3 ms·

I'm surprised by this reaction. To me, the quote sounds like gobbledygook. Populism and the power of the individual mind are almost at cross-purposes.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
If you think of populism as "of the masses", then yes, it doesn't make sense. If you think of populism as "opposed to the established power structure", though, it actually makes sense.
- bllguo 9y ago
  The problem is that only the first of those definitions of populism is technically correct..
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    From dictionary.com: > populism > noun > 1. the political philosophy of the People's party. > 2. (lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies. > 3. (lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism. > 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts. So no, I disagree that "only the first of those is correct".
QAPereo 9y ago
It’s basically Juche philosophy, so yes, gobbledygook.
roenxi 9y ago
People have very limited amount of time to learn new things; and the scope of human knowledge is vast beyond any individual's ability to test even a meaningful subset of it empirically. Because of this, science is disseminated in the same way as religion, political action, superstition and gossip - an authority figure says something, and we take it as true. No differences. Same mechanism for all knowledge, correct or spurious. Society has special mechanisms for science to be tested against reality every so often (especially through the PHD system of selecting authority figures). Knowledge from a 'scientific' authority is more likely to be based on objective fact than anything else. However, there is still massive scope for error, especially in what the public believes if something is mis-identified as a scientific fact. I'm thinking things like dietary science. The public perception on what the science says seems to be somewhat malleable.
- heurist 9y ago
  We have to blindly accept scientific findings sometimes because we don't have the capacity to know everything, but in general "blind acceptance" is a loose connection that we acknowledge could and probably change. The fact that people don't understand that or hold too firm of a grasp on any particular finding is a failure of scientific education.
conistonwater 9y ago
I think that maybe if you read it really (like, really) literally, then it sounds okay: "one can be right, the rest can be wrong" could be a really literal (though somewhat wrongheaded) way of saying that the merit of scientific ideas rests on the process (experiments, logic, etc.) by which you get them, so if you (and only you) got the process right, and you can see an error in what everybody else did, then it's okay to say that. But that's only half the quote, and the populism half would throw that interpretation out. I think it would have been nice if the reporter asked him a little bit more about the scientific method and how he understands it.
emmelaich 9y ago
Cross-purposes only in theory. Scientists are made of people.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

If you think of populism as "of the masses", then yes, it doesn't make sense. If you think of populism as "opposed to the established power structure", though, it actually makes sense.

bllguo 9y ago
The problem is that only the first of those definitions of populism is technically correct..
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  From dictionary.com: > populism > noun > 1. the political philosophy of the People's party. > 2. (lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies. > 3. (lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism. > 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts. So no, I disagree that "only the first of those is correct".

QAPereo 9y ago

It’s basically Juche philosophy, so yes, gobbledygook.

roenxi 9y ago

People have very limited amount of time to learn new things; and the scope of human knowledge is vast beyond any individual's ability to test even a meaningful subset of it empirically. Because of this, science is disseminated in the same way as religion, political action, superstition and gossip - an authority figure says something, and we take it as true. No differences. Same mechanism for all knowledge, correct or spurious. Society has special mechanisms for science to be tested against reality every so often (especially through the PHD system of selecting authority figures). Knowledge from a 'scientific' authority is more likely to be based on objective fact than anything else. However, there is still massive scope for error, especially in what the public believes if something is mis-identified as a scientific fact. I'm thinking things like dietary science. The public perception on what the science says seems to be somewhat malleable.

heurist 9y ago
We have to blindly accept scientific findings sometimes because we don't have the capacity to know everything, but in general "blind acceptance" is a loose connection that we acknowledge could and probably change. The fact that people don't understand that or hold too firm of a grasp on any particular finding is a failure of scientific education.

conistonwater 9y ago

I think that maybe if you read it really (like, really) literally, then it sounds okay: "one can be right, the rest can be wrong" could be a really literal (though somewhat wrongheaded) way of saying that the merit of scientific ideas rests on the process (experiments, logic, etc.) by which you get them, so if you (and only you) got the process right, and you can see an error in what everybody else did, then it's okay to say that. But that's only half the quote, and the populism half would throw that interpretation out. I think it would have been nice if the reporter asked him a little bit more about the scientific method and how he understands it.

emmelaich 9y ago

Cross-purposes only in theory. Scientists are made of people.