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A comment on Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT. Parent comment

Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by superb-owl on Monday September 19, 2022 @10:58AM (#32899235)
This is a false equivalence. Galileo was concerned with physical fact, whereas this professor's controversial opinions are sociological and fairly subjective--they boil down to a value judgement.

That's not to condemn (or defend) the professor. This just isn't a fair characterization of the debate.

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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by foobarian on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:14AM (#32899485)
I'm not so sure, even the helio/geocentrism is a matter of opinion due to relativity of motion.
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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by superb-owl on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:35AM (#32899773)
Hah this is a really good point. IIRC the Catholic Church was actually OK with using heliocentric mathematical models, just not with interpreting them as factual.
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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by foobarian on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:38AM (#32899815)
I wonder what really happened. I'm guessing Galileo was one of those vocal people that just can't help poking the bear.

Edit: reading up a bit more it seems Galileo had a bit of a Linus T. streak, with gratuitous insults and ad hominems against authority. Makes me want to read the source documents now :-)

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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by aydyn on Monday September 19, 2022 @08:42PM (#32906173)
This isn't true, because one frame is an inertial frame and the other is not (i.e. not real).
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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by AbrahamParangi on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:06AM (#32899360)
A fact not yet widely verified and an opinion cannot, in general, be distinguished
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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by superb-owl on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:32AM (#32899716)
I disagree. We can judge the falsifiability of statements without knowing whether or not they're false.

E.g. "red is a better color than blue" is obviously a subjective opinion, where as "ʻOumuamua is made of frozen nitrogen" is obviously a falsifiable statement.

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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by AbrahamParangi on Monday September 19, 2022 @12:41PM (#32900666)
Right, there are specific instances of opinions which cannot be verifiable facts, but the verifiability of a fact is not, in general, itself verifiable!
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Re:Proposed Free Expression Statement for MIT by superb-owl on Monday September 19, 2022 @08:00PM (#32905821)
True! I like this formulation of your statement
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