Abstract
This paper discusses the impact of contemporary scientific knowledge on worldviews. The first three sections provide epistemological background for the arguments that follow. Sections 2 and 3 discuss the reliable part of science, specifically the characterization, scope and limits of the present scientific canon. Section 4 deals with the mode of thinking responsible for both the canon’s credibility and its power to guide speculative activity. With these preliminaries in place, the remainder of the paper addresses the issue of tolerance to “alternative perspectives”. The analyses in this part focus on the extent to which mature scientific thought embodies open-mindedness, with pluralism and competition between perspectives as central themes. I argue for four related claims, concerning scientific literacy, the impact of the canon on rational speculation, the limits of scientific pluralism, and the popular idea that recent forms of “scientific (natural) theology” have rational merit and can help worldview-making in our age, respectively: (C1) Which theories and narratives (or parts of them) belong in the scientific canon, and whether they are worldview independent, are matters contingent upon the state of knowledge—not something one can convincingly determine on metascientific or transcendental insight. (C2) The current scientific canon and its associated methodology provide research with strong directionality, often against popular currents. (C3) Current science does marginalize some views dear to many people. (C4) Although natural theology “officially” purports to embody scientific methodology, all it presently has on offer are poorly thought out ventures embodying (at best) only relaxed versions of that methodology; if so, the relationship between current projects in natural theology and science cannot (without begging the question) be reasonably described as one of “partial overlap”, “mutual modification”, or “ongoing complementarity”.
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Notes
In this paper my focus will be limited to theories, narratives, methods and goals amply recognized as satisfactory at the institutional scientific level—as opposed recognition in terms of private endorsement by individual scientists.
Sweeping critiques of science of the global-skeptical and/or “postmodernist” varieties remain popular, despite the availability of compelling responses (see, for example, Sokal and Bricmont 1998). Not being concerned in this paper with grand skeptical critiques of science, I will simply assume a “down to earth” position regarding the best part of science, which is generally taken to include many fairly general theories as well as insight on the scope and limits of their credible applicability, along with much insight on reasons for pursuing and for not pursuing subsequent speculative lines (see also Cordero 2001).
The continuing influence of Dilthey’s work is discussed in, for example, Rickman (1988).
For a rough approximation to the current canon see Angier (2007).
Zimmer (1998) offers a good presentation of the case.
Psillos 1999, Chapter 11.
I am referring to a study of the DNA of human lice conducted by a team led by Dr. David L. Reed of the University of Florida and published in the March 8, 2007 issue of the journal Biomed Central Biology, also reported by Nicholas Wade in The New York Times of March 8, 2007 (“In Lice, Clues to Human Origin and Attire”).
As said, a theory is not rationally credible until adequate testing, specific to its differential content, is both carried out and gives results favorable to it. Nothing of the kind was yet available on behalf of Special Relativity in the 1910s.
Shapere (1991).
This and other related themes are the focus of much attention among philosophers interested in “methodological naturalism”, roughly the view that ampliative reasoning in contemporary science follows principles laid out using substantive empirical knowledge, that success and effectiveness in promoting aims cannot be evaluated a priori, as both depend on contingent features of the world, and so they should be tested empirically the same way empirical theories are tested (Laudan 1996).
“What good would be having just a bit of an eye?” The Darwinian answer is simple enough: the first individual organisms endowed with the rudiments of sensitivity to light had access to information with enormous potential value for their differential survival. For a digest on scientific approaches to the evolution of vision and whales see, for example, Dawkins (1995) and Zimmer (1998), respectively.
Gauch (2006).
These and other presuppositional claims Gauch compares to Kolmogorov’s simple probability axioms that generate countless probability theorems, also to Maxwell’s four equations that imply all of classical electricity and magnetism.
Ziman (1968).
The philosopher Susan Stebbing provided a classic critique of the logical, metaphysical and ‘overview’ errors of two great English physicists and popularizers of science, Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington in her Philosophy and the Physicists (Stebbing 1937/1958). Another case in point revolves around the strong “Anthropic Argument” initially advanced by scientists of the stature of B. Carter, B. J. Carr, and Martin Rees (see the last section of this paper).
Again, teleological natural science in the traditional sense remains certainly a logical possibility, but insisting at all cost on its contemporary relevance can be paralyzing.
A good short presentation of the case is found in Kitcher (1983).
Behe (1996).
“Whether ID is Science. Kitzmiller v.Dover Area School District/4”. Internet reference: http://www.freemedialibrary.com/index.php/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District_6:_curriculum,_conclusion
See, for example, “Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action”, Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1134–1138 (2006). doi:10.1172/JCI28449.
For an accessible report on current work along these directions see, for example, “Ancient Protein Tells a Story of Changing Functions”, by Kenneth Chang, published in The New York Times (August 21, 2007).
In their technical work cosmologists often appeal to “anthropic considerations”. By these, however, they generally mean a weaker (indeed trivial) version of the principle, amounting to the requirement that cosmological hypotheses be compatible with all known facts and conditions necessary for their realization.
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Michael Matthews, Peter Simpson, David Policansky, and Nick Jordan for helpful discussions.
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Cordero, A. Contemporary Science and Worldview-Making. Sci & Educ 18, 747–764 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9119-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9119-1