THE LIMIT OF DOUBT AND CERTAINTY

The philosophy of science has traditionally debated the merits of methodical doubt as a criterion of demarcation between what is and is not scientific. This essay, situated within a broader research program on the foundations of scientific inquiry, shifts the discussion toward a frequently neglected phenomenon: the cognitive cost of doubt and the consequent formation of collective dogmas within research communities. It argues that (i) doubt is a scarce resource, suspended for pragmatic reasons rather than out of definitive conviction; (ii) collective dogmas — here defined as the active repression of dissent — constitute an epistemic problem independent of the consensual origin of the concept; and (iii) it proposes, as a minimal institutional response, the allocation of a small fraction (0.5% to 2%) of research resources to unorthodox projects, managed by committees with an explicit mandate to fund divergence, complemented by a collaborative platform serving as an archive of dissent.