#against method

Galileo made progress by changing familiar connections between words and words (he introduced new concepts), words and impressions (he introduced new natural interpretations), by using new and unfamiliar principles such as his law of inertia and his principle of universal relativity, and by altering the sensory core of his observation statements.

Science is essentially an anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.

Rationalism... is a secularized form of the belief in the power of the word of God.

The Roman Church in addition claimed to possess the exclusive rights of exploring, interpreting and applying Holy Scripture. Lay people, according to the teaching of the Church, had neither the knowledge nor the authority to tamper with Scripture and they were forbidden to do so. This comment, whose rigidity was a result of the new Tridentine Spirit, should not surprise anyone familiar with the habits of powerful institutions. The attitude of the American Medical Association towards lay practitioners is as rigid as the attitude of the Church was towards lay interpreters - and it has the blessing of the law. Experts, or ignoramuses having acquired the formal insignia of expertise, always tried and often succeeded in securing for themselves exclusive rights in special domains. Any criticism of the rigidity of the Roman Church applies also to its modern scientific and science-connected successors.

These associations, emotions and images are essential for the way in which we relate to our fellow human beings. Removing them or changing them in a fundamental way may perhaps make our concepts more “objective”, but it often violates important social constraints.