Really? I read enough of that thesis to add it to the pile of "papers about fully generally learning programs with no practical use or insight into general intelligence".

Though I did get one useful insight from Shalizi's thesis: that I should judge complexity by the program length needed to produce something functionally equivalent, not something exactly identical, as that metric makes more sense when judging complexity as it pertains to real-world systems and their entropy.

And regarding your other point, I'm sure people agree with holding view 2 in contempt. But what about the more general question of mechanizing epistemology?

Also, would people be interested in a study of what actually does motivate opposition to the attempt to mechanize science? (i.e. one that goes beyond my rants and researches it)