@Matias Eloquently stated, and well taken. To this I can only add that within a community there have been and continue to be those who possess superior intellect, talent or creativity to that of their peers. Geniuses like Newton, Mozart and Einstein are obvious examples, but obvious to whom? Many, if not most of us, lack the understanding—the basic of vocabulary, if you will—to articulate why these men were considered geniuses, even in their time.

Science is based on evidence, and not on individual belief. Most of us don’t have the know-how to gather or analyze evidence, so we rely on scientific experts to guide us. Individual epistemology has gone too far in this country and is wreaking havoc in this pandemic. The glorification of individual may be our path to ruin.

@Gmak no. Glorification of individuals is what gives us our dignity. If anything can tell you about science is that science changes whenever new evidence contradicts a previous hypothesis. Scientists are not infallible entities: they are human beings with their own biases and prone to err. Are you advocating a society ruled by philosopher kings like out of Plato’s “Republic?” Allowing for individuals to pursue their own dreams has led to more feats of discovery than anything else in the world. Last time I checked, Thomas Edison did not get permission from a collective in order to invent the electric light bulb.

@Heavykevy1985 Germ theory is surely here to stay. So are natural selection and genetic drift as explanations for the fact of evolution (allelic frequencies in a population changing over generational time). Darwin’s notion of pangenesis didn’t fare so well as Mendel inspired the field of genetics.

But science can go down dark paths. The notion of eugenics as expounded by race replacement propagandist Madison Grant in the US of A and sterilization placed in the state law books and supported in Buck v Bell all inspired Hitler and the Nazis.

@Heavykevy1985, @Matias Fallibility is a keystone of science. Views that are well supported are still considered tentative. Popper’s notion of falsification, which has it’s own serious shortcomings (see Duhem-Quine thesis), emphasized such fallibility in that ideas should be held at arm’s length.

@Matias Science is not built on consensus. Science is not based on a popularity contest neither. You are straying away from the OP on why we should abolish the epistemic individualism to discussing the scientific method. Rationalism and empiricism are not the enemies of each other but ways we can find the truth. Just because people like Dr. Fauci say we should wear masks and get a vaccine does not make it right. You have failed to demonstrate why individuals should subordinate their will to a collective

@Matias, @Scott321 and the US defeated Nazi Germany. What’s your point in bringing that up except to say “fuck America?” The Nazis took their cues from Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo too. Any idea can be turned malevolent.

@Scott321 Grant was also a leading conservationist and of course, these ideas are from progressives like him.

@Heavykevy1985 And Republicans freed the slaves where Southern Democrats were vile racists who fled to the Republican party after civil and voting rights legislation and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Centrist Clinton tried to woo the last of the boll weevils on a campaign stop at Klan shrine Stone Mountain. Democrat Zell Miller appeared at a Republican convention. See the trend?

Oh and give up on making sense of polysemic “liberal” given its meaning shifts. In other words AOC and Bernie can’t be tagged with what progressives stood for in the early 1900s just as Republicans can no longer claim to take pride in Emancipation and failed Reconstruction. Not the same party. Goldwater and Reagan were mild compared to the current crop.

@Scott321 AOC and Bernie sure considering like the Progressives of old, they do not mind playing identity politics. Also, AOC supports equity programs like the progressives of old like minimum wage. Lyndon Johnson even said himself with his Great Society program “I will have the niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.” So far, he has been right. Maybe you ought to look up Democrat Plantation. It just has been repackaged as keeping the poor dependent on welfare bread crumbs. By the way, still have not disproven individualism and not given a substitute for it.

@Diagoras Yes, of course, I am also criticizing the tribal mindsets. Speaking to a couple, the wife was a believer and the husband was not, a subject came up that was against her "truth", her immediate knee-jerk reaction was to say, "That's not true!" All of us couldn't help but look with embarrassment at her. She then says, "Well, I know it's true, I just don't want it to be true."

@Matias but when 'rugged individualism' becomes detached from the fabric of the social contract -- the belief that while we have liberties and freedoms we also have obligations and responsibilities to the society we live in -- then it becomes toxic, narcissistic, divisive, regressive and ultimately anti-democratic .

I also think that America's famed rugged individualism is largely a myth, or at least grossly exaggerated. Real progressives in America constantly point to polls there that show that the majority of Americans want the same things that those 'socialistic Europeans' want: a well paying job, good health care, education, a social safety net and quality of life. But the American Right, with their mainstream media apologists, constantly propagate the myth that Americans hate all that 'socialism' and Americans are different. No, they aren't. Their Ruling Class, however, is steadfastly determined to ruin America their way.

@Matias I would counter with Obama’s “you didn’t build that speech”. Rugged individualism is the stuff of Horatio Alger books viciously lampooned in The Great Gatsby and Atlas Shrugged alongside the Bible an example of how fictional myth can shape reality.

@Matias Sadly much of the American "rugged individualism" is a myth. Reagon rode that horse into the White House. The truth behind the life of the author of Little House on the Prairie is SHE was the one who made the money to keep the family afloat. Her husband never really held a steady job and was not the protector and mainstay of the family. It was a myth.
Thank you for your post. I learned another horrible fact about our government. I knew about the Tuskegee experiements and I knew about the banana plantation sham overthrow of the elected president by the CIA under Eisenhower but I did not now about the experiements or that Cutler continued to defend them .
It does make me wonder if there is a real basis for the idea of the U.S. being behind the lab created COVID virus.

@David1955 Living in another country for 15 years taught me a lot about the arrogance of this country. No country feels it is 2nd rate and that the US is the best country on the planet. Even though we are a part of a larger continent we, and many other countries (like GB) have an island mentality.

"infested"?

@Alienbeing Yes.

@wordywalt Political movements are not infestation Your attitude stinks.

@Matias Fiction can exert great power in molding intersubjectivity which itself can then move toward change of aspects of objective reality. Fiction critical of the status quo can inspire a mood for change for better or worse.