The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

by Michael Strevens

THE PROGRAM OF MORALIZING and miseducation that I have sketched in this chapter is not prescribed by the iron rule itself. The rule imposes narrowness on scientific argument and dialogue as it passes through official channels, but as you now know well, it puts no constraints whatsoever on a scientist’s private thoughts and feelings. Indeed, among successful scientists there are extraordinary people who conform to the iron rule in their technical writing but are in no way narrow. They have wandered far outside the boundaries of conventional scientific training and delight in what they find there. They pay little attention to Hawking’s or Dawkins’s provocations; they take gleeful advantage of the latitude allowed by the iron rule and follow their own tastes and inclinations wherever they lead.