Spurious Research as Tendentious Propaganda

Spurious Research as Tendentious Propaganda

A liberal society depends on its procedures as well as its institutions. Foremost among these is the error-correction mechanism of scientific method and critical inquiry. In his important book The Constitution of Knowledge, Jonathan Rauch identifies current threats to the pursuit of reliable knowledge. He argues that “politicising an academic discipline like sociology or literary criticism, or spreading propaganda to discredit and drown out fact…