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Militant Scientists

  • "Militant" signifies an unwavering commitment to reality, not aggression.
  • People spread falsehoods and conspiracies because professing belief serves a social function, not because they believe; fact-checking alone fails.[1][3]
  • Communities that incentivize false witnesses sever their connection to reality, with consequences that compound in crisis.[1][3]
  • False witnesses are a case of costly signaling in humans: the professed belief is a signal of group loyalty, not a claim about the world.[2]
  • Militant Science is a union of rigor and resilience: evidence is sovereign and irrationality is excluded.
  • Evidence hierarchy: peer-reviewed data first, then empirical observation, then provisional expert consensus; speculation and tradition carry little weight.
  • Members may hold personal beliefs, but all cadre-level decisions must be based on testable, evidence-based principles.
  • A cadre that is a monoculture of thought is scientifically weak; diversity of perspective is required for rigor.

References

  1. Funkhouser, E. (2017). Beliefs as signals: A new function for belief. Philosophical Psychology, 30(6), 809–831. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2017.1291929
  2. Gintis, H., Smith, E. A., & Bowles, S. (2001). Costly signaling and cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 213(1), 103–119. https://doi.org/10.1006/jtbi.2001.2406
  3. Clark, F. (2008). False witnesses. slacktivist, Patheos. September 8, 2008. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2008/09/08/false-witnesses/

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