[FoRK] Practicing Science: No Ideology, No False Agenda?

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Russell,

On Jan 9, 2008, at 10:57 AM, Russell Turpin wrote:
> There were no scholarly journals,
> just booksthat individual scholars would write. There was no formal  
> process
> of peer review. Yet they were doing science.

But the thing that was great about the Greeks is that they were *huge*  
arguers and debaters.  They didn't just have isolated gurus making  
pronouncements about what the world was like. Everybody who had an  
idea had to fight about it in the "marketplace of ideas", and be  
judged by the "wisdom of the crowds."

That, to my mind, is one of the greatest Greek contributions to both  
democracy and science. It is also what makes science an evolving  
conversation, rather than merely a historic tradition: that results  
are ultimately judged by your contemporaneous peers, not some higher/ 
older authority.

-- Ernie P.