7. Ideology and science
- Created by: Amy Parkinson
- Created on: 09-04-15 13:08
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- Ideology and science
- Science as a belief system
- Both the good and bad effects of science demonstrate it's cognitive power which or belief systems of knowledge-claims lack
- The CUDOS norms
- MERTON
- Science can only thrive as a major social institution if it receives support from other institutions and values
- This first occurred in England as a result of the values created by the Protestant Reformation, especially Puritanism (a form of Calvinism)
- Science needs an 'ethos' or set of norms that make scientists act in a way that serve the goal of increasing scientific knwoeldge
- He identifies 4 norms, known as the CUDOS norms:
- Communism: scientific knowledge is not private property and it must be shared with the scientific community
- Universalism: the truth of science is judged by universal, objective criteria
- Disinterestedness: to be committed to discovering scientific knowledge for its own sake
- Organised Scepticism: no knowledge-claim is regarded a sacred and every idea is open to falsification
- MERTON
- Closed belief systems
- Science appears to differ from traditional belief systems in that it is open to challenge
- Religion unlike science claims to have a monopoly on the truth which cannot be challenged. Those who do may be punished
- Religious knowledge is also fixed and does not grow like science
- HORTON
- Science is an open belief system
- Religion is a closed belief system
- When a closed belief system is threatened it has a number of 'get-out clauses' that reinforce the system and prevents disproval
- EVANS-PRITCHARD & the Azande
- If the benge kiled the chicken without adressing the potion first they blamed it on being bad benge
- Witchcraft and magic
- The believers are trapped in their own 'idiom of belief'
- POLANYI
- Open belief systems
- POPPER
- Science is an open belief system that is open to scrutiny, criticism and testing by others
- Science is governed by falsification
- Scientific knowledge is cumulative because falsifying knowledge-claims enables us to build on previous theories
- Scientific knwoledge is not sacred or absolute truth
- POPPER
- Science as a closed system
- POLANYI
- All belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge-claims
- DR. VELIKOVSKY
- In 1950, he put forward a new theory on the origins of the Earth
- The scientific community rejected his theory without even trying to falsify it
- Scientists shunned him and he was expelled from the scientific community
- KUHN
- Mature science (bio, chem, phys) is based on a set of shared assumptions called a paradigm
- The paradigm acts as a boundary that guides what scientists may research and how to do so
- Those who don't stay within the paradigm like Velikovsy are excommunicated from the scientific community and are often ignored and ridiculed
- The only exeptions are during periods of scientific revolution when faith in the truth of the paradigm has already been undermined by an accumulation of anomolies
- POLANYI
- The sociology of scientific knwoeldge
- Interpretivists have developed Kuhn work and argue that all scientific knowledge is socially constructed
- Scientific 'facts' are the product of shred paradigms
- KNORR-CETINA
- The invention of new instruments permits scientists to make new observations and construct new facts
- WOOLGAR
- Scientist are engaged in the same process of 'making sense' of the world as the rest of society
- They have to decide what their findings mean and then have to persuade others to accept their interpretations
- In 1967 researcher at the Cambridge astronomy lab discovered pulsating neutron stars. They were intially named 'Little Green Men' or LGMs
- The name of the pulsars had to be changed from LGMs so that the theory would be taken seriosuly
- Other sociologists like Marxists and Feminists see scientific knowledge as far from the truth. Instead they see it as serving the interests of dominant groups
- In this way, science can be seen as a form of ideology
- POSTMODERNISTS
- Criticise science as it claims to have 'the truth' yet in such a diverse and fragmented society, there is no one truth, only truths
- Ideology
- Marxism and ideology
- Society is based on the unequal class-division of the bourgeoisie and proletariat
- In order for a communist revolution to occur, the w/c must recognise their true position as 'wage slaves' thereby gaining true class consciousness
- It is harder for the w/c to gain this class consciousness as the r/c control not the means of production for material goods but also that of ideas
- This ruling class ideology legitmates and justifies the unjust treatment of the bourgeoisie
- R/c ideology includes beliefs such as; victim blaming ideas, racist ideas, nationalist ideas and ideas that suggest equality is against human nature
- R/c ideology produces a false class consciousness among th labourers
- MARX
- Ultimately, the w/c will develop true class consciousness and will rise up to bring about a communist society based on equality
- GRAMSCI
- Hegemony is the way in which the r/c use ideas to maintain control and dominance over the poor
- However, he argues that in capitalist society, workers have dual consciousness; a mixture of r/c ideology amongst ideas they develop from their own experience of exploitation
- As a result of this dual consciousness, the w/c may develop class consciousness and overthrow capitalism
- Revolution requires a group of 'organic intelectuals' who are workers with class consciousness
- EVAL: ABERCROMBIE:i t is not the dominance of ideas that keeps the workers in line but instead the threat of unemployment
- MANNHEIM: ideology and utopia
- All belief systems are partial or one-sided worldviews
- He distinguishes between 2 types of belief system;
- Ideological thought which justifies keeping things as they are. It reflects the position and interests of privileged groups
- Utopian thought which justifies social change. It reflects the position and interests of the underprivileged and offers a vision of a better society
- These worldviews are creations of groups of intellectuals who attach themselves to particular social groups
- However, because these intellectuals represent the views of certain groups, not society as a whole, they only produce partial views of reality
- The solution to this conflict is to detach the intellectuals from the group and form a free-floating intelligensia
- This is a source of conflict in society as different intellectuals produce opposed ideas
- EVAL: would the introduction of a free-floating intelligentsia reintroduce hierarchy into a classless society
- Feminism and ideology
- Gender inequality is the fundamental division and
- Patriarchal ideology legitimates the subordination of women
- MARKS
- Ideas from science have been used to justify excluding women from education
- There are patriarchal ideologies within religion aswell as scienc
- Women are stigmatised and sometimes thought to be impure or unclean, paticularly because of menstruation or childbirth
- However not all religious beliefs subordinate women
- E.g. there is evidence that in the past before the emergence of monotheistic patriarchal religions, matriarchal religions with female deities were widespread
- Ideology is a set of ideas which is often associated with distorted, conflicting and unjustified views
- Marxism and ideology
- Science as a belief system
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