Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORY How does one determine that someone is aiming merely to confirmpreconceived notions?All these questions aim at intention and motivation, i.e. at features ofthe author, but not of the work, and are therefore entirely IRRELE-VANT!Consciously or subconsciously we all have certain preconceivedopinions, expectations, judgments etc., as I have pointed out. Whethersomeone is seeking the truth as his exclusive, his primary or at least as aserious goal can almost never be determined with certainty from theoutside, and sometimes not even from the inside. These personal questionsabout a scientist or an author are therefore not decisive for determiningthe question of the scientific nature of a work.I also consider as erroneous the formulation of the ConstitutionalHigh Court that everything which is serious “in form and content” is tobe considered as science, because the content as such is precisely not acriterion to determine the scientific nature of a work. At the beginningof this quotation the Court still maintains that these content-related factors(correctness, soundness, and completeness) play no role. But nowthey do it after all? Science is a question of form. Its contents are changingconstantly: (panta rei = everything is in flux).Regarding the question of the scientific nature of a work the Courtwould have done better to introduce more indicators of the work at issuethat deal with questions of form, rather than adducing misguidedand impermissible criteria about the content and the person, which openthe floodgates of arbitrariness. It therefore needs to be pointed out thatthe Constitutional High Court is obviously not competent to determinewhat science actually is.Should the German Federal Constitutional High Court ever makesimilarly superficial and untenable, even embarrassingly incompetentstatements in my case, then allow me to announce already now that itwill be my moral duty as a scientist to reject such a verdict, whatever itmight be. Or expressed in the style of Copernicus: 57“If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, togetherwith those ignorant of all history and epistemology, will take it uponthemselves to decide concerning these things, and should dare to assailthis my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extentdo I despise their judgment as rash.”But allow me to add right away that it does not surprise me to readsuch an inadequate verdict by the Constitutional High Court, because94