What someone believes or not should not disqualify their work or published results. Period. The work should be evaluated on its own merits.
Unless the idea is really to form a cabal and only allow research on topics that don't question anything, which seems to be what several aim for (and of course, it's easier to get a grant for those)
I've been wondering if fundamentalist positivism might not be the "Vatican dogma" of the next dark age.
I'm skeptical of this claim, but I don't fault them for trying. I also don't fault them for having strange beliefs. All sorts of geniuses have had very odd beliefs, from Newton onward. Seems to go hand in hand with the kind of bravely inquisitive mind that does such things.
Note that I do not mean science. Fundamentalist positivism is really a religious fundamentalist movement built around scientific nomenclature and academic orthodoxy. I consider it a form of cargo cult pseudoscience.
A cranky old man who makes racist remarks shouldn't have his earlier works in biology questioned.
A mathematicians beliefs on God should have no bearings on the quality of her theorems.
A physics student in training unable to recognize (much less participating with and encouraging) a crackpot's physics theories which should be obvious to any undergrad, should not attain a degree in physics. It's not about persecuting beliefs, but a disturbing lack of basic understanding.
A world dominated by the dogma of the fundamental materialists is quite scary indeed. Geniuses such as Ramanujan would never see their gifts blossom.
``...and claimed to dream of blood drops that symbolised her male consort, Narasimha, after which he would receive visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content unfolding before his eyes. He often said, "An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God."
What someone believes or not should not disqualify their work or published results. Period. The work should be evaluated on its own merits.
Unless the idea is really to form a cabal and only allow research on topics that don't question anything, which seems to be what several aim for (and of course, it's easier to get a grant for those)