In what way can you consider a point of view without considering it to have merit? He’s not discussing relativism (everyone is right about everything), just social evaluation of epistemological credentials. Aka “merit”.
Re: the broader question of “are/were Americans the most scientifically minded culture”, I’d like to see some more rigorous evidence than “think of ancient Chinese emperors”. Or, for that matter, “equatorial cultures tend to promote violence”??
You can regard other POVs as a potential threat to your own hegemony, and thus feel the need to study them to understand how that threat may play out. Doing so does not inherently accord them any merit.
>> "You all believe that widely diverse points of view have merit, right?"
I wrote "consider" using it in the sense of "to believe" rather than "to evaluate". "Consider" was my word. Brin used "believe".
And, I do believe he was talking about cultural relativism. That specific phrase has unpleasant philosophical and moral booby traps, however, so the left-leaning intelligentsia and fellow travelers of the time ignored these traps by subscribing to the concept without actually using the term.
Re: the broader question of “are/were Americans the most scientifically minded culture”, I’d like to see some more rigorous evidence than “think of ancient Chinese emperors”. Or, for that matter, “equatorial cultures tend to promote violence”??