Reflections on Rat Fest ’25
Showing only those parts of the discussion which lead to #2053.
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Science writer John Horgan wrote his own article about his experience at Rat Fest:
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/my-weekend-at-rat-fest
Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity suffers from this problem, too. Deutsch rejects appeals to authority but repeatedly appeals to Popper’s authority.
Same issue as in #2052: I don’t think Deutsch ever appeals to Popper’s authority. Deutsch ‘just’ thinks Popper is right, and so he quotes/refers to him. Also, recall that Deutsch criticizes Popper’s criterion of demarcation in chapter 1 as being insufficient:
Testability is now generally accepted as the defining characteristic of the scientific method. Popper called it the ‘criterion of demarcation’ between science and non-science.
Nevertheless, testability cannot have been the decisive factor in the scientific revolution either.