Classical view of science and technology
•A typical, naive view of science might be as follows:
•Science is a formal activity that creates knowledge by direct interaction with nature.
•Science has some kind of special method that allows different scientists to produce the same kind of knowledge whatever their social and political context might be.
•Scientists perform the same experiments in the same way, and agree upon and reject the same hypotheses.
•Scientists come to consensus on the truths of the natural world.
•We have a sort of black box: . Nature Science Truth
Scientism
• Scientism goes back at least as far as the Scientific Revolution (c. 1550–1700) and originates in the claim that there is a sharp divide between “facts” and “values.”
•According to this view, when we do science, we set aside values and study only facts.
•The authority of science rests on its claim to be “value free” and hence “objective.”
•Scientism promotes the idea that all of society’s problems can be solved by experts who are specially trained to unearth the facts of the matter.
•Scientism, and the scientistic movement, make the claim that science is for the benefit of all of humanity
•The classical view began to fall apart in the process of 20th century investigations of scientific activity.
•Philosophers were unable to formalize the “black box.” There appears to be no single “scientific method.”
•When historians began to explore past scientific activities more closely, they found there was no such thing as “pure science,” removed from social and political interactions and assumptions.
•When sociologists began to open the black box of contemporary scientific activity, they found that the inside was thoroughly social and political. Then, why do most people still hold the naive view?
Comments
Post a Comment