Fractured knowledge: “Fake news”

Abstract

Locke’s liberal democratic theory advocates toleration, to broker a peace among faiths. Secular common knowledge, including science, is used to adjudicate neutrally in disputes across all faiths. Some politicized religious groups have now begun to question the possibility of neutral arbitration, by denying any common knowledge. Secularism instead seems to be a rival to their faith. The belief in viable knowledge fracture, however, relies on a mistaken philosophy of science which allows that any general result in science is only a matter of opinion because theory is ever empirically underdetermined. True, but it may not be experimentally underdetermined. Religious politicians need to rethink their priorities, for they are losing their youth as we speak and fast giving up on a precarious peace.