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Anna Krylov's avatar

This is a very clear explanation of the philosophical roots of the current attacks on science.

TRUTH IS TRUTH IS TRUTH! We should fight for it.

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Randy Wayne's avatar

The acknowledgments in my PhD dissertation began with a quote from William Blake, "Gratitude is heaven itself." There is a relationship between gratitude and joy. I see little to no joy in today's SJI graduate students when it comes to doing science. You wrote, "These statements reflect no gratitude to the men who have contributed so much to science, technology and medicine, and thus to human flourishing (men such as Semmelweis, Pasteur, Koch or Einstein)." There is no gratitude at all. Gratitude is dead! The SJI statements reflect a killing of joy that comes from devoting one's life to the search for objective truth...and a recognition of the responsibility that we have to the search for truth for all those scientists that had to fight for truth against orthodoxy. There is no way in the world that someone who knows about Semmelweis can see him as a white male of privilege. I teach about Semmelweis and give my students Vonnegut's (who was a chemistry major at Cornell) graduation speech where he says "Semmelweis is my hero." Thanks for the essay and thanks for bringing up Semmelweis. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-commencement.html

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