Science for Change-Agents: 1) The Use & Misuse of Science

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Brief history of science from Aristotle, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes to Max Weber, Foucault Theories of Science: Induction, deduction Critical thinking of science

Transcript of Science for Change-Agents: 1) The Use & Misuse of Science

© WECREATE WORLDWIDE LTD 2013 www.wecreateworldwide.com

Part I: The Use & Misuse of SciencePart II: Innovating in ComplexityPart III: Transforming Systems Part IV: Changing Human BehaviourPart V: Insight-driven Innovation

SCIENCE FOR CHANGE-AGENTS

PASSIONNOT PROFESSION (THOUGH I USE SCIENCE EACH DAY)

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We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.Albert Einstein

If breakthrough was easy, everyone would be doing it... and they are not.

Why?

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PART ITHE USE AND MISUSE OF SCIENCE

WHAT IS SCIENCE? WHY IS SCIENCE IMPORTANT?HOW IS SCIENCE DONE?

10

EVIDENCE-BASED

“If you want to lose weight, don’t eat. This is not medicine, it’s thermodynamics. If you take in more than you use, you store it.”

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

“The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible.”

RICHARD L ATKINSON, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND NUTRITIONAL SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN; EDITOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBESITY

“All calories are not equal.

We are increasingly understanding that attributing obesity to personal responsibility is very simplistic.”

JONATHAN C K WELLS, PROFESSOR OF CHILD NUTRITION, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

SCIENCEHAS NO FINAL ANSWERS!

Though everyone endorses science when it can cure disease, monitor the environment, or bash political opponents, the intrusion of science into the territories of the humanities has been deeply resented. Just as reviled is the application of scientific reasoning to religion. In the major journals of opinion, scientific carpetbaggers are regularly accused of determinism, reductionism, essentialism, positivism, and worst of all, something called “scientism.”

STEVEN PINKER, THE NEW REPUBLIC

MAPNOT NECESSARILY THE TERRITORY

“The hunt for the origins of modern science has long been a favourite occupation of historians. They differ widely about the key moment which saw science’s birth, tracing it to the philosophers of Classical Greece, or celebrating the canonical achievements of 17th-century heroes such as Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Boyle and Newton, or insisting with great plausibility that until at least the early 19th century, the typical institutions and techniques of the natural sciences simply didn’t exist. These different stories depend on widely divergent versions of what distinguishes the scientific enterprise, whether method, personnel, hardware or expertise.”

SIMON SCHAFFER

1705

XMAS, 1758(53 YEARS LATER)

“This year the world is witnessing the most satisfying phenomenon that astronomy has ever provided, an event unique to this day, changing our doubts into certainties, and our hypotheses into demonstrations.”

THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

16TH CSCIENCE GETS STARTED

ARISTOTLEAUTHORITY

ESSENCES predict nature in spite of observation

SCHOLASTICS

toledo translation centre

COPERNICUSPTOLEMY

17TH CSCIENCE GETS FIESTY

GIORDANO BRUNO

MANY worlds

GALILEO’S VISIONTOOK SPIRIT OF RENAISSANCE (EMPIRICAL, COMPETITIVE, EXPERIMENTAL, DOUBTING) ONTO NIGHT SKY

“Science originated from the fusion of two old traditions, the tradition of philosophical thinking that began in ancient Greece and the tradition of skilled crafts that began even earlier and flourished in medieval Europe. Philosophy supplied the concepts for science, and skilled crafts provided the tools.”

FREEMAN DYSON

MANY MOONS

DESCARTESOBJECTIVE SCIENCE

1640S

EMPIRICALOBSERVATION

Prometheus, Teacher in Every Art, Brought the Fire That Hath Proved to Mortals a Means to Mighty Ends.

INDUCTIONFRANCIS BACON

“There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immoveable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.”

FRANCIS BACON

Al Haytham. 1021

“Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.”

IBN AL-HAYTHAM

TAWHIDUNITY OF ALL THINGS

NEWTONCODIFIED IT INTO MECHANICAL SCIENCE

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in the night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”

ALEXANDER POPE

GOETHE v NEWTONHOLISTIC VS MECHANISTIC

UR-PLANT

Nature, it seems, must always clash with ArtAnd yet, before we know it, both are one

GOETHE

CLOCKWORKUNIVERSE

NEWTONIANS (NOT NEWTON! HE ALSO PRACISED ALCHEMY)

MACHINESPENDULUMS, CALCULUS ETC.

Searching wits, of more mechanic partsWho grac’d their age with new-invented arts

VIRGIL VIA DRYDEN (& NOBEL)

18TH CSCIENCE GETS POWERFUL

“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”

PIERRE SIMON LA PLACE

THE ENLIGHTENMENTVOLTAIRE, JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU, LOCKE, HUME ETC

AUTHORITYSCIENCE & REASONVS.TRADITION & RELIGION

REASONBECOMES INCREASINGLY MECHANISTIC MATERIALISM...

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

SPINNING JENNY

WATTSTEAM

ENGINE

COTTON GIN

“Whoever invents the car, invents the car crash.”

19TH CSCIENCE GETS PROFESSIONAL

CHEMICALDEMISE OF PHLOGISTON THEORYACCURATE MEASUREMENT

PERIODIC TABLEMENDELEEV

ELECTROMAGNETISM

FARADAY & MAXWELL

EVOLUTIONDARWIN (NATURAL SELECTION) VS. PALEY (DESIGN)

EVOLUTIONDARWIN VS. PALEY

SOCIALDARWINISM

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

CHARLES DARWIN

DEATH OF GOD

GERM THEORYPASTEUR, KOCH

MECHANIC’S WAR

“[I]t seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have now been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice…. An eminent physicist has remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”

ALBERT MICHELSON, 1894

20TH CSCIENCE GETS SPOOKY(ED)

RELATIVITYEINSTEIN

CHEMIST’S WAR

ENTANGLEMENT18 MILES

BELL

UNCERTAINTYLOCATION OR MOMENTUM BUT NOT BOTH

HEISENBERG

INCOMPLETENESSCONSISTENT OR COMPLETE BUT NOT BOTH

GÖDEL

BIOLOGIST’SWAR

EUGENICS: IS IT ‘SCIENCE’?

LYSENKOISMSOVIET ‘SCIENCE’

“He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists”

ANDREI SAKHAROV

HOLOCAUSTINDUSTRIAL SCALE RATIONALISM

“Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.”

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

PHYSICIST’SWAR

ARMYINJECTING DISEASE IN 1950

GDPALLOCATE RESOURCES IN A WAR

TECHNOCRATSRULE THE WORLD

ECONOMISTS, GENETICISTS, ENTREPRENEURS, TECHNOLOGISTS

“The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers to the producers and, through the latter to the whole social system. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood...Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior.”

HERBERT MARCUSE

ALGORITHMSRUN THE WORLD

“Nullius in Verba.”

Take Nobody’s Word for It.

ROYAL SOCIETY

BODYOF KNOWLEDGE

METHODACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE

“Science is the systematic, rational acquisition of new knowledge.”

HAAPARANTA & NIINILUOTO

PROCESSFIND CURIOUS PHENOMENA / QUESTIONS

PROCESSFIND CURIOUS PHENOMENA / QUESTIONSOBSERVE A LOTMAKE UP A THEORYDESIGN EXPERIMENT TO TEST THEORYANALYSETELL EVERYONE ABOUT ITREPEAT (BY OTHERS)

OBSERVEINDUCE A THEORYDEDUCE A PREDICTION

THEORYTHEORY NEEDS TO CREATE HYPOTHESES TO TEST / VERIFY

FALSIFICATIONSCIENCE NEEDS TESTABLE PREDICTIONS

DEDUCTFROM GENERAL TO SPECIFIC

INDUCTFROM SPECIFIC TO GENERAL

Mystery kidney disease in Central America

WHAT IS YOUR HYPOTHESIS?WHAT PREDICTIONS MIGHT YOUR THEORY HOLD TRUE?WHAT EXPERIMENTS COULD YOU RUN TO TEST IT?WHAT DATA MIGHT YOU WANT TO COLLECT?

AVOIDSUBJECT BIASEXPERIMENTER BIASSELECTION BIAS

RCT

IN SOCIAL IMPACT

CRITERIAPREDICTABLE OBSERVABLE / QUANTIFIABLE / MEASURABLETESTABLEREPEATABLE

CRITERIACLEAR TERMINOLOGYOBJECTIVITYPUBLICITYCRITICAL THINKINGSELF-CORRECTIVENESSAUTONOMYPROGRESSIVENESS

OPERATIONALISELIFE

LOVEWHO LOVES their partner / friend MORE?

“Science is an inherent contradiction — systematic wonder — applied to the natural world. In its mundane form, the methodical instinct prevails and the result, an orderly procession of papers, advances the perimeter of knowledge, step by laborious step… Who knows how many scientific revolutions have been missed because their potential inaugurators disregarded the whimsical, the incidental, the inconvenient inside the laboratory?”

THE GENERAL THEORY OF LOVE

CREATIVITYvs.RIGOUR

“Science is not formal logic - it needs the free play of the mind in as great a degree as any other creative art. It is true that this is a gift which can hardly be taught, but its growth can be encouraged in those who already possess it.”

MAX BORN

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

EINSTEIN

WONDERFULIMPACTS WHICH HAVE CHANGED & SHAPED ALL OUR LIVES

WONDERvs.CONTROL

“[I]f you are going to teach people to make observations, you should show that something wonderful can come from them.”

RICHARD FEYNMAN

CONTROL!PLANETPEOPLEPROFIT

NORMALISE!IQBMIHAPPINESSGDP

POSITIVISMDESCRIBECONTROLPREDICT

“From science comes prediction; from prediction comes action.”

COMMTE

CHANGE!DISSATISFACTION WITH WHAT IS

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

MARX

EXPLOIT!VALUEENERGY

“‘I am come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children, to bind her to your service and make her your slave.’”

FRANCIS BACON

SCIENCEBASED ON ‘TORTURING NATURE’ (CF. CAROLYN MERCHANT)

“And God said: Let man have dominion of the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air. and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth over the earth.”

GENESIS 1, 26

LIBERATIONvs.ALIENATION

PROGRESS!BUT... NIGERIA, HUNTER-GATHERERS

TECHNOLOGYEMPOWERS US TO CONNECT, COLLABORATE, CO-CREATE

TECHNOLOGYENCHAINS US AS PRODUCERS / CONSUMERS

KNOWLEDGEPOWER

“How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!”

CHARLES DARWIN

FOUCAULTGENEALOGYDISCONTINUITY

FOUCAULTINDUSTRIAL-MILITARY

“A new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”

JEREMY BENTHAM

GAZECONSTRUCTS KNOWER AND KNOWN

SURVEILLANCE

SOUSVEILLANCE

MEASUREMENTDISENCHANTS THE WORLD

MAKES US ACT STRANGE E.G. THE WELCOME NURSE

OBSERVESOMETHING

SPLITS UNITY OF EXPERIENCE

“For is it not possible that science will create a monster? Is it not possible that an objective approach that frowns upon personal connections between the entities examined will harm people, turn them into miserable, unfriendly, self-righteous mechanisms without charm or humour? "Is it not possible," asks Kierkegaard, "that my activity as an objective [or critico-rational] observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?" I suspect the answer to many of these questions is affirmative and I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective is urgently needed.”

PAUL FEYERABEND

GOETHEDELICATE, EMPATHIC EMPIRICISM

300 YEARS BEFORE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION

“It is a calamity that the use of experiment has severed nature from man, so that he is content to understand nature merely through what artificial instruments reveal and by so doing even restricts her achievements...Microscopes and telescopes, in actual fact, confuse man's innate clarity of mind.”

GOETHE

SCIENTISMREDUCTION OF EVERYTHING TO SCIENCE

“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations.”

MAX WEBER, 1918

HISTORICALVS ESSENTIAL

DARWINIMPERIALISM & DOMINATION OF NATURE

EVOLUTIONREVISITED WITHIN COMPLEXITYIN CONTEXT OF CO-OPERATION & COLLABORATION

EPIGENETICSDNA METHYLATION

CONSTRUCTEDSOCIALLY

SCIENCE

PARADIGMKUHNFOUCAULT EPISTEME

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

MAX PLANCK

KUHN...PRE-PARADIGM PARADIGM (NORMAL SCIENCE) ANOMALY CRISIS RESPONSE & EMERGENCE OF NEW PARADIGM

“Elegant explanations are the Kuhnian solvent that leaches the glue from old paradigms, making space for new theories to take hold”

EDGE.ORG

SHIFTSPTOLEMAIC COSMOLOGY - COPERNICANARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS - NEWTONIAN PHYSICSNEWTONIAN PHYSICS - EINSTEIN’S RELATIVITY CLASSICAL MECHANICS - QUANTUM MECHANICS LAMARCK - DARWIN’S THEORY STATIC BRAIN - NEUROPLASTICITY

EVERYPAST THEORY HAS BEEN ‘WRONG’

INVISIBLETEXT BOOKS SHOW LINEARITYCUMULATIVE KNOWLDEGE

SCIENCE IS NEVER ‘TRUE’...

“'It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it is beyond our reach. There is no authority beyond the reach of criticism.”

KARL POPPER

RELATIVEAAARGH!!!!

INTERPRETIVETURN

POST-MODERNISM

“The positivist thesis of unified science, which assimilates all the sciences to a natural-scientific model, fails because of the intimate relationship between the social sciences and history, and the fact that they are based on a situation-specific understanding of meaning that can be explicated only hermeneutically ... access to a symbolically prestructured reality cannot be gained by observation alone.”

JURGEN HABERMAS

“Which speaking, discoursing subjects – which subjects of experience and knowledge – do you want to ‘diminish’ when you say: ‘I who conduct this discourse am conducting a scientific discourse, and I am a scientist’?”

MICHEL FOUCAULT

BIG PROBLEMSCOMPLEX ECONOMIES / COMMUNITIES / BODIESINTERCONNECTED & CHAOTIC

BIG DATAINTERNET OF THINGSWEARABLES

BUT(AND ITS A BIG ONE)

beliefs driven by emotions

SYSTEM favors predictability (surviving) over creativity (thriving)Sources: Antonio D’Amasio, Baba Shiv, Andrew Newberg, Jonathan Haidt

IRRATIONAL

“Emotions are mechanisms that set the brains highest goals... they probably evolved because they were hard to fake.”

Steven Pinker

• STRESS RESPONSE ACTIVATED

• FEAR MEMORIES CONSOLIDATE INTO HABIT

less neural plasticity as age so rely on old

favor predictability over spontaneity

even data does not dissuade us

RIGIDSource: Scientific American

HORIZONSEMBODIED COGNITIONMINDFULNESS / COMPASSION CHANGES BRAINVAGAL NERVE STIMULATIONBIOLOGY OF OXCYTOCIN2 MILLION GUT NERVES (PARKINSON’S)

“Until we invent time-travel and really get a handle on the multiverse, science tells us little about history, for example. Science may be able to tell us why we like music, why certain types of sound appeal more than others, but not why Bach is the best.”

A REALIST PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE: EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING

TRUTHWHO OWNS IT?WHAT DO THEY GET FROM IT?HOW DOES IT FEEL?IS THAT FEAR / PATTERN OR INTUITION?

“In Aristotle’s words phronesis is a ‘true state, reasoned, and capable of action with regard to things that are good or bad for man.’ Phronesis goes beyond both analytical, scientific knowledge (episteme) and technical knowledge or know-how (techne) and involves judgments and decisions made in the manner of a virtuoso social and political actor.”

BENT FLYVBJERG

SCIENCEINCREDIBLE - VERIFIABLE EXPLANATIONS FOR MANY EVENTS LIMITED - LOOKS FOR LINEARITY WHERE NON-LINEARITY RULES: CREATIVITY, MIND/BODY CONNECTION, QUANTUM, COMPLEX SYSTEMS, CULTURE, HAPPINESS

TRUTHCO-CREATED BY EACH OF US

SCIENCE INFORMSINTUITION GUIDES

MIDDLE WAYBETWEEN IDEALISM & EMPIRICISMBETWEEN INSIGHT & INTUITIONBETWEEN SCIENCE & SPIRITBETWEEN EQUALITY & MERITOCRACY

WHAT IS SCIENCE? WHY IS SCIENCE IMPORTANT?HOW IS SCIENCE DONE?