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posted by janrinok on Sunday January 01 2017, @11:50PM   Printer-friendly

The Verge just keeps putting out articles on Peter Thiel. Seems now like Thiel might be teaching a seminar at the Berkeley Institute:

Earlier this year, the Berkeley Institute, a private academic institution, listed a seminar on "Heterodox Science." The seminar was first scheduled to begin in November, then moved to January. On the Institute's website, the instructor of the Heterodox Science course has been described only as "Guest Instructor: Author & Founder of IMITATIO." The accompanying photo is of the back of a white man's head. IMITATIO has three founders; two are dead. The third is billionaire PayPal founder, Gawker litigator, ubiquitous venture capitalist, and contrarian Trump advisor, Peter Thiel.

IMITATIO is a website dedicated to the ideas of René Girard, and his theory of memetic desire.

The Verge continues:

What is Heterodox Science? "Heterodox" — coming from the Greek root words heteros, meaning "the other," and doxa, meaning "opinion" — refers to atypical beliefs or those beliefs which go against prevailing norms. In the modern political context, heterodoxy has been adopted by conservative groups concerned about what they view as a suffocating echo chamber in the liberal academy. The most prominent heterodox organization is the "Heterodox Academy," which describes itself as an "association of professors who have come together to express their support for increasing viewpoint diversity—particularly political diversity—in universities."

Interesting, heterodox is also the root for "heretic"! And it appears that some have gotten the ear of the president elect? But it may ultimately be that "heterodox science" is just like "alternative medicine" according to the old joke: "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that actually works? Medicine."


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 02 2017, @12:50AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday January 02 2017, @12:50AM (#448315) Homepage

    You should care, because the organization's model is to be intellectually honest regardless of the bullshit groupthink going on in American universities. A year or so ago I had to do an internship for service learning and had to read about White Privilege and the struggles of Blacks written by some Harvard-educated Jew woman who'd never set foot in a real ghetto, much less outside of her gated-community.

    Now, the organization is a place where academics who are afraid to be intellectually honest because of the political environment on their campuses can get together and freely discuss ideas based on the Christian intellectual tradition (no, that doesn't mean they hold prayer groups). If I had the time and money, I'd attend some of their seminars if I could.

    I hope this makes it, it's a real longshot -- and that's not including the fact that they're operating out of San Francisco -- but their model catching on in universities would undo a lot of the Leftist retardation that's been screwing campuses up lately. It's funny that their office is above a Mexican restaurant, it's like Hollywood Upstairs Medical College from The Simpsons.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 02 2017, @02:54AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday January 02 2017, @02:54AM (#448356) Journal

    What, pray tell, is the "Christian intellectual tradition?" :) This should be hilarious...

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @03:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @03:06AM (#448362)

      That's just a fancy way of saying "science deniers".

    • (Score: 2) by nethead on Monday January 02 2017, @03:22AM

      by nethead (4970) <joe@nethead.com> on Monday January 02 2017, @03:22AM (#448369) Homepage

      The only group that comes to mind is the Jesuits.

      --
      How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 02 2017, @03:33AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @03:33AM (#448372) Journal
      It could be anything from Roman Catholic education [wikipedia.org] to riding dinosaurs [quora.com]. There's been some impressive stuff done by Christian scientists over the centuries, but there's also some remarkably bad anti-science done today. Skepticism is warranted.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:05AM (#448406)

        Skepticism is warranted.

        Yes, constantly. But the real question is why all the secrecy? Is there some reason to hide "heterodox science"? Hermes Trimegistus would be proud, but the actual knowledge would be just as worthless. So it has a political aim? Unorthodoxy is a good thing to promote scientific progress, but not just for its own sake. Are we into the new world of "disruptive knowing"? Eris comes to rule all, Chaos is triumphant, and Keke returns from the underworld? Smells like alt-truthiness, alt-religion, alt-right Himmler and the Thule Society.

    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Monday January 02 2017, @10:21AM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @10:21AM (#448465) Journal

      If it floats, it's a witch?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday January 02 2017, @02:28PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @02:28PM (#448500)

      A more learned devout follower of esoteric Ethanolism could probably answer this better, but I suspect he's talking about our ole buddy St Augustine who merged a lot of pagan and christian thought together or explained one in terms of the other, kinda sorta. Something in the spirit of "Plato's forms aren't wrong or anti-christian they're just a poor interpretation of Psalm #wtf where the aspect of blah blah blah is obviously proto-Christian thinking along the lines of blah blah blah." Saint Thomas Aquinas basically walked the same path 800 years later. Newton and Pascal and Berkeley 400 years after Aquinas only get press credit for their STEM stuff but they were hard core into theology.

      I suppose you give a religion 2000 years to rule and you're gonna get a smattering of STEM dudes hiding behind their theology texts no matter what. But there's also a Euro or maybe Christian thing where primogeniture means the siblings end up in monasteries bored out of their skulls so some drink heavily or others take up philosophy or math or science and ... whereas in barbarian cultures the siblings would end up dead in palace intrigues or whatever, wasting all that valuable noble brain power. In the west the feudal lord's little bro invents a new field of math whereas in barbarian areas the feudal lords little bro is fertilizing an agricultural field somewheres.