ideology and science Flashcards
the impact of science
-its achievements in medicine, have eradicated many once fatal diseases
-Scientific and technological development: e.g. Transport communications, work, leisure- has revolutionised economic productivity and raised our standards of living
-Success has led to a ‘widespread faith in science’- a belief it can ‘deliver the goods’
-more recently this faith has been dimmed due to a recognition that science also causes problems such as pollution, global warming weapons of mass destruction-> science has created its own manufactured risk that increasingly threaten the planet
-Science enables us to explain, predict and control the world in a way that non-scientific or pre-scientific belief systems cannot do
Popper: open belief systems
-Science is an open belief system, where every scientist’/ theories are open to scrutiny, criticism, and testing by others
-Science is governed by the principle of falsificationism- scientists set out, deliberately seeking evidence that would disprove existing theories, and if evidence from an experiment or observation contradicts it, the theory can be discarded and search for better explanations
-In science, discarding false knowledge-claims is what enables scientific understanding of the world to grow
-science is CUMULATIVE: Builds on the achievements of previous scientist, to develop a greater understanding
-However, despite the achievements of great scientists like Newton, no theory is ever to be taken as definitely true, as there is always possibility that someone will produce evidence to prove it e.g. Used to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth until Copernicus disproved this
-Popper says “ The key thing about scientific knowledge is that it is not sacred or absolute truth- it can be questioned, criticised, tested, and perhaps shown to be false”
Merton: the CUDOS norms
-argues that science can only thrive as a major social institution, if it receives support from other institutions and values e.g. Puratinism (a form of Calvinism) - that this worldly, calling and industriousness and belief that the study of nature and appreciation of God’s work, encouraged them to experiment
-Merton also argues that like Popper, science as an institution/ organised social activity needs an ‘ethos’ (set of norms, make scientist act in ways that serve the goal of increasing scientific knowledge)
-Identifies four such norms: CUDOS
Communism
Universalism
Disinterestedness
Organised Scepticism
communism
-Scientific knowledge is not private property
-Must be shared with the scientific community (by publishing findings), otherwise knowledge can’t grow
universalism
-The truth or falsity of scientific knowledge, is judged by universal objective criteria (e.g. Testing) and not by particular race, sex etc. of the researcher who produces it.
disinterestedness
being committed to discovering knowledge for its own sake
-Having to publish their findings, makes it harder for scientists to practice fraud since it enables others to check their claims
organised scepticism
no knowledge-claim is regarded as ‘sacred’ as every idea is up to questioning, criticism and objective investigation
closed belief systems
-while scientific knowledge is provisional, open to challenge and potentially disprovable, religion claims to have a special perfect knowledge of the absolute truth
-it’s knowledge is literally sacred and religious organisations claim to hold it on God’s divine authority, which means it cannot be challenged and those who do may be punished
-Also means that religious knowledge does not change, unlike scientific knowledge- it is fixed and does not grow
Horton
Horton
distinguishes between closed and open belief systems
-Sees science as an open system (where claims are open to criticism, and can be disproved by testing)
-Sees religion, magic and many other, the belief systems as closed (make knowledge claims that cannot be successfully overturned)
-Whenever it’s fundamental beliefs are threatened, a close belief, system has a number of devices/ ‘ get out clauses’ that reinforce the system and prevent it from being disproved (at least in the eyes of its believers)
-These devices vary between belief systems e.g. Evan’s-Pritchard’s study in the Azande witchcraft beliefs
Evans- Pritchard: Witchcraft among the Azande
-Believe, natural events have natural causes, but don’t believe in coincidence or chance- whenever face with misfortune, they may explain it in terms of witchcraft e.g. Jealous neighbour.
-in such cases, the injured party may make an accusation against the suspected witch and the matter is resolved by consulting, the prince’s magic poison oracle- prince’s diviner will administer a potion (‘benge’) to a chicken at the same time, asking the benge, whether the accused is the source of the witchcraft and telling it to kill the chicken, if yes
-If the chicken dies, the sufferer can go and publicly demand, the witchcraft stop
-Usually enough to end the problem as Azande regard witchcraft as a psychic power coming from a substance, located in the witch’s intestines- witch is doing harm unintentionally/unconsciously-> allows the accused to proclaim their surprise and horror and apologise
-Evans-Pritchard argues that this system, performs useful, social functions, like preventing, grudges, and encouraging neighbours to behave considerably towards one another, and also an important social control, mechanism insurance, conformity and corporation- children keep their parents in line as could ruin their reputation too
-believes this is resistant to challenges as it is a closed system- e.g would blame the benge as not being good if it kills the chicken without the diviner addressing it
-believers we are trapped within their own ‘ idiom of belief’ because they accept the systems, basic assumptions and any test doesn’t disprove the belief system in the eyes of the believers
Polyani: self-sustaining beliefs
-argues that all belief systems have three devices to sustain themselves in the face of apparently contradictory evidence
(1) circularity
(2) subsidiary explanations
(3) denial of legitimacy to rivals
circularity
Each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea within the system and so on round and round
subsidiary explanations
e.g. if the Oracle fails, it may be explained due to incorrect use of the benge
denial of legitimacy to rivals
Belief systems reject alternative world views by refusing to grant any legitimacy to their basic assumptions
-e.g. Creationism rejects outright the evolutionists knowledge-claim that the earth is billions of years old, and therefore species have gradually evolved rather than all having been created.
science as a closed system
some writers argue that science is in fact closed and is also a self-sustaining or closed system of belief > open
-e.g. Polanyi argues that all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge-claim and science is no different
-e.g. Dr Velikovsky
Dr Velikovsky
-published ‘ Worlds in Collision’ where he put a new theory of the origins of the Earth and challenged some of the most fundamental assumptions of geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology
-Instead of putting the new theory to the test as in an open system, the scientific community rush to reject it out of hand without even having read the book
-Scientist, who called for a fair hearing, and for the theory to be put to the test with victimised, and some even lost their jobs
Kuhn: explanation of scientists’ refusal to consider challenges
-argues that a mature science, such as geology, biology, or physics, is based on a set of shared assumptions- a paradigm which tells scientists what reality is like, what problems to study, and what methods and equipment to use, what will count as evidence, and even what answers they should find when they conduct research
-For most of the time, scientists are engaged in normal science, which involve ‘puzzle solving’- the paradigm lays down the broad outlines, and the scientist job is to carefully fill in all the details- those who do so successfully are rewarded with bigger research grants, professorships, Nobel prizes etc.
-Scientific education and training is a process of being socialised into faith in the truth of the paradigm, and a successful career depends on working within the paradigm
-For these reasons, any scientist, who challenged the fundamental assumptions of the paradigm as Velikovsky did, is likely to be ridiculed and hounded out of the profession and others in the scientific community will no longer regard him or her as a scientist at all
What does Kuhn say are the only exceptions to his explanation of refusal to accept challenges to science?
during rare periods that he calls, ‘scientific revolution’ when faith in the truth of the paradigm has already been undermined by accumulation of anomalies, which result in the paradigm not being accounted for
-Only then scientist become open to radically new ideas
