Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise…

[and this] theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives. – Paul Feyarabend, Against Method (Fourth Edition), page 5.

“The idea that science can, and should, be run according to fixed and universal rules, is both unrealistic and pernicious. It is unrealistic, for it takes too simple a view of the talents of man and of the circumstances which encourage, or cause, their development. And it is pernicious, for the attempt to enforce the rules is bound to increase our professional qualifications at the expense of our humanity. In addition, the idea is detrimental to science, for it neglects the complex physical and historical conditions which influence scientific change. It makes our science less adaptable and more dogmatic: every methodological rule is associated with cosmological assumptions, so that using the rule we take it for granted that the assumptions are correct.” Outlines of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge.

Increasing our professional qualifications at the expense of our humanity? Sounds familiar. Guild dues are going up. Renew soon.

Feyarabend is the exception that demonstrates that not all scientists are myopic brain-dead idiots. Just most of them.

Tags: feldenkrais, Feldenkrais research, Paul Feyerabend