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Introduction to
Science,
Technology and
Society
Or by Appointment
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
Science comes from the Latin scientia meaning
knowledge
This is a rather broad definition as it can denote
any sort of body of knowledge indeed up until
the modern age it was used rather loosely in
this manner
ARISTOTELEAN SCIENCE
-
WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?
- We tend to think of metaphysics as vaguely supernatural or spiritual
-
Not necessarily so
Epistemology -
ARISTOTLE
Aristotle had a theory of forms . All matter was
compromised and organized into certain forms and if
you wanted to know about an object or make
predictions about an object you had to know its
form.
In other words, you start from your metaphysics and work
your way out.
FORMULATE A HYPOTHESIS
After reading the associated literature you come up with
a good question , What is the cause of a certain
disease or natural phenomenon
- You formulate a hypothesis which can be testable
- The hypothesis makes a prediction which can be
falsifiable there must be the possibility that a
possible outcome could disprove the hypothesis.
INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION
Other scientists can repeat and verify this
experiment
The results are then published in an academic
journal and made know to all.
These finding are then incorporated into the
greater body of scientific knowledge
THE VIRTUES OF SCIENCE Knowledge is cumulative and acquired though careful testing
Always subject to be falsifiable
No appeals to outside authority (antiauthoritarian)
No absolute certainty or appeal to hidden principles
It seems to provide us with a body of knowledge that is fairly reliable and depend
able
We can use this knowledge to correct ageold diseases, etc.
Nevertheless
Many have suggested that the scientific method and enterprise itself promotes
certain virtues
Oppenheimer , Snow etc.
-anti-dogmatic
Progressive
Rigorous search for the truth
Introduction to Science,
Technology and Society
The Unbelievers
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Why do Dawkins and Krauss believe that the debunking and questioning
religion is so important?
What do they see as the distinction between religion and science?
Do they believe that science and religion are asking essentially the same
questions?
Do they believe that the clash between science and religion is
inevitable?
Why does Dawkins think why questions are silly questions?
Do Dawkins and Krauss believe that the religious faith of scientist or a
politician should matter in public debate?
How successful do you think Dawkins and Krauss are at convincing or
winning over their opponents? Do you think ultimately this is very
important to them?
What is the difference between the notion of the Abrahamic faiths of
creation ex nihilo and Lawrence Krauss notion of creation from nothing?
What do the unbelievers believe in?
Introduction to Science,
Technology and Society
Recap
Science is a methodology which aims to procure
objective and secure knowledge of the external
world
Disavows metaphysical assumptions the
metaphysics (in principle) are derived through
experimentation and the careful accumulation of
tested and empirically verified facts
Aims to build up a gradual accumulative picture
of the natural world.
Aims to remove cultural and subjective bias
Recap 2
Yet if science claims a sort of cultural and
metaphysical neutrality, this does not mean
that it does come into conflict with other
cultural, metaphysical and religious views or
that somehow not tried to put forward
science as its own sort of worldview.
The Unbelievers is example of this
The Unbelievers
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Why do Dawkins and Krauss believe that the debunking and questioning
religion is so important?
What do they see as the distinction between religion and science?
Do they believe that science and religion are asking essentially the same
questions?
Do they believe that the clash between science and religion is
inevitable?
Why does Dawkins think why questions are silly questions?
Do Dawkins and Krauss believe that the religious faith of scientist or a
politician should matter in public debate?
How successful do you think Dawkins and Krauss are at convincing or
winning over their opponents? Do you think ultimately this is very
important to them?
What is the difference between the notion of the Abrahamic faiths of
creation ex nihilo and Lawrence Krauss notion of creation from nothing?
What do the unbelievers believe in?
The Unbelievers
Dawkins and Krauss seem to present science
as a replacement for religion or metaphysical
systems and the final arbitrator on all
epistemological, ontological and ethical
matters.
Cultural Constructivism
Merold Westphal suggest that claims of cultural constructivism can be
understood as employing two different but intertwined hermeneutic
(interpretive) strategies the hermeneutics of finitude and the hermeneutics
of suspicion.
The Hermeneutics of Finitude There is no view from nowhere or Gods
eye view. There is no unimpeachable epistemic access to the real. We
always do this limited perspective of our subjective historically and
culturally informed categories.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction to Science,
Technology and Society
2.
3.
4.
5.
Incommensurability
Kuhn claimed that scientific paradigms preceding
and succeeding a paradigm shift are so dissimilar
that they cannot be proved or disproven by the
old paradigm and vise versa
Not a matter of the verification principle
The Paradigm shift changes not only how
scientists view their field but also what questions
are regarded as valid, and what criteria is used to
judge the truth and validity of new knowledge
In other words
It is not possible to resolve the conflicting
claims of competing paradigms according to
principle of verification
To do so would be to apply the rules and
language of one paradigm according to that of
another, rather Kuhn claim new paradigm
succeed over paradigms due to growing
consensus among a community of experts of
its greater explanatory power
Progress in Science?
Kuhn didnt deny scientific progress in science
New paradigms, he holds, better explain the
world and phenomena
That is not a relativists position, and it displays
the sense in which I am a convinced believer in
scientific progress. SSR 2nd ed. p.207.
Hermeneutics of Suspicion
If scientific paradigms rest ultimately on the
consensus of scientific community upon what
grounds is this consensus reached?
Are there other factors besides scientific rigor
and rationality that contribute to this
consensus such as the social position and
attitudes of scientists.
STS 200
Introduction to
Science,
Technology and
Society
Recap
Cultural Constructivism investigates the social and cultural
situated-ness of our knowledge claims about reality
- Challenges the understanding of science as completely
objective, impartial and unbiased, and seeks to
understand science as a cultural enterprise arising out of
certain historical and cultural contexts
- Seeks to uncover the influence of culture upon
scientific thought.
Recap
I suggested that cultural constructivism could be
understood as employing two different interpretive
strategies
1) The Hermeneutics of Finitude the
limits of our capacity to know the world
- No view from nowhere or absolute
unshakable epistemic foundations
2) The Hermeneutics of Suspicion Why is
this knowledge claim being made? Whose
political or cultural interests does it serve?
Recap
The Hermeneutics of Finitude one of the best
examples of this is Thomas Kuhns Structures of
Scientific Revolutions
S.S.R- challenged the conception of the history
of science as a straight-forward linear
progression, arguing instead that the history of
science is marked by periods of revolutionary
upset.
Recap
Paradigm Shifts
He distinguishes between periods of Normal
Science and Revolutionary Science
1)Normal Science the scientific enterprise is
carried on under the direction of the widely
accepted paradigm
2) Crisis- Anomalies which cant be explained under
the old paradigm accumulate
3) Revolutionary Science A new paradigm is
proposed that can account for these anomalies
4) The revolutionary paradigm is accepted and we
return to normal science under the new paradigm.
Recap
Important point- Incommensurability
Kuhn claimed that scientific paradigms preceding
and succeeding a paradigm shift are so dissimilar
that they cannot be proved or disproven by the
old paradigm and vise versa
Not a matter of the verification principle
The Paradigm shift changes not only how
scientists view their field but also what questions
are regarded as valid and what criteria is used to
judge the truth and validity of new knowledge
Recap
It is not possible to resolve the conflicting
claims of competing paradigms according to
principle of verification
Kuhn claims new paradigms succeed over
older paradigms due to growing consensus
among a community of experts of its greater
explanatory power
Recap
So this seems to suggest that the validity of a
particular theory is really just arbitrary.
Kuhn denied this
Provided 5 criteria
1)Accuracy
2) Consistency
3)Broad Explanatory Scope
4)Simplicity
5)Explanatorily fruitful
Recap
However
- It does seem to deny the possibility of ever
achieving absolutely objective knowledge.
-Also, in arguing that ultimately the
acceptance of the new paradigm only rests on
communal scientific consensus, it does seem
to open the doors to a consideration of other
social factors that might influence scientists in
coming up with this consensus.
Recap
After all, scientists are humans. They are not
disembodied intellects or computers but
embodied human beings, who grow up in human
social communities, occupy certain social
positions, engage in social relationships and are
influenced by their social, cultural and historic
circumstances.
They also, like everybody else, have certain
prejudices and interests.
How deep does this cultural influence go?
Biology as Ideology
Richard Lewontin Famous molecular
geneticist
Scientists are people and they inhabit a social
community.
They occupy a certain class.
Scientists earn money and the scientific
enterprise, particularly today, takes a lot of
money to pursue.
Electron microscopes dont grow on trees.
STS 200
Introduction to
Science,
Technology and
Society
Postmodernism
All knowledge claims and bodies of knowledge
are informed by social dynamics and competing
power interests.
Michel Foucault
Influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche will to power
Main idea
Foucault aims to demonstrate how certain
scientific and epistemic regimes served as a
means of social control.
1) Madness
2) Sexuality
3) Crime
Jacques Derrida
Since the ancient Greeks western thought has
been characterized by an attempt to
conceptualize and articulate the heterogeneity
of reality in terms of binary categories, such as
nature/culture, male/female, and mind/body, in
which the former is seen as superior and
dominant over the later, thereby naturalizing
and reinforcing certain social hierarchies
Francois Lyotard
Lyotard has dubbed any overarching and
coherent account of the real as a grand
narrative and linked the quest for this grand
narrative with a quest for a foundation for
totalitarian and authoritarian politics.
Cultural Relativism
People from different cultures have different
epistemological methods and bodies of
knowledge that often conflict with western
science.
Non-western people are not historical fossils,
they have their own culture and ways of viewing
and understanding the world and these are
incommensurate with ours.
Okay sowhat do we do when we have
competing knowledge claims?
Primitive Mentality
Lindberg
Pre-literate societies useful information
is passed down through the generations
through stories.
- These stories contain useful information and
elements of cosmology and natural knowledge
but there is no attempt to synthesize this
information. p.6
Lindenbergs question
Add to this the seemingly fanciful nature of
many of the beliefs described above, and we
inevitably raise the question of primitive
mentality: do members of preliterate
societies posses a mentality that is prelogical
or mystical or in some other way different
from our own, and, if so, how exactly is this to
be explained? p.10
Lindberg asks the question and then sidesteps it.
Famous statement
The Savage Mind is our own.
*Contra Levy Bruhl Levi-Strauss argues that there are no two
different mentalities
Man has always been thinking equally well.
Pre-literate societies demand coherence and consistency from their
body of knowledge.
*The key difference is not the acuity of their mental facilities but the
level at which it is applied.
*The savage mind, unlike modern science, starts with classifying what
is perceived in the sensible world.
*It is not irrational, it is simply not Cartesian.
Taxonomy
Classifies the sensible world into contrasting
sets of similarity and difference.
Starts with a fundamental contrast or binary
division and then go onto make further
distinctions.
Bricolage
Levi-Strauss claims that myth is a bricolage.
Bricoleur Handyman uses whatever is at
hand
A myth, that may seem to be strictly practical,
can also be used to solve another more
metaphysical or ethical problem.
STS 200
Introduction to
Science,
Technology and
Society
Recap
Cultural Relativism
What do we do in the case of cultural
disagreements about nature?
Levi-Bruhl Primitive mentality versus Modern
mentality
Claude Levi-Strauss The Savage mind is our
own.
Big Question
Why was the Copernican
Revolution such a big deal?
Galileo claimed that the Heliocentric system was not only more
mathematically elegant but physically true
Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that
the laws of nature are mathematical. In The Assayer he wrote
"Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is
written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are
triangles, circles, and other geometric figures;....
He launched a series of attacks on Aristotelean physics.
If the Heliocentric universe didnt make sense according to
Aristotelean physics then it was Aristotelean physics that was
wrong.
Galilean physics
- Natural motion was not to be understood in
terms of teleology but matter and motion.
- Biological processes were not to be the model
for the motion of inert bodies rather it was
the other way around.
- The primary metaphor for nature was to be
the machine specifically the mechanical
clock
STS 200
Introduction to
Science,
Technology and
Society
Galileos physics
- Natural motion was not to be understood in
terms of teleology but matter and motion.
- Biological processes were not to be the model
for the motion of inert bodies rather it was
the other way around.
- The primary metaphor for nature was to be
the machine specifically the mechanical
clock
Problem
This might be okay for inert motion but it was
difficult to see how it applied for biological
growth.
It seemed to run completely counter to
commonsense.
Aristotelean physics, for all its faults, appealed
to common sense experience.
Aristotle claimed that knowledge entered
through the senses.
Solution
Commonsense be damned!
The senses give us no access to the real world.
Primary qualities those that were quantifiable
Secondary qualities - Those that couldnt be
Rene Descartes
Central figure in modern philosophy
In the Meditations, Descartes seeks out to subject all our
knowledge of the external world to total skepticism.
- Descartes demon
- The Cogito Cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am
- However Descartes claimed I can get reasonably
certain knowledge of the external world though
mathematics.
- Calls on God to vouchsafe the certainty of mathematics
The Result
Rationalism
This contrasted to Descartes
We move from a set of first principles and deduce
a conclusion.
Deduction (Top down) We have one of two
certain premises and from this we move to a certain
conclusion.
Not probabilistic knowledge but certain knowledge!
Mathematics -the paradigmic case of this type of
reasoning