Sociology-beliefs-ideology and science

Question 1

What has been the impact of science?

Answer 1

Science has had an enormous impact on society over the last few centuries. Its achievements in medicine have eradicated many once fatal diseases. Many basic features of daily life-transport, communications, work and leisure-would be unrecognisable to our recent ancestors due to scientific and technological development. Most strikingly, science and technology have revolutionised economic productivity and raised our standard of living to previously undreamt height. This success has led to a widespread ‘faith in science’-a belief that it can ‘deliver the goods’

Question 2

More recently, what are the views on science?

Answer 2

This ‘faith in science’ has been somewhat dimmed by a recognition that science may cause problems as well as solve them. Pollution, global warming and weapons of mass destruction are as much a product of science and technology as are space flight, ‘wonder drugs’ and the internet. While science may have helped to protect us from natural dangers such as disease and famine, it has created its own ‘manufactured risks’ that increasingly threaten the planet

Question 3

What distinguishes science from other belief systems?

Answer 3

Both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ effects of science demonstrate the key feature distinguishing it from other belief systems or knowledge claims-that is, its cognitive power. In other words, science enables us to explain, predict and control the world in a way that non-scientific or pre-scientific belief systems cannot do

Question 4

Why does Karl Popper say science has been successful in explaining and controlling the world?

Answer 4

Because science is an ‘open belief system’ where every scientist’s theories are open to scrutiny, criticism and testing by others. Science is governed by the principle of falsificationism. That is, scientists set out to try and falsify existing theories deliberately seeking evidence that would disprove them. If the evidence form an experiment or observation contradicts a theory and shows it to be false, the theory can be discarded and the search for a better explanation can begin. In science, knowledge claims live or die by the evidence

Question 5

In Popper’s view how does scientific understanding of the world grow?

Answer 5

Discarding falsified knowledge claims is what enables scientific understanding of the world to grow. Scientific knowledge is cumulative-it builds on the achievements of previous scientists to develop a greater and greater understanding of the world around us

Question 6

What did Sir Isaac Newton say about scientific understanding?

Answer 6

‘If I have been able to see so far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants’-that is, on the discoveries of his predecessors

Question 7

Why are no scientific theories ever taken as definitely true?

Answer 7

Despite the achievements of great scientists, such as Newton, no theory is ever to be taken as definitely true-there is always a possibility that someone will produce evidence to disprove it. Eg for centuries it was held to be true that the sun revolved around the earth, until Copernicus demonstrated that this knowledge claim was false. In Popper’s view, the key thing about scientific knowledge is that it is not sacred or absolute truth-it can always be questioned, criticised, tested and perhaps shown to be false

Question 8

What does Merton argue about science?

Answer 8

He argues that science can only thrive as a major social institution if it receives the support from other institutions and values-he argues this first occurred in England as a result of the values and attitudes created by the Protestant Reformation, especially Puritanism. The Puritans’ beliefs encouraged them to experiment and were attracted to the fact that science could produce technological inventions to improve the conditions of life. This new institution of science also received support from economic and military institutions

Question 9

What is the CUDOS norm?

Answer 9

Merton argues, like Popper, that science as an institution or organised social activity needs an ‘ethos’ or set of norms that make scientists act in ways that serve the goal of increasing scientific knowledge. The four norms are communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organised scepticism (CUDOS)

Question 10

What is communism (CUDOS)?

Answer 10

Scientific knowledge is not private property. Scientists must share it with the scientific community (by publishing their findings); otherwise, knowledge cannot grow

Question 11

What is universalism (CUDOS)?

Answer 11

The truth or falsity of scientific knowledge is judged by universal, objective criteria (such as testing), and not by the particular race, sex etc of the scientist who produces it

Question 12

What is disinterestedness (CUDOS)?

Answer 12

This means 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

Question 13

What is organised scepticism (CUDOS)?

Answer 13

No knowledge claim is regarded as ‘sacred’. Every idea is open to questioning, criticism and objective investigation

Question 14

How does religion differ from science?

Answer 14

While scientific knowledge is provisional, open to challenge and potentially disprovable, religion claims to have special, perfect knowledge of the absolute truth. Its knowledge is literally sacred and religious organisations claim to hold it on God’s divine authority. This means it cannot be challenged and those who do may be punished for their heresy. It also means religious knowledge does not change, unlike scientific knowledge, therefore it does not grow

Question 15

How does Horton explain the difference between science and religion?

Answer 15

He distinguishes between open and closed belief systems. Like Popper, he sees science as an open belief system-where knowledge claims are open to criticism and can be disproved by testing. By contrast, religion, magic and many other belief systems are closed. They make knowledge claims that cannot successfully be overturned, When fundamental beliefs are threatened, they use ‘get out clauses’ that reinforce the system and prevent it being disproved

Question 16

What was Evans-Pritchard’s study?

Answer 16

His classic anthropological study of the Azande people of the Sudan illustrates Horton’s idea of a self-reinforcing, closed belief system

Question 17

What do the Azande believe?

Answer 17

Like Westerners, the Azande believe that natural events have natural causes. However, unlike most Westerners, the Azande do not believe in coincidence or chance, so when misfortune befalls the Azande, they may explain it in terms of witchcraft. Someone-probably a jealous neighbour-is practicing witch craft

Question 18

How do the Azande find out the truth about whether someone is practicing witchcraft?

Answer 18

The injured party may make an accusation against the suspected witch and the matter may be resolved by consulting the prince’s magic poison oracle. Here, the 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 the answer is ‘yes’. If the chicken dies, the sufferer can go and publicly demand the witchcraft to stop

Question 19

Why does the poison oracle usually end the problem with witchcraft?

Answer 19

Because the Azande regard witchcraft as a psychic power coming from a substance located in the witch’s intestines, and it is believed possible that the witch is doing harm unintentionally and unconsciously. This allows the accused to proclaim their surprise and horror, to apologise and promise that there will be no further bewitching

Question 20

What does Evans-Pritchard argue about the Azande’s beliefs on witchcraft?

Answer 20

Argues this belief system performs useful social functions. It not only clears the air and prevents grudges, but it encourages neighbours to behave considerately towards one another to reduce the risk of an accusation. Also since the Azande believe witchcraft to be hereditary, children have a vested interest in keeping their parents in line, since a successful accusation against the parent also damages the child’s reputation. As such, the belief system is an important social control mechanism ensuring conformity and cooperation

Question 21

What type of belief system does Evan’s Pritchard argue the Azande’s beliefs are?

Answer 21

Closed system. It is highly resistant to challenges and cannot be overturned by evidence. Eg, non-believers may argue if benge killed the chicken without the diviner first addressing the potion, this would be a decisive test showing the oracle did not work. However, for the Azande, such outcome would prove it was not good benge. ‘The very fact of the fowl dying proves to them its badness’ so the rest doesn’t disprove the belief system in their eyes-it reinforces it. They are trapped in their own ‘idiom of belief’ ow way of thinking. Because they accept the system’s basic assumptions, they cannot challenge it

Question 22

What does Polanyi argue?

Answer 22

Argues that all belief systems have three devices to sustain themselves in the face of apparently contradictory evidence: circularity, subsidiary explanations and denial of legitimacy to rivals

Question 23

How does circularity act as a device to sustain a belief system?

Answer 23

Each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea within the system and so on, round and round

Question 24

How do subsidiary explanations act as a device to sustain a belief system?

Answer 24

For example, if the oracle fails, it may be explained away as due to incorrect use of the benge

Question 25

How does denial of legitimacy to rivals act as a device to sustain a belief system?

Answer 25

Belief systems reject alternative world-views by refusing to grant any legitimacy to their basic assumptions, for example, creationism rejects outright the evolutionists’ knowledge-claim that the earth is billions of years old, and therefore that species have gradually evolved rather than all having been created

Question 26

Despite Popper’s view of science as open and critical, what do other writers argue?

Answer 26

That science itself can be seen as a self-sustaining or closed system of belief, eg Polanyi argues that all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge claims - science is no different, as the case of Dr Velikovsky indicates

Question 27

What is one explanation for scientists’ refusal even to consider such challenges?

Answer 27

The explanation comes from a historian of science, Kuhn, who argues that a mature science such as geology, biology or physics is based on a set of shared assumptions that he calls a paradigm

Question 28

What are paradigms?

Answer 28

They tell 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 Kuhn likens to puzzle solving - the paradigm lays down the broad outlines and the scientists’ job is to carefully fill in the details. Those who do so successfully are rewarded with bigger research grants, professorships, Nobel Prizes and so on

Question 29

How important are paradigms to science?

Answer 29

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 challenges the fundamental assumptions of the paradigm, as Velikovsky did, is likely to be ridiculed and hounded out of the profession-others in the scientific community will no longer regard them as a scientist at all

Question 30

How does science ever develop if you cannot challenge the fundamental assumptions of a paradigm?

Answer 30

The only exceptions to this are during rare periods that Kuhn describes as a scientific revolution, when faith in the truth of the paradigm has already been undermined by an accumulation of anomalies-results that the paradigm cannot account for. Only then do scientists become open to radically new ideas

Question 31

How have Interpretivist sociologists developed Kuhn’s ideas further?

Answer 31

They argue that all knowledge-including scientific knowledge-is socially constructed. That is, rather than being objective truth, it is created by social groups using the resources available to them. In the case of science, scientific ‘facts’-those things that scientists take to be true and real-are the product of shared theories or paradigms that tell them what they should expect to see, and of the particular instruments they use

Question 32

What does Knorr-Cetina argue?

Answer 32

That the invention of new instruments, such as telescopes or microscopes, permits scientists to make new observations and construct or ‘fabricate’ new facts. Similarly, she points out that what scientists study in the laboratory is highly ‘constructed’ and far removed from the natural world that they are supposedly studying. For example, water is specially purified, animals specially bred and so on

Question 33

What does the ethnomethodologist Woolgar argue?

Answer 33

Scientists are engaged in the same process of ‘making sense’ or interpreting the world as everyone else. When confronted by ‘evidence’ from their observations and experiments, they have to decide what it means. They do so by devising and applying theories or explanations, but they then have to persuade others to accept their interpretation

Question 34

What is an example of what Woolgar talks about?

Answer 34

In the case of discovery of ‘pulsars’ (pulsating neutron stars) by researchers at the Cambridge astronomy laboratory in 1967, the scientists initially annotated the patterns on their printouts from the radio telescope as ‘LGM1’. and ‘LGM2’ and so on-standing for ‘Little Green Men’. Recognising that this was an unacceptable interpretation from the viewpoint of the scientific community (would have ended their careers if they published it), they eventually settled on notion that patterns represented signals from a type of star hithero unknown to science. However more than a decade later, there was disagreement among astronomers as to what the signals really meant

Question 35

How does the example of ‘little green men’ demonstrate Woolgar’s point?

Answer 35

As Woolgar notes, 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 ‘out there’

Question 36

How do conflict perspectives view science?

Answer 36

Critical perspectives such as Marxism and feminism see scientific knowledge as far from pure truth. Instead, they regard it as serving the interests of dominant groups-either the ruling class, or men. Thus, many advances in supposedly ‘pure’ science have been driven by the need of capitalism for certain types of knowledge, eg theoretical work on ballistics was driven by need to develop new weaponry, and biological ideas have been used to justify both male domination and colonial expansion. In this respect, science can be seen as a new form of ideology

Question 37

How do postmodernists view science?

Answer 37

They also reject the knowledge claims of science to have ‘the truth’. Also, like Marxists, some postmodernists argue that science has become technoscience, simply serving capitalist interests by producing commodities for profit

Question 38

What are Lyotard’s views on science (postmodernism)?

Answer 38

Science is one of a number of meta-narratives or ‘big stories’ that falsely claim to possess the truth. Other meta-narratives include religion, Marxism and psychoanalysis. In his view, science falsely claims to find the truth about how the world works as a means of progress to a better society, whereas in reality, science is just one more ‘disclosure’ or way of thinking that is used to dominate people

Question 39

What is a basic definition of ideology?

Answer 39

It is a worldview or a set of ideas and values-a belief system

Question 40

What is a problem with the use of the term ‘ideology’ in sociology?

Answer 40

The term is very widely used in sociology and has taken on a number of related meanings, including negative aspects, such as:
Distorted, false or mistaken ideas about the world, or a partial, one-sided or biased view of reality. Ideas that conceal the interests of a particular group, or that legitimate (justify) their privileges. Ideas that prevent change by misleading people about the reality of the situation they are in or about their own true interests or position. A self-sustaining belief system that is irrational and closed to criticism

Question 41

Based on the wide use of the term ‘ideology’, what may people be referring to?

Answer 41

Very often when someone uses the term ideology to describe a belief system, it means they regard it as factually and/or morally wrong

Question 42

How do Marxists see society?

Answer 42

Marxism sees society as divided into two opposed classes: 
A minority capitalist ruling class who own the means of production and control the state-bourgeoisie. A majority working class who are propertyless and therefore forced to sell their labour to the capitalists. The capitalist class take advantage of this, exploiting the workers’ labour to produce profit-proletariat. It is therefore in the workers’ interests to overthrow capitalism by means of a socialist revolution and replace it with a classless communist society in which the means of production are collectively, not privately, owned and used to benefit society as a whole

Question 43

What is needed for the marxist revolution to occur?

Answer 43

The working class must first become conscious of their true position as exploited ‘wage slaves’. They must develop class consciousness

Question 44

What prevents the marxist revolution?

Answer 44

The ruling class control not only the means of material production, they also control the means of production of ideas, through institutions such as education, the mass media and religion. These produce ruling-class ideology-ideas that legitimate or justify the status quo (the existing social set up)

Question 45

What is a ruling class ideology?

Answer 45

It includes ideas and beliefs such as:
That equality will never work because it goes against ‘human nature’. Victim blaming ideas about poverty, such as what Bowles and Gintis call ‘the poor are dumb’ theory of meritocracy: everyone has an equal chance in life, so the poor must be poor because they are stupid or lazy. Racist ideas about the inferiority of ethnic minorities, which divide black and white workers make them easier to rule

Question 46

What do the dominant ideas in society reflect?

Answer 46

The dominant ideas are the ideas of the ruling class and they function to prevent change by creating a false consciousness among the workers

Question 47

How did Marx respond to the arguments against a marxist revolution?

Answer 47

However, despite these ideological barriers, Marx believes that ultimately the working class will develop a true class consciousness and unite to overthrow capitalism

Question 48

What does Gramsci talk about?

Answer 48

Hegemony and revolution. He refers to the ruling class’ ideological domination of society as hegemony. He argues that the working class can develop ideas that challenge ruling class hegemony. This is because in capitalist society, workers have a dual consciousness-a mixture of ruling class ideology and ideas they develop from their own direct experience of exploitation and their struggles against it. It is therefore possible for the working class to develop class consciousness and overthrow capitalism

Question 49

In Gramsci’s view, what else is required for the overthrow of capitalism?

Answer 49

A political party of ‘organic intellectuals’-that is, workers who through their anti-capitalist struggles have developed a class consciousness

Question 50

What do critics argue about Gramsci’s idea of hegemony and revolution?

Answer 50

However, some critics argue that it is not the existence of a dominant ideology that keeps the workers in line and prevents attempts to overthrow capitalism. For example, Abercrombie et al argue that it is economic factors such as the fear of unemployment that keep workers from rebelling

Question 51

What is nationalism?

Answer 51

Nationalism is an important political ideology that has had a major impact on the world over the last 200 years

Question 52

What does nationalism claim?

Answer 52

Nations are real, distinctive communities each with its own unique characteristics and a long, shared history. Every nation should be self-governing. National loyalty and identity should come before all others, such as tribe, class or religion

Question 53

However, what does Anderson argue?

Answer 53

Anderson argues that a nation is only an ‘imagined community’, not a real one. Although we identify with it, we will never know most of its other members. This imagined community can bind millions of strangers together and create a sense of common purpose

Question 54

How does Marx link with nationalism?

Answer 54

Marx was an internationalist. His Communist Manifesto ends with the words, “Workers of all countries, unit. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.”

Question 55

What is nationalism in the marxist view?

Answer 55

Nationalism is a form of false class consciousness that helps prevent the overthrow of capitalism by dividing the international working class. This is because nationalism encourages workers to believe they have more in common with the capitalists of their own country than with workers of other countries. This has enabled the ruling class of each capitalist country to persuade the working class to fight wards on their behalf

Question 56

How do functionalists see nationalism?

Answer 56

Functionalists see nationalism as a secular civil religion. Like religion, it integrates individuals into larger social and political units by making them feel part of something greater than themselves

Question 57

Why do functionalists say nationalism is important in modern secular societies?

Answer 57

In modern secular societies, people may be unwilling to believe in supernatural beings but may be willing to see themselves as part of a nation. Modern societies also often contain many different faiths, so religion is likely to be a source of division

Question 58

By contrast, how does nationalism function as a civil religion?

Answer 58

It functions as a civil religion that unites everyone into a single national community, regardless of differences such as religion or class. For functionalists, education plays an important part in creating social solidarity, and this may include collective rituals involving nationalist symbols such as the flag and national anthem, as well as learning the nation’s history-which may be more myth than fact

Question 59

How does Gellner see nationalism?

Answer 59

Gellner also sees nationalism as false consciousness: its claim that nations have existed since time immemorial is untrue. On the contrary, in Gellner’s view, nationalism is a very modern phenomenon

Question 60

What was nationalism like in pre-industrial societies?

Answer 60

Pre-industrial societies were held together not by nationalism, but by face-to-face relationships in small-scale communities with a fixed hierarchy of ascribed statuses

Question 61

How is modern society very different from pre-industrial society?

Answer 61

Industrialisation creates large-scale, impersonal societies with a complex division of labour, administered by vast bureaucracies, and where all citizens are of relatively equal status (eg all are equal before the law). Modern states therefore need some means of enabling communication between strangers to take place, especially in the economy

Question 62

What makes nationalism possible?

Answer 62

Modern society, by using a mass state education system to impose a single, standard, national culture and language on every member of society. Similarly, nationalism regards all citizens as equal and this makes economic and social cooperation between them easier

Question 63

What does Gellner also note about the use of nationalism as an ideology?

Answer 63

Gellner also notes that elites use nationalism as an ideology to motivate the population to endure the hardships and suffering that accompany the first phase of industrialisation, thereby enabling a state to modernise

Question 64

Who talks about ideology and utopia?

Answer 64

Mannheim

Question 65

When was most of Mannheim’s work done?

Answer 65

Most of Mannheim’s work on ideology was done between the two World Wars-a time of intense political and social conflict-and this undoubtedly influenced his views

Question 66

What are Mannheim’s views?

Answer 66

Mannheim sees all belief systems as a partial or one-sided worldview. Their one sidedness results from being the viewpoint of one particular group or class and its interests. This led to him distinguish between two broad types of belief system of worldview

Question 67

What two broad types of belief system of worldview does Mannheim distinguish between?

Answer 67

Ideological thought and utopian thought

Question 68

What is ideological thought?

Answer 68

It justifies keeping things as they are. It reflects the position and interests of privileged groups such as the capitalist class. These groups benefit from maintaining their status quo, so their belief system tends to be conservative and favours hierarchy

Question 69

What is utopian thought?

Answer 69

It justifies social change. It reflects the position and interests of the underprivileged and offers a vision of how society could be organised differently. For example, the working class are disadvantaged by the status quo and may favour radical change to a classless society. Mannheim sees Marxism as an example of utopian thought

Question 70

How does Mannheim see these two world-views?

Answer 70

As creations of groups of intellectuals who attach themselves to particular classes. Eg, the role of Gramsci’s organic intellectuals is to create a working class or socialist worldview

Question 71

Why do Mannheim’s two world views only produce partial views of reality?

Answer 71

Because these intellectuals represent the interests of particular groups, and not society as a whole, they only produce partial views of reality. The belief system of each class or group only gives us a partial truth about the world. For Mannheim this is a source of conflict in society. Different intellectuals, linked to different groups and classes, produce opposed and antagonistic ideas that justify the interests and claims of their groups as against the others

Question 72

In Mannheim’s view, what is the solution to the conflict caused by the two world views?

Answer 72

The solution is therefore to ‘detach’ the intellectuals from the social groups they represent and create a non-aligned free-floating intelligentsia standing above the conflict. Freed from representing the interests of this or that group, they would be able to synthesise elements of the different partial ideologies and utopias so as to arrive at a ‘total’ worldview that represented the interests of society as a whole

Question 73

What is a problem with Mannheim’s solution of ‘free-floating intelligentsia’?

Answer 73

Many of the elements of different political ideologies are diametrically opposed to one another and it is hard to imagine how these could by synthesised. Eg, how could Marxist ideas about the need to create a classless society be synthesised with the conservative idea that hierarchy is essential and beneficial?

Question 74

What are feminists basic views of society?

Answer 74

Feminists see gender inequality as the fundamental division in society and patriarchal ideology as playing a key role in legitimating it

Question 75

How do feminists view ideologies?

Answer 75

Because gender difference is a feature of all societies, there exist many different ideologies to justify it. Eg Marks describes how ideas from science have been used to justify excluding women from education. She quotes 19th century doctors, scientists and educationalists expressing the view that educating females would lead to the creation of ‘a new race of weak and unfeminine’ females and ‘disqualify women from their true vocation’, namely the nurturing of the next generation

Question 76

What other ideologies to feminists talk about, apart from science?

Answer 76

In addition to patriarch ideologies in science, those embodied in religious beliefs and practices have also been used to define women as inferior. There are numerous examples from a wide range of religions of the idea that women are ritually impure or unclean, particularly because of childbirth or menstruation. This has given rise to purification rituals such as ‘churching’ after a woman has given birth. In some Christian churches, a new mother may not receive communion until after she has been churched

Question 77

What evidence goes against feminist views of ideology?

Answer 77

However, not all elements of religious belief systems subordinate women.Eg there is evidence that, before the emergence of monotheistic patriarchal religions, matriarchal religions with female deities were widespread, with female priests and the celebration of fertility cults. Similarly, in Hinduism, goddesses have often been portrayed as creators of the universe