Science/Religion a belief system(open/closed) Flashcards
What is a belief system?
What type of system did Karl Popper argue religion is? Science?
How does Polanyi criticise Popper?
-A belief system is any set of ideas & beliefs that people use to make sense of the world around them. Traditionally, people made sense of the world through supernatural explanations. Today(some argue) it is more common to understand the world based on scientific evidence.
-Karl Popper argued that religion is a closed belief system that claims a monopoly of the truth,
-Science is an open belief system, open to constant criticism and governed by falisficationism.
-Polanyi argues that all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge and science is no different.
What set of Norms does science have according to Merton that promote growth of knowledge? Describe them.
What type of belief system does this make science?
-CUDOS norms.
-Communism knowledge must be shared with the scientific community.
-Universalsim scientific knowledge is judged universally, objective criteria.
-Disinterestedness Seeking knowledge for its own sake.
-Organised Scepticism Every theory is open to criticism and testing.
-This would make science an open belief system in agreeiance with Popper.
Who does Horton agree with regarding the type of system science is?
Why is religion a closed system?
What does a closed belief system have according to Horton?
-Horton reaffirms the arguments made by Popper.
-He argues religion is a closed system because it makes knowledge claims that cannot be overturned.
-A closed belief system has ‘get out clauses’ that prevent it from being disproved in the eyes of its believers.
What type of system is religion according to Pitchards?
What native group did he study?
What do the Azande believe about natural events? Coincidences?
Who must they consult about the supernatural?
What useful social functions does the Azande belief system perform?
Why is this believe system closed(oracle solutions)?
Whose argument does Pitchard reinforce?
-According to Pitchard religion is a a self reinforcing closed belief system.
-He study the Azande people of Sudan.
-They believe natural events have natural causes. But coincidences have supernatural causes.
-They must consult an oracle about the supernatural.
-Not alone prevents hostile claims of withcraft but encourages responsibility for one another.
-This is a closed system as the solutions provided by the Oracle give the foundations for a circular argument.
-Horton’s argument that religion is a reinforcing closed belief system.
Who coined the term ‘scientific paradigms’?
What is science based on according to this person?
What does it tell scientists?
-How could this make science a closed system?
-Thomas Kuhn.
-Science is based on a paradigms(Set of shared assumptions).
-It tells scientists what reality is like, how to define problems, methods, equipment and even likely research findings.
-A scientific paradigm can be seen as a form of closed belief system; e.g. scientific education and training socialises new scientists into faith in the paradigm.
How do interpretivists view science?
What does Wooglar argue scientists have to do for interpretations to be accepted? What does this make scientific facts?
Which interpretivist argued the invention of new instruments (microscopes/telescopes)allow for the ‘fabrication’ of facts by scientists?
-Interpretivists argue that science is socially constructed.
-Wooglar argued that scientists have to persuade the scientific community to accept their interpretation of the world.
-Therefore, Wooglar argues a scientific fact is simply a shared socially constructed belief.
-Knorr-Cetina argues that what scientists study in the labratory is highly ‘constructed’ and far removed from the ‘natural’ world they are supposedly studying.
Who studied the Little Green men?
What does he argue scientists are engaged with?
What did scientists discover in his study?
What did they annotate these into?
What problems did the scientists realise would erupt from this study?
How did they act on this?
Therefore what does this make science to Wooglar?
-Ethnomethodologist Wooglar
-Scientists are engaged with ‘making sense’ or intepreting the world as everyone else.
-Scientists discovered ‘pulsars’(stars).
-These were annotated into little green men.
-The scientists involved realised their research would not be credited by others in the community and would end their careers.
-Instead they acted by giving the results a different explanation.
-Subsequently Wooglar concludes that science is a social construction not real facts.
According to Polanyi what three devices do all belief systems have to sustain themselves?
Describe these.
-Polanyi argues that all belief systems have three devices to sustain themselves:
-Circulatory; Each idea in a system is explained in terms of another idea witihin the system and so on, round and round.
-Subsidary explanations; for example, if the oracle fails, it may be explained away as due to the incorrect use of the benge.
-Denial of legitimacy to rivals; Belief systems reject alternative worldviews by refusing to grant any legitimacy to their basic assumptions. I.e. creationism rejects outright the evolutionists’ knowedlge claim that Earth is billions of years old and species evolved rather than being created.
Who do Marxists and feminists see science serving the interest of?
What do Marxists argue scientific developments are driven by?
What claims made by science do postmodernists reject?
Define technoscience?
-Dominant groups- the ruling class or men respectively through biological ideas to justify canalisation.
-Marxists argue that many scientific developments are driven by capitalism’s need for knowledge to make profit.
-Postmodernists such as Lyotard reject science’s claims to have ‘the truth’.
-Technoscience is the idea that science today is only used to serve interests of capitalists by producing commodities for profit.
