Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Do you think institutions of knowledge used to have more fidelity, or do you think they were always as susceptible to corruption but lacked the speed of technology to spread as quickly?
Reminds me of the "grievance studies affair" where the gatekeepers of knowledge were tested with made up "science" that used preferred jargon and value systems, with a surprising acceptance rate.
I'm probably more susceptible to Dunning-Kruger than most, which is also why I throw my thoughts out to the public for scrutiny. My personality seeks the line, and then wonders what would happen with 1 more step.
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"Institutions of knowledge" had to fight with religious dogma for centuries, and there was no clear separation of belief systems. Newton spent years seriously trying to put numbers on Christian mythology. A list of reasons for admission to a mental institution 200 years ago is bizarre now, but every change had staunch opponents. By 1900, physicists thought that they only had a few loose ends to finish up, and the head of the US Patent office expected to see it close for lack of new business. In 1900, we didn't even know how solids stuck together or came apart, and metallurgy was barely out of the age of superstition. By 1965, when I was looking at Universities, there were still tenured professors who wouldn't accept plate tectonics. Not much later, all the social sciences were overwhelmed by new dogma. If technology has sped up the churn, I don't know. People seem to have their range of opinion pretty much baked in, and just rationalize their decisions to fit. Maybe the excuses change faster now?
BTW, Richard Feynman won a prize in English by padding his paper with technical synonyms, blindly imitating a preferred style with new words.