Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYone of the amazing facts about German university education is that, tothe best of my knowledge, no course of study in German higher education– of course with the exception of philosophy – offers even a basicintroduction to theory of science or epistemology, let alone that it wouldbe obligatory. Every year hundreds of thousands of students are educatedat German colleges and universities to become scientists, yet hardlyany one of them receives a formal instruction in what science actuallyis. Even I, having completed my studies to the point of my final PhDexam, that is to say to the point where I should have been able to provemy capability for independent scientific work, have never attended asingle lecture on the subject – let alone that I have even learned thatsuch lectures are offered. One practically has to learn this skill by readingbetween the lines. What I have presented to you in the last few daysof this trial, I had learned through private studies after having finishedmy university training. I consider this deficiency of scientific training inGermany to be really grave, and perhaps it is partially responsible forthe sad level not only of the above quoted decision of the ConstitutionalHigh Court, but for the entire discussion about established science andalleged pseudo-science of dissident researchers, whether in contemporaryhistoriography or anywhere else.This is in my view one of the main reasons why the general publicconfuses authority with science. However, not that is scientific which isclaimed by “recognized” – or merely powerful – authorities, but ratherthat which fulfills the formal criteria presented here. In this sense I mayagain quote Karl R. Popper: 122“[Pseudorationalism] is the immodest belief in one’s superior intellectualgifts, the claim to be initiated, to know with certainty, andwith authority. [...] This authoritarian intellectualism […] is oftencalled ‘rationalism’, but it is the diametrically opposed to what wecall by this name.”V. Science and the PublicIn conclusion I would like to elaborate on the relationship of scienceand the public. After all, the only reason I am standing here before thisCourt is because I made scientific works accessible to the public. I122 Karl Popper, The Open…, op. cit. (note 70), vol. 2, p. 227.95