Science as a Belief System

Question 1

What is the impact of science on our lives?

Answer 1

• Science has had a big impact, especially when it comes to transport, communications, work and leisure
• Our standard of living has improved
• Science has also caused problems such as pollution
• Science is distinguishable from other belief systems or knowledge claims as it has cognitive power (science helps us predict/explain/control the world)

Question 2

Open belief systems

Answer 2

• Popper (1959)

- An ‘open’ belief system: where every scientist’s theories are open to scrutiny, criticism and testing by others

Question 3

What is the principle of falsificationism?

Answer 3

Where scientists set out to try and falsify existing theories, deliberately seeking evidence that would disprove them. Once a theory has been disproved, a better one can be searched for

Question 4

Define cumulative in terms of scientific knowledge

Answer 4

Scientific knowledge builds on the achievements of previous scientists to develop a greater and greater understanding of the world around us

Question 5

What does Merton argue about science?

Answer 5

• Merton (1973): science can only thrive as a major social institution if it receives support from other institutions and values
• This first occurred in England as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Puritan’s beliefs encouraged them to experiment… The started to get attention from economic and military institutions…

Question 6

What is CUDOS and what do the letters stand for?

Answer 6

• Similar to Popper: science needs an ethod that makes scientists act in ways that serve the goal of increasing scientifical knowledge
  1. Communism
• Scientific knowledge isn’t private property, findings must be shared with the scientific community otherwise the knowledge can’t grow
  2. Universalism
• The truth or falsity of scientific knowledge is judged by universal, objective criteria. Not by the particular race, sex etc of the scientist
  3. 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
  4. Organised Scepticism
• No knowledge-claim is regarded as ‘sacred’. Every idea is open to questioning, criticism and objective investigation

Question 7

What is a Closed belief system?

Answer 7

• Religion claims to have special, perfect knowledge of the absolute truth
• Horton (1973): sees science as an open belief system, religion is a closed belief system
• Evans-Pritchard (1936): anthropological study of the Azande people of the Sudan… shows Horton’s idea of a self-reinforcing, closed belief system

Question 8

Witchcraft among the Azande

Answer 8

• The Azande believe that natural events have natural causes, but they don’t believe in coincidence or chance
• When misfortune befalls the Azande, they explain it in terms of withcraft
• Benge potion to confirm the truth
• Evans-Pritchard: this system performs useful social functions as it prevents grudges, encourages friendly behaviour…

Question 9

What are Polanyi’s (1958) self-sustaining beliefs? CSD

Answer 9

1. Circularity- each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea within the system and so on, round and round
2. Subsidiary explanations- For example, if the oracle fails, it may be explained away as due to the incorrect use of the benge
3. Denial of legitimacy to rivals- Belief systems reject alternative worldviews by refusing to grant any legitimacy to their basic assumptions

Question 10

Science as a closed system

Answer 10

• Some other writers argue that science itself can be seen as a closed system
• Polanyi: all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge-claims- science is no different
• Dr Velikovsky: put forward a new theory which challenged basic assumptions of geology, astronomy and biology… Scientists immediately rejected it and the publisher was boycotted
• Kuhn (1970): this theory was refused because of it belonging to a paradigm

Question 11

What is a paradigm?

Answer 11

A set of shared assumptions, which tells scientists what reality is like, what problems to study and what methods and equipment to use…
The paradigm lays down the broad outlines and the scientists’ job is to carefully fill in the edges

Question 12

What is a scientific revolution?

Answer 12

When faith in the truth of the paradigm has already been undermined by an accumulation of anomalies

Question 13

What does Woolgar (1992) argue? Scientists

Answer 13

• Scientists are engaaged in the same process of ‘making sense’ or interpreting the world as everyone else
• E.g: the case of the discovery of ‘pulsars’ by researchers at the Cambridge astronomy laboratory in 1967 (Little Green Men)
• A scientific fact is simply a social construction or belief that scientists are able to persuade their colleagues to share, not necessarily a real thing

Question 14

Marxism, feminism and postmodernism: Their views on science

Answer 14

• Marxism and feminism see scientific knowledge as far from the truth: they regard it as serving the interests of dominant groups
• E.g: theoretical work on ballistics was driven by the need to develop new weaponry
• E.g: biological ideas have been used to justify both male domination and colonial expansion (ideology)
• Postmodernists: Lyotard: science is one of a number of meta-narratives that falsely claim to possess the truth
• Science falsely claims to find the truth about how the world works as a means of progress to a better society, but it’s used instead to dominate people