are no less susceptible to it than the common factory worker.
Woit is an immigrant from Eastern Europe. I only quote him because his opinion might reflect what other academics are saying.
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