Abstract
Scientific activity tends to reflect particular worldviews and their associated value outlooks; and scientific results sometimes have implications for worldviews and the presuppositions of value outlooks. Even so, scientific activity per se neither presupposes nor provides sound rational grounds to accept any worldview or value outlook. Moreover, in virtue of reflecting a suitable variety of worldviews and value outlooks, perhaps including some religious ones, science is better able to further its aim. An extended argument is made that, although the materialist worldview has de facto been widely associated with the development of modern science, the scope of scientific inquiry is improperly limited when constraints, derived from materialism, are generally placed upon admissible scientific theories. Some implications for science education are sketched in the conclusion.
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Notes
This statement of the aim of science draws upon arguments in Lacey (1999a, Ch. 5; 2004; 2005a, Part I). It is intended to be sufficiently encompassing to cover all the activities that scientists usually call “scientific,” and also controversially, not to exclude a priori from the category of “scientific” any forms of systematic empirical inquiry (including, e.g., those that generate the knowledge that informs traditional agricultural or medical practices). It also does not incorporate any metaphysical viewpoint. Obviously individual scientists and institutions may contest it, or they may articulate a variety of more specific aims, e.g., prioritizing differently the various components of the stated aim putting greater or less emphasis on understanding or utility, or subordinating it to other interests (personal, military, corporate or financial) of their own. Furthermore, philosophers may interpret the aim according to favored epistemological or metaphysical viewpoints, e.g., empiricist or realist (van Fraassen 1980).
Worldviews may be more or less articulated. A largely unarticulated worldview may form part of the taken-for-granted “common sense” of a culture, making it resistant to critical appraisal and development through participation in rational dialogue. However, any worldview can develop. Just as “scientific” worldviews develop over time (largely in response to scientific developments), although a considerable body of scientists always tends to lag behind, so too “religious” worldviews can develop (also, in part, in response to scientific developments). Criticism of worldviews should be attentive to these matters.
See also Porpora (2006) for arguments about limitations of “methodological agnosticism” for investigating religious experience.
Dennett has an interesting response, in which he proposes a pragmatic role for “intentional stance,” which he distinguishes from the “design” and the “physical” stances, and which may be applied (he maintains) not only to human agents, but also to numerous material systems such as computers and robots (Dennett 1987).
I have been bemused by generations of my students treating materialism as if it were given a priori, arguing that the categories it favors uniquely meet appropriate standards of intelligibility, even as they un-self-consciously display clarity as they fluently use intentional idiom in making their arguments.
If materialism is a presupposition of scientific activity then, without further ado, viewpoints like creationism and “intelligent design” are “non-” or “anti-scientific.” But why is it legitimate to constrain permissible theories to accordance with materialism, and not to accordance with these viewpoints? The real problem for the scientific status of these outlooks is that they do not engender fruitful research strategies, i.e., strategies that enable theories to be accepted and knowledge confirmed according to standard scientific canons of appraisal—and, in the case of creationism, that it makes claims that are inconsistent with well-confirmed scientific results.
This is not to say that scientific research per se aims immediately for application; that all confirmed scientific results do lead to applications (understanding need not be systematically subordinated to utility); that adopting DA is always rationalized by reference to these relations with VTP (see Sect. 4.4); or that all results consolidated within DA fail to serve interests of value outlooks that contest VTP. I do contend, however, that, where VTP is contested, granting exclusivity to DA is also challenged; and also that, generally, choice of research strategy should be responsive to the general features of the objects of investigation, rather than our conception of such features being subordinated to what can be grasped under a favored strategy (see Sect. 3.4, Thesis, 4).
Variations on such proposals are integral to the rhetoric of advocating that public support be made available for technoscientific advances. We find them in advertisements, news programs, editorial comments, political campaign rhetoric, and in the statements of spokespersons of scientific institutions when they seek funds for their on-going projects: e.g., stem-cell research, the human genome project, nanotechnology, and research and development of transgenics. More and subtle social scientific research on these matters would be welcome. See Lacey (2005a, part II) for documentation of the rhetoric in the transgenics case (see also Note 16), and also for all other matters in the text referring to transgenics and to forms of agriculture that do not use them, especially agroecology.
I do not question the epistemic credentials of results properly accepted within DA. I do question, however, that their epistemic credentials suffice to endorse their general social value compared to the value of the other results, which have comparable epistemic credentials, that I maintain may be obtained under alternative strategies that do not fit into DA. (The epistemic credentials of the science—conducted according to DA—that has led to developments of transgenics are not superior to those of the science—conducted under strategies that are not reducible to those that fit into DA—that informs agroecology; and, for certain value outlooks, the latter has greater social value; see Sect. 4.2)
Knowledge confirmed within DA is cognitively neutral, i.e., it has no logical implications in the domain of values, since the categories of its theories lack value categories. This does not mean that it manifests applied neutrality, i.e., that it may inform more or less evenhandedly projects that embody any viable value outlook (Lacey 1999a, Ch. 10). In the text I am referring to applied neutrality.
How the analysis of the transgenics case can be generalized to many other (though not all) technoscientific innovations warrants further discussion. Note that those who hold VSGE do not deny the value of technological innovation per se. Rather they appraise the value of technological innovations case-by-case in the light of how they may fit into the projects that embody these values. VSGE and VTP cannot be pursued simultaneously in the same social locations, for their respective pursuits require incompatible conditions.
For details on agroecological strategies see Lacey (2005a, Sect. 5.4), and for documentation of the empirical fruitfulness of research conducted under them see Altieri (1995) and Lacey (2005a, Ch. 10). Note that agroecological strategies complement DA and often make use of results consolidated within it; knowing the chemical and microorganism components of agroecological systems, e.g., depends on research conducted within DA. No one recommends that research conducted within DA be altogether dropped and replaced by agroecological research, but only that it cease to be privileged to the point of exclusivity. DA does retain a measure of privilege: all strategies can make use of some results obtained within it, and so it is an essential and major component of scientific research per se.
It was not foreseen (at least, not well publicized) that the implementations of the Green Revolution would risk considerable environmental degradation and that its crops would become highly vulnerable to infestations. Now, it is said, introducing certain varieties of transgenics can contribute to reverse these damages: the “solution” to damage caused by technoscientific implementations is more, and more sophisticated, technoscience. Also recently, following the publication of the international report on the fact of global warming and its causal roots in aspects of industrial and technological practices, there has been a veritable avalanche of newspaper articles, reflecting presupposition (b) and also (c), advocating technoscientific solutions to the problem (e.g., Tierney 2007).
Holding VSGE has presuppositions, including the qualified negation of those of VTP, that are open to empirical inquiry. That there can be a religious ground (among others) for striving to bring about alternatives for the future is empirically relevant to appraising, e.g., presupposition (iv) of VTP. However, consistency with the worldview of liberation theology is not a criterion for appraising either the scientific credentials of results generated under agroecological strategies or the presuppositions of VSGE.
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Lacey, H. The Interplay of Scientific Activity, Worldviews and Value Outlooks. Sci & Educ 18, 839–860 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9114-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9114-6