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?