Hi Just taking off on the following part of Christopher's recent post on hero worship.
James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca Department of Psychology University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 CANADA >>> "Christopher D. Green" <chri...@yorku.ca> 11-Sep-09 10:16 AM >>> Over the past 25 years or so, history of science has become a more or less independent discipline, conducted mostly by professional historians, rather than by scientists. And historians traditionally pay great attention to the contexts (intellectual, personal, social, cultural, political) in which various scientific ideas (among other events) arise. But in the process, modern historians of science have alienated a lot scientists who have mistaken their activities for having the primary aim of criticizing scientists and science itself (where not being sufficiently adulatory counts is regarded as being overly critical). This misunderstanding of intentions precipitated the very nasty "Science Wars" of the 1990s. Thankfully, we are mostly over the worst of that silliness now, but it still rears its ugly head from time to time. JC: I have a different view of the history and current state of the "science wars." First, it was not primarily historians of science who were anti-science (see more below), although historians like Kuhn were much misused by the critics of science. Kuhn was quite explicit in his writings that he did NOT see his ideas as incompatible with the standard view of science (i.e., search for truth, objectivity, use of evidence, ...). He did NOT see his views as supporting the relativism that was central to the unfounded attacks on science by others. Second and on the point of what disciplines were at war with science, I do not believe that scientist simply misinterpreted intentions or that we are "over the worst of that silliness now." Here is Sandra Harding's 2006 revision of a 1998 paper reprinted in an edited volume. "Whereas conventional philosophies of science and popular thought have assumed truth claims to be an uncontroversially valuable goal for the sciences, a critical evaluation of this assumption has emerged in the past four decades from three schools of science studies: Euro-American philosophy, history, sociology, and ethnography of sciences; feminist science studies; and postcolonial science studies. From the perspectives of central themes in these accounts, the ideal of truth obstructs the production of knowledge. Moreover, claims to truth support antidemocratic tendencies in science and society because a democratic social order in a multicultural world should not provide the necessary conditions for the kind of strong, universal agreement among scientists that the truth ideal requires. The truth ideal in science supports tendencies toward inequality." "... all ways of understanding are historically and culturally relative. ... we should not assume that our ways of understanding are necessarily any better (in terms of being any nearer the truth) than other ways." "Therefore, what we regard as 'truth' ...is a product not of objective observation of the world, but of the social processes and interactions in which people are constantly engaged with each other." (Burr, 1995, p. 4) I have in front of me a flyer publicizing a course here on "Rhetorics of Science and Law" in which students will "Discover the relationship between rhetoric and 'facts' " (scare quotes in original) and "Explore the role of rhetoric in how 'scientific knowledge' moves across these domains" (scare quotes in original). There are innumerable examples of these substantive attacks on the nature and value of scientific activity, and they are not readily explained simply as being misinterpreted by scientists. Rather than the science wars being over, I believe a more accurate characterization is that Snow's Two Cultures are even more sharply delineated today than in the past, although the fault line would not fall sharply between the Sciences and the Humanities (probably did not in his day either), but rather between most sciences (some social sciences appear to have gone over to the Dark Side ... sorry my son is into Star Wars right now) and a good chunk but not all of the humanities. I hope I am wrong and Chris is right! Take care Jim --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
