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The book is way broader than Wiki, basically it wants "epistemological anarchy". Let scientists do their thing regardless of what the current view on it is. Onl

by pard68 3y ago

The book is way broader than Wiki, basically it wants "epistemological anarchy". Let scientists do their thing regardless of what the current view on it is. Only by pushing do we discover new things. I think this is far less true in other arenas, which is why I'm not talking about politics or culture here. Although there is probably some merit in anarchy there too. It'd be naive of us to assume our current understanding of government is complete. Imagine being a Monarchist in the 1700s and thinking there was no more perfect form of government!

nateglims 3y ago
I’ve always found the history of heliocentrism useful for thinking about this. They may have been “correct” in antiquity but the model they had was not that good. I think it’s incredibly valuable to be able to apply it to politics enough to understand what is normal and feels natural to us (liberalism, capitalism, technology) was not always so.
Alpha3031 3y ago
> The book is way broader than Wiki, basically it wants "epistemological anarchy". Let scientists do their thing regardless of what the current view on it is. Only by pushing do we discover new things. People here may be familiar with the exploration–exploitation tradeoff (which, by the way, has a Wikipedia article that could use some significant expansion by some people who are familiar). It is rightly pointed out here that there are areas where it is appropriate for there to be less discovery and greater focus on exploiting or validating existing knowledge, and of course, vice versa. One may propose also the possibility that there be multiple points on the spectrum that one could take even in the same field, for example, preliminary results may be shared as preprints before peer-review, yet even after review, post-publication review and replication are essential for robustness. Still, it may seem odd that exploration, original research, is expressly prohibited on Wikipedia. But should we be without any such restriction, Wikipedia is written by Randy in Boise.

by pard68 3y ago

nateglims 3y ago

I’ve always found the history of heliocentrism useful for thinking about this. They may have been “correct” in antiquity but the model they had was not that good. I think it’s incredibly valuable to be able to apply it to politics enough to understand what is normal and feels natural to us (liberalism, capitalism, technology) was not always so.

Alpha3031 3y ago

> The book is way broader than Wiki, basically it wants "epistemological anarchy". Let scientists do their thing regardless of what the current view on it is. Only by pushing do we discover new things. People here may be familiar with the exploration–exploitation tradeoff (which, by the way, has a Wikipedia article that could use some significant expansion by some people who are familiar). It is rightly pointed out here that there are areas where it is appropriate for there to be less discovery and greater focus on exploiting or validating existing knowledge, and of course, vice versa. One may propose also the possibility that there be multiple points on the spectrum that one could take even in the same field, for example, preliminary results may be shared as preprints before peer-review, yet even after review, post-publication review and replication are essential for robustness. Still, it may seem odd that exploration, original research, is expressly prohibited on Wikipedia. But should we be without any such restriction, Wikipedia is written by Randy in Boise.