Science is Anarchy!

Feyerabend on Scientific Anarchy In Science and a Free Society (1978)

Feyerabend says in a section containing some autobiographical notes that von Weizsacker (a former student of Heisenberg) has prime responsibility for Feyerabend's change to his anarchistic view. They met in Hamburg in 1965 and discussed the foundations of quantum theory.

Feyerabend complained that alternatives to quantum theory had been omitted, but Weizsacker showed how quantum mechanics arose from concrete research. Feyerabend relates that it then became clear to him that general methodological rules imposed without regard to circumstances are a hindrance rather than a help, and that a person must be given complete freedom with no restrictions by any norms or demands regardless of how plausible they may seem to logicians and philosophers.

Feyerabend concluded that such norms and demands must be checked by research, and not by appeal to ideas of rationality. Thus did Feyerabend come to advocate scientific anarchy.

Please realise that while method must be a choice and not an imposition, this refers to technical methods, not bureaucratic requirements. Read the linked article and revel in the anarchic freedom that has been miraculously bestowed upon you. Now heed the following admonition.

It is a rule (which was properly divulged a few weeks ago) that any missing reports must be entered as soon as possible, and must not be simply appended to the latest reports. I have noticed several reports missing. Please neither risk embarrassment nor make me waste my time by perpetuating a situation which forces me to compile a list of missing reports which I would then have to mail to the boss lady.

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