Science as a Belief System

• Science has had an enormous impact on society in recent centuries. 
• Led to a widespread ‘faith in science’.
  • Medicine had eradicated many once fatal diseases.
  • Technological development has improved features of daily life (e.g. transport/communication/work)
  • Economic productivity has been revolutionised.
  • Standard of living has been raised.
• Science can cause problems as well as solving them.
  • Pollution, global warming and weapons of mass destruction.
  • Protects us from natural dangers but creates manufactured risks.
• The good and bad effects of science distinguish it from other belief systems in its cognitive power.
  • Enables us to explain, predict and control the world to an extent.

POPPER:

• Sees science as an open belief system where all claims are open to criticism.
• Governed by the principle of falsification.
• Scientists seek evidence to disprove existing theories.
• Theories can be discarded and a search for a better explanation can ensue.
• Discarding falsified knowledge claims allows scientific understanding to grow.
• Scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on knowledge of previous scientist.
• No theory is ever taken as definitely true.
• Scientific knowledge is not sacred or absolute truth.
  • e.g. Copernicus disproved the theory that the Sun revolved around the Earth
• Can be questioned, criticised and tested.

MERTON:

• Science can only survive as a major institution with support from other institutions.
• Science as an institution needs an ethos.
• Identifies a set of 4 norms:
  • Communism
    • scientific knowledge is not private property.
    • must be shared within the scientific community.
  • Universalism
    • the truth of knowledge is tested by a universal, objective criteria.
  • Disinterestedness
    • discovering knowledge for its own sake.
    • prevents fraud and allows claims to be checked.
  • Organised Scepticism
    • no knowledge claim is regarded as sacred.
    • every idea is open to objective investigation.

HORTON:

• Distinguishes between open and closed belief systems.
• Science - open belief system.
  • Knowledge-claims are open to criticism and can be falsified.
• Religion/Magic - closed belief system.
  • Make knowledge-claims that cannot be overturned.
  • When beliefs are threatened there are devices that prevent them from being disproved.

EVANS-PRITCHARD:

• Study of the Azande people in Sudan illustrates a self-reinforcing, closed belief system.
• The Azande belief that natural events have natural causes but do not believe in coincidence/chance.
• Witchcraft is used to explain misfortune.
• Accusations are resolved by consulting the prince's magical poison oracle.
• This system prevents grudges from festering and encourages neighbours to be considerate.
  • Poison is administered to a chicken.
  • If the chicken dies the accused is deemed guilty.
  • Victim can publicly demand the witchcraft to stop.
• Acts as an important social control mechanism.
• System is highly resistant to challenges.
  • Believers are trapped in their own idiom of belief.
  • They accept the systems basic assumptions.

POLANYI:

• Belief systems have three devices to sustain themselves:
  • Circularity
    • each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea within the system.
  • Subsidiary Explanations
    • if the oracle fails it can be explained as human error.
  • Denial of Legitimacy
    • reject other worldviews and refuse to grant them legitimacy.
    • e.g. creationist reject the claims of evolutionist that the world is billions of years old.

POLANYI:

• Argues that all belief systems, including science, reject fundamental challenges to knowledge claims.
  • Dr Velikovsky:
    • 1950 - put forward a new theory on origins of the earth.
    • challenged fundamental assumptions of geology, astronomy and biology.
    • scientific community rejected the theory and organised a boycott.
    • supportive scientists were victimised and lost jobs.

KUHN:

• Argues that mature science is based on a set of shared assumptions called a paradigm.
• This tells scientists what reality is like, methods/equipment to use and what evidence will count.
• Those who successfully follow the paradigm are rewarded.

INTERPRETIVISTS:

• Argue that all knowledge is socially constructed.
• Rather than being the objective truth it is create by social groups using resources available.
• Scientific facts are the product of paradigms that tell them what to expect to see.
• Knorr-Cetina: the invention of new instruments allows scientists to make new observations and construct new facts,

ETHNOMETHODOLOGISTS:

• Woolgar: scientists engage in the same process of interpreting the world as everyone.

MARXIST, FEMINISTS, POSTMODERNISTS:

• See scientific knowledge as serving dominant groups.
  • Technological advancements benefit capitalism.
  • Biological theory has been used to justify male dominance.
• Lyotard: argues science is a meta-narrative that claims to offer truth.
  • Science is another way of thinking used to dominate people.