Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYAs a scientist and science publisher, it is my duty to actively combatthe gutting of the pillars of science by promoting such doubt, skepticism,and critiques, and by providing them a venue.Here I must also include a few words regarding the concept of civilcourage, which seems to have come into fashion once more. Civil courageimplies exhibiting pride before the King’s throne. It means showingcourage in the face of the powerful. It has nothing to do with turningagainst this or that marginal societal group, as so often happens today inGermany during the so-called “struggle against the right.” No courageis required to attack a persecuted and outcast minority to which everyoneis opposed anyway. Quite to the contrary. I do not say this becauseI would like to politically support the position of the right; I say it as amatter of principle. When those in power and the majority beat up apowerless minority, this is opportunism at best and cowardice at worst.Courage is required only in order to confront the powerful, the majority,the zeitgeist. In our case, civil courage means confronting the enemiesof science and of human dignity among those in power. Later on I shallhave more to say on the subject of resistance.III. PrinciplesI would now like to discuss the principles of the search for truth,which can be considered the basic maxims of science. I will start byagain quoting Karl Popper, who has sketched the historical genesis ofthe most basic of all scientific maxims. A great many of the followingstatements trace back in general to Popper’s epistemology, since thisphilosopher is considered to be one of the best known and most renownedof the 20th century for good reasons. One can even consider hisphilosophy to have overcome Kant’s critical idealism, whose theory of“a priori” knowledge has been severely shattered by modern physics.For example, Kant starts with the assumption that from the very beginningwe have actual knowledge of the concepts of space and time,causality and continuity. However, the belief in causality was badlyshaken by quantum mechanics, the belief in a constant time and a Cartesianspace by the theory of relativity, and the belief in the “truth” ofgenetically transmitted information has been shaken by genetic research,evolutionary biology, behavioral research, and the physiology of61