Calls for certainty in politics
As described in Certainty and science above: "no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism." Researchers from the United States and Canada write about a rhetorical technique focussed on shifting the burden of proof in an argument: the rhetoric involves a very public call for absolute certainty from one side of the debate.[87] For instance, laws that would control cigarette smoking were combated by lobby groups emphasizing that the evidence connecting smoking to cancer was not certain. The evidence that did exist was thus trivialized.[87] The researchers call this a SCAM (Scientific Certainty Argumentation Method), and maintain that what is really needed is a balanced approach to science; an approach that admits scientific conclusions are always tentative. This means carefully considering the risks of both Type 1 and Type 2 errors in a situation (e.g. all the risks of over-reaction, but also the risks of under-reaction). Certainty, it should be clear, will not exist on either side of the debate. The authors conclude that politicians and lobby groups are too often able to make "successful efforts to argue for full 'scientific certainty' before a regulation can be said to be 'justified' — and that, in short, is a SCAM."[87]Science policy
Main articles: Science policy, History of science policy, Funding of science, and Economics of science
Science policy is an area of public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the science and research enterprise, including research funding,
often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological
innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons
development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy
also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to
the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the
entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. Is accordance
with public policy
being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's
goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the
public.State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the Warring States Period in China. In Great Britain, governmental approval of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century recognized a scientific community which exists to this day. The professionalization of science, begun in the nineteenth century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and State funding of universities of their respective nations. Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the United States government, the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government" [88]
Science and technology research is often funded through a competitive process, in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government, corporations or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.[89] In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).
Pseudoscience, fringe science, and junk science
Main articles: Pseudoscience, Fringe science, Junk science, Cargo cult science, and Scientific misconduct
An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an
attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to
achieve is sometimes referred to as pseudoscience, fringe science, or "alternative science".[90] Another term, junk science,
is often used to describe scientific hypotheses or conclusions which,
while perhaps legitimate in themselves, are believed to be used to
support a position that is seen as not legitimately justified by the
totality of evidence. Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term "cargo cult science"
in reference to pursuits that have the formal trappings of science but
lack "a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.[91] Various types of commercial advertising, ranging from hype to fraud, may fall into these categories.There also can be an element of political or ideological bias on all sides of such debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as "bad science", research that is well-intentioned but is seen as incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified expositions of scientific ideas. The term "scientific misconduct" refers to situations such as where researchers have intentionally misrepresented their published data or have purposely given credit for a discovery to the wrong person.[92]
Criticism
Main article: Criticism of science
Philosophical criticisms
Historian Jacques Barzun termed science "a faith as fanatical as any in history" and warned against the use of scientific thought to suppress considerations of meaning as integral to human existence.[93] Many recent thinkers, such as Carolyn Merchant, Theodor Adorno and E. F. Schumacher considered that the 17th century scientific revolution shifted science from a focus on understanding nature, or wisdom, to a focus on manipulating nature, i.e. power, and that science's emphasis on manipulating nature leads it inevitably to manipulate people, as well.[94] Science's focus on quantitative measures has led to critiques that it is unable to recognize important qualitative aspects of the world.[94]Philosopher of science Paul K Feyerabend advanced the idea of epistemological anarchism, which holds that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge, and that the idea that science can or should operate according to universal and fixed rules is unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to science itself.[95] Feyerabend advocates treating science as an ideology alongside others such as religion, magic and mythology, and considers the dominance of science in society authoritarian and unjustified. He also contended (along with Imre Lakatos) that the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience on objective grounds is not possible and thus fatal to the notion of science running according to fixed, universal rules.[95]
Feyerabend also criticized science for not having evidence for its own philosophical precepts. Particularly the notion of Uniformity of Law and the Uniformity of Process across time and space. "We have to realize that a unified theory of the physical world simply does not exist" says Feyerabend, "We have theories that work in restricted regions, we have purely formal attempts to condense them into a single formula, we have lots of unfounded claims (such as the claim that all of chemistry can be reduced to physics), phenomena that do not fit into the accepted framework are suppressed; in physics, which many scientists regard as the one really basic science, we have now at least three different points of view...without a promise of conceptual (and not only formal) unification".[96]
Sociologist Stanley Aronowitz scrutinizes science for operating with the presumption that the only acceptable criticisms of science are those conducted within the methodological framework that science has set up for itself. That science insists that only those who have been inducted into its community, through means of training and credentials, are qualified to make these criticisms.[97] Aronowitz also alleges that while scientists consider it absurd that Fundamentalist Christianity uses biblical references to bolster their claim that the Bible is true, scientists pull the same tactic by using the tools of science to settle disputes concerning its own validity.[98]
Several academics have offered critiques concerning ethics in science. In Science and Ethics, for example, the philosopher Bernard Rollin examines the relevance of ethics to science, and argues in favor of making education in ethics part and parcel of scientific training.[99]
Fragmented view of world
Psychologist Carl Jung believed that though science attempted to understand all of nature, the experimental method imposed artificial and conditional questions that evoke equally artificial answers. Jung encouraged, instead of these 'artificial' methods, empirically testing the world in a holistic manner.[100] David Parkin compared the epistemological stance of science to that of divination.[101] He suggested that, to the degree that divination is an epistemologically specific means of gaining insight into a given question, science itself can be considered a form of divination that is framed from a Western view of the nature (and thus possible applications) of knowledge.In a similar vein, Sixel saw the scientific viewpoint as limited in scope without being conscious of its own limitations, so that science could be correct (within its framework) and yet not true (because it failed to take into account larger contexts).[102]
Media perspectives
The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate may require considerable expertise regarding the matter.[103] Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may be ignorant about other scientific issues that they are suddenly asked to cover.[104][105]Politics and public perception of science
See also: Politicization of science
Many issues damage the relationship of science to the media and the use of science and scientific arguments by politicians. As a very broad generalisation, many politicians seek certainties and facts whilst scientists typically offer probabilities and caveats. However, politicians' ability to be heard in the mass media frequently distorts the scientific understanding by the public. Examples in Britain include the controversy over the MMR inoculation, and the 1988 forced resignation of a Government Minister, Edwina Currie for revealing the high probability that battery farmed eggs were contaminated with Salmonella.[106]
0 comments:
Post a Comment