The noisiest voices of the illiberal extremes are dominating our ‘dialogue’, blocking the way of inquiry, critical thinking, and problem- solving. The more sensible majority yearns for a more pluralistic approach, seeking and honoring a diversity of opinion.

ThoughtStretchers hopes to help break through this noise with:

• written and video content
• online events
• asynchronous groups and forums
• a social media style feed for connections and conversation

Together we’ll engage in relentless advocacy for approaching important problems in education with the liberal science approach that our democratic ideals depend on. Let’s take back the ‘conversations’ together!

Rule #1 The fallibilist rule: No one gets the final say. You may claim that a statement is established as knowledge only if it can be debunked, in principle, and only insofar as it withstands attempts to debunk it.

Rule #2 The empirical rule: No one has personal authority. You may claim that a statement has been established as knowledge only insofar as the method to check it gives the same result regardless of the identity of the checker, and regardless of the source of the statement.

Ten Commitments:

1. What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker
2. Always trust your feelings
3. Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

“If we care about knowledge, freedom, and peace, then we need to stake a strong claim: anyone can believe anything, but liberal science—open-ended, depersonalized checking by an error-seeking social network—is the only legitimate validator of knowledge, at least in the reality-based community.” –Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge, 2021

High Conflict