Jonathan Rauch: Free Thought, Democracy, and the Nature of Science

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

Lawrence M. Krauss

Science, Natural Sciences, Physics

4.4 • 592 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 103 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonathan Rauch was 30 years ahead of the curve. In his book Kindly Inquisitors, written in 1993, he described the very mechanisms by which ideology can undermine both the search for truth, and the democratic ideal of free thought—mechanisms which have now become endemic in our society. But more than that, in that book, and in The Constitution of Knowledge, written in 2021 he lays out more clearly than anyone I have ever read, the philosophical and sociological basis of science. The search for truth, and the proper functioning of democratic government both require the same social contract: the implicit acceptance that all ideas are subject to open attack, but that ultimately when the community as a whole has access to open debate and discussion, to the logical attacks and counter-attacks, social consensus can emerge about which ideas remain productive, and which are consigned to the dustbin of history. Science is therefore a social activity every bit as much as governance is. This does not mean that science is a social construct however. It is precisely the need for open debate, without no constraints on whose claims have merit based on authority, gender, race, or religion, that ensures that the search for truth moves in the right direction.

It was a delight and revelation for me to learn, belatedly, about Jonathan’s writing, and to have a chance to discuss some of his ideas in depth in this podcast. He is a gentle, eloquent, and thoughtful soul, and I hope you find the discussion with him as enlightening as I did.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Orders Podcast.
0:11.0	I'm your host, Lawrence Krause.
0:14.0	Jonathan Rauch was a revelation for me when I first began to read him.
0:20.0	I am embarrassed to say I really didn't discover his books until a year or two ago
0:24.6	when I came upon Kindly Inquisitors, his 1993 book, the full title is Kindly Inquisitors,
0:31.6	The New Attacks on Free Thought, which presented an incredibly prescient picture of a situation that was emerging then, as he recognized,
0:40.3	but which has come into full four now, where ideology-based thinking has replaced inquiry-based,
0:47.3	open inquiry, free inquiry, free discussion, not just in the public arena, but even in academia.
0:53.3	And in that book, he discusses
0:57.1	many things, including the nature of science, a topic which he then picks up on and discusses
1:04.8	beautifully in his more recent book, which we spent a lot of time during our dialogue discussing.
1:10.5	The new book was the Constitution of Knowledge, a Defense of Truth, which came out a year or two ago.
1:15.6	But he presents a picture of science as a social activity, required to be a social activity because it only progresses because of the confrontation of ideas, your willingness to present ideas to be confronted by others who question your ideas
1:33.3	in an important way in order to push forward the search for knowledge
1:38.3	and to get to the point where we understand the universe as it really is
1:41.3	rather than the universe as we want it to be.
1:43.3	And that the current notion that ideas cannot be subject to attack is an anathema to that whole process.
1:52.0	He discusses much more than that, and our dialogue together was enlightening for me, just as his books were.
2:00.0	As a scientist, I really think my understanding of the nature of science as a social process
2:04.6	was changed and raised by reading Jonathan. He's an incredibly pleasant and relaxed thinker, and we discussed a wide variety of topics related to his work. His history is as a journalist and I thought he was trained as an economist,
2:22.3	yeah, but no, in fact, his training was more in philosophy,
2:25.3	and that's clear the philosophical background of much of his discussion is also equally enlightening.
	...

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