A common view of scienceSocial pressures, political ideology and religious dogma can be and must be eliminated if a valid contribution to science is to be made.

True science is independent of culture, it is only false beliefs and ideas that need to be explained using sociology or individual psychology.

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Divided loyaltiesTrust in science is being eroded. How can we restore it?

WHICH scientists can the public trust?It used to be taken for granted that researcherswho work for government or in universitieswould tell it like it is, while those in the payof industry had a commercial axe to grind,so what they said needed to be taken witha pinch of salt. With a few exceptions, it was areasonable rule of thumb.But not any more. Industry and academiahave become so entwined that knowing whichside of the divide a researcher comes fromis increasingly difficult. This uncertaintyhas become a major issue in a series of highlypoliticised debates over the safety of drugs andfoods. Most recently, the debate over globalwarming has become as much about who paysthe researchers and sceptics as about thescience itself.

A common view of science

ScienceMore Science

Objective Reality – independent of humanity

Theory

Our theory represents the world as it really is.

True Theory

But which methods must be used to guarantee the truth of theory?

Induction?

Falsification?

Induction and falsification both fail•for different logical reasons•because they rely on a neutral observation base – which does not exist.•because they do not represent what scientists do.

Observation and experiment are not neutral. They are as fallible as theories on which they depend.

They are said to be “theory-laden”.

Post-empiricist philosophy of science is characterized by the demise of the dream that we could discover the “quintessence of scientific method” and the “permanent criteria for evaluating, justifying or criticizing scientific hypotheses and theories”.

Thomas Kuhn

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Thomas Kuhn and Paradigms

• If it is not possible to find a rational basis for theories, perhaps theories are accepted for other reasons.

• Kuhn sought an explanation in an analysis of the history and actual practice of science.

• Profound influence on the philosophy of science and academic thought in general.

Kuhn’s model of science

Four stages in the evolution of a science

• Pre-science

• Normal Science

• Crisis and revolution

• New Paradigm

Pre-science

• Disorganized and diverse activity• Constant debate over fundamentals• As many theories as there are theorists.• No commonly accepted observational basis. The conflicting theories are constituted with their own set of theory-dependent observations.

Normal Science•A paradigm is established which lays the foundations for legitimate work within the discipline. Scientific work then consists in articulation of the paradigm, in solving puzzles that it throws up.•Paradigms are not accepted on purely logical grounds.•Failure to solve any puzzle is seen as an inadequacy of the scientist not of the paradigm.•Anomalies are tolerated and do not cause the rejection of the theory.

•A paradigm is a conventional basis for research; it sets a precedent.

•Scientists are trained within the paradigm and adopt (often tacitly) the basic assumptions and way of theorizing the world that the paradigm is based on.

•Paradigms are transmitted and sustained just as culture is. Stability and commitment are explained in sociological terms.

Crisis and Revolution

•Anomalies become serious, and a crisis develops if the anomalies undermine the basic assumptions of the paradigm and attempts to remove them consistently fail.•Under these circumstances the rules for the application of the paradigm become relaxed. Ideas that challenge the existing paradigm are developed.•Eventually a new paradigm will be established, but not as a result of any logically compelling justification.

New Paradigm

•Each paradigm constructs “the Universe” and the meaning of concepts and observations in a completely different way. •Each paradigm comes complete with standards for the assessment of what is to count as scientific.•Different paradigms are held to be incommensurable.•The reasons for the choice of a paradigm are largely psychological and sociological. •There is no natural measure or scale for ranking different paradigms.

After a revolution the world is constructed anew

Observations are reinterpreted in the light of the new paradigm.

What is thought to exist is recast.

What counts as explanation and understanding is transformed

A common view of science

ScienceMore Science

Objective Reality – independent of humanity

Theory

Our theory represents the world as it really is.

True Theory

But which methods must be used to guarantee the truth of theory?

Induction?

Falsification?

Descriptive or Prescriptive?

• Kuhn is still being prescriptive – indicating the features an endeavour must possess if it is to be a science. Knowledge which does not evolve according to the four stages, according to Kuhn, may not be considered scientific.

A relativist interpretation of Kuhn

• No general rules of scientific method• No universal standards for judging the merits of

different theories• Science is not a rational process• Science has no special status• Science is not cumulative• Paradigms provide a way of perceiving reality –

providing both the concepts and the meanings of observations and a way of knowing which problems are significant and what counts as a solution.

Astrology: Popper vs. Kuhn

• Not scientific as any potential refutation can always be explained away

• Makes testable predictions, but is not a science because there was never a tradition of puzzle solving and revolution.

P K Feyerabend’s criticism of Kuhn

• To turn your subject into a science: restrict criticism, reduce the number of comprehensive theories to one, and create a normal science which has this theory as its paradigm.-Authoritarian, stifles progress ethically undesirable.

• Organized crime is puzzle-solving par excellence – every statement Kuhn makes about normal science remains true if normal science is replaced by organised crime.

• Establishment of a single paradigm is not a prerequisite for progress.

Psychologists and Kuhn

• Used to assess psychology’s current status as a science. Various conclusions have been reached:– Not a science– An immature science– A bona fide paradigmatic science– A multi-paradigmatic science

Must All Sciences Conform to the Model of Physics?

Kuhn is trying to characterize SCIENCE – but why should all

sciences proceed in the same way?

Paradigm succession

• Experimental psychology in USA –three periods of normal science??– Mentalist paradigm ….revolution– Behaviourist paradigm … revolution– Cognitive paradigm

• Many alternative arguments that history of psychology does not conform to Kuhn’s description.

Positivism Vs. Realism

• Only observable phenomena are real

• Theory just an auxillary to prediction

• Causality is just a pattern of events

• Behaviourism

• Theoretical entities may be real.

• Theory describes real underlying processes that bring about observed regularities.

• Causality is the exercise of powers of potent entities.

• Cognitivism.

Rom Harre

• Revolution now in progress in psychology involves a radical departure from both natural science models. Away from causal models towards normative models from human sciences.

• Psychology is a metaphysical and methodological double science – however the natural science model stills exerts a fascination – leads to a tragic waste of lives and resources (Harre 1998,p30)

Where are we now?

We know what science is not!

• For Popper and other traditionalists – “scientific knowledge may be regarded as subjectless” Science reveals the truth about the world, as it exists in itself, independent of humanity, through the application of the guaranteed scientific method.

• A realist view, but, under inspection this point of view seems hardly sustainable.

• For Kuhn (and others) there is no guaranteed, universal and timeless scientific method. Science is essentially a human activity. We construct our reality (it is not simply revealed) –both observations and theories together.

• However, this approach does not mark science out as any different to other forms of intellectual pursuit. Implies relativism

Social studies of science

• Can social studies of science identify a special set of rules (norms) governing the behaviour of scientists?

Robert K Merton–identified 4 norms

• Universalism – ideas evaluated independent of their source.

• Communalism – ideas shared.

• Disinterestedness – no advancement of vested interests.

• Organised scepticism – evidence weighed in a considered manner.

(1910-2003)

• Norms may be desirable but evidence for the existence and institutionalisation of the norms not robust.

Scientific values?

• Kuhn (1977): scientists use five rational standard criteria for evaluating theories:– Accuracy of agreement with experiment.– Consistency – internally and with other

accepted theories.– Scope – goes beyond particular matters it was

designed to explain.– Simplicity.– Fruitfulness.

Realism

• Do not focus on methodology to justify science but on the status of the entities posited by scientists.

• “Realists use a transcendental argument to work out what the fact of human knowledge tells us about the relationship between humans and the natural world.” (Yearley (2005,p18)

Roy Bashkar

It is not necessary that science occurs. But given that it does, it is necessary that the world is a certain way. It is contingent that the world is such that science is possible and that humans as part of that world have characteristics that enable science to be done.

That the world is structured and differentiated can be established by philosophical argument – how it is in fact so are matters for scientific investigation.

• Objects of scientific knowledge are independent of the activity of science itself.

• Scientific knowledge can only be produced by a community.

• The notion of falsification makes no sense unless one that there is an independent natural world capable of falsifying our hypotheses.

• Science is “special” because it tells us about the real causal structures of the world.

• But being a realist does not help us decide what the real causal structures are.

“Science Wars”

Relativism vs. Realism

References1. Kuhn, T S (1977) The Essential Tension. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

2. Harre, R and Gillett, G (1994) The Discursive Mind. USA:Sage Publications

3. Harre, R.(1998) The singular self.London: Sage.

4. Lakatos, I & Musgrave, A (1970). Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge:CUP

5. Bernstein,R.J. (1984) Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. Oxford: Balckwells.

6. Robert K Merton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton

7. Driver-Linn,E. (2003) Where is Psychology Going? American Psychologist 58, 4. 269-278

8. Roy Bhaskar: http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/archive/rbhaskar_rbi.html

Natural Sciences and Human Sciences

• Is there a sharp division between human and natural sciences in terms of methods, concerns and status? The answer depends on your view of science. Empiricists would argue that there is no difference and both natural and human sciences should use the same methodology – founding and guaranteeing their knowledge through observation and experiment.