50 - Maarten Boudry - Science and Optimism

You can find Maarten’s scholarly work here: https://ugent.academia.edu/MaartenBoudry Many of Maarten’s more popular articles are available here: https://sites.google.com/site/maartenboudry/blog He is the co-editor with Massimo Pigliucci of the 2013 Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem: https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Pseudoscience-Reconsidering-Demarcation-ebook/dp/B00EARH246/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381938709&sr=8-1&keywords=boudry+pigliucci And, also with Massimo Pigliucci, is the co-editor of https://www.amazon.com/Science-Unlimited-Challenges-Maarten-Boudry-ebook/dp/B078BXMPM4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516100822&sr=8-1&keywords=science+unlimited You can start a conversation with Maarten at Letter here: https://letter.wiki/MaartenBoudry/conversations Follow Maarten on Twitter: @mboudry Further References Maarten’s conversation with Peter Boghossian on the nature of belief at Letter: https://letter.wiki/conversation/22 For more on Popper and the demarcation problem: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ Larry Laudan, “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem” (1983): https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-7055-7_6 Tanner Edis on religious belief and conspiracy theories: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329780971_Cosmic_Conspiracy_Theories_How_Theologies_Evade_Science_From_Genesis_to_Astrobiology See Maarten’s take on Tanner Edis’ paper here, on Jerry Coyne’s blog: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/10/02/why-theological-challenges-to-science-resemble-conspiracy-theories/ H. Benson et al, “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567 Maarten’s essay on the four flavours of contemporary pessimism can be foud here: https://quillette.com/2019/06/26/four-flavors-of-doom-a-taxonomy-of-contemporary-pessimism/ Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018) Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (2018) Iona’s article on Aarey can be found here: https://areomagazine.com/2019/10/15/the-word-for-world-is-forest-an-ode-to-aarey/ Timestamps 3:38 The demarcation problem and the difference between science and pseudoscience 14:57 Religion and other conspiracy theories 30:31 The four flavours of contemporary pessimism 49:20 Ecomodernism 51:50 Do activists present a greater hurdle to our ability to prevent climate change than denialists?