James_Bach comments on Guardians of the Truth - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 December 2007 06:44PM

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Comment author: James_Bach 15 December 2007 11:17:14PM 3 points [-]

When you speak of "guardians of truth" I hear "guardians of social order." I don't think the Inquisition thought of truth in epistemic terms, the way we do. They thought of "truth" as the order of the world that was under constant assault by dark forces.

Truth guardianship in science might be understood as defending Kuhnian "normal science" from assault by people outside of the dominant paradigm; or perhaps the process of indoctrinating new scientists in the accepted norms of that paradigm.