Science & Ideology as belief systems

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Religion as an ideological force

  • Marxism - Marx believes that religious ideas maintain, reproducing and justify class inequality. They create alientation within the w/c because they feel little sense of achievement from their repeated low-skilled factory work in dehumanising conditions, yet w/c continue to do this because they believe they will be rewarded in heaven. 
  • Neo-Marxism - Religion can be ideological because it often legitimates inequality. However, religion can encourage counter hegemony because there is a certain level of consciousness in the w/c (Gramsci), that ideology does not suggest exists. 
  • Feminism - Religion is ideological because it excludes women from roles in the church or provides them with teachings that enourage them to be docile wives, or portray them as impure or unclean. Women become falsely conscious; believing that following these patriarchal beliefs will lead them to equality in paradise. 
  • Some liberal feminists; El Saadawi argue that religion is not ideological in itself it is the patriarchal society that took religion and made it that way. Women can use religion to help them deal with role conflict and it enourages individual growth instead of focusing on domestic duties.
  • Functionalism - Religion can not be ideological because that would be a negative view of religion, it instead promotes social solidarity and enforces social control for the good of society.
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Ideological belief systems

  • Nationalism - Is seen an important political ideology where national loyalty and identity come before all others, such as tribe, class or religion. Marx sees nationalism as a form of false class consciousness where w/c are too loyal to their country & have a shared identity with w/c in their own countries, ignoring international workers. Meaning they won't attempt to otherthrow the existing rule & will instead fight wars on their countries behalf. 
  • Gellner sees nationalism as false consciousness because elites use it ideologically to motivate the population to endure the hardships & suffering needed for society to reach modernity. Economic & social cooperation is made easier through nationalism. 
  • Karl Mannheim believes that all belief systems are a one-sided world view, from the interests or experiences of one particular group or class. Ideological throught  justifies maintaining the status quo for the interests of the ruling class, Utopian thought  justifies social change for the interests of underprivileged groups, e.g, Marxism. Causing conflict because it only creates a partial view of the world, different groups produce opposed ideas to use against eachother. 
  • Free-floating intelligentsia - Solution to Mannheims theory, someone with a total worldview that can represent the interests of society as a whole. They are detached from the social groups that they represent. 
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Science as a belief system

  • Science' sucess in advancing modern life has lead to a widespread 'faith in science'.
  • This faith has recently dimmed as science has caused problems in pollution, global warming, and weapons of mass destruction - manufactured risks that threaten the planet.
  • Open belief systems - Popper; scientists theories are open to scrutiny, criticism and testing by others. Science is governed by falsification; trying to falsify existing theories by seeking evidence that disprove them, it isn't sacred or the 'absolute truth'.
  • Science then becomes cumulative because it builds on the achievement of previous scientists, developing greater understanding of the world around us. 
  • The CUDOS norms - Merton; science can only thrive if it recieves support from other institutions & values. First seen in the Puritan values of social welfare, hardwork & their belief that studying nature was appreciating God's work; encouraging technological inventions that would improve the conditions of life. Economic & military institutions support science because of advancements in mining, navigation & weaponry. 
  • Stands for Communism (sharing scientific knowledge in community) Universalism (validity of knowledge judged universal, objective criteria) Disinterestedness (discovers knowledge for own sake, hard for scientists to fraud because other scienctists check claims) Organised Scepticism (no knowledge claim is seen as sacred, all ideas questioned & investigated).
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Science as a belief system pt2

  • Closed belief systems - Horton; religion, magic etc...are closed, they make knowledge claims that cannot be succesfully overturned, and use 'get-out clauses' that reinforce the system to prevent it from being disproved. 
  • Azande study - Pritchard; They don't believe in chance so when misfortune befalls on them they explain it in terms of witchcraft, they may blame their jealous neighbour because a snake bit them on a path they've walked safetly everyday. They consult the oracle to kill a chicken by pouring a potion into it & asking the potion to kill the chicken if 'YES' the accused is guilty; if so the victim can publicly demand the witchcraft to stop.
  • The 'witch' is subconciously performing the witchcraft due to a substance found in their intestines, they can never deny the claims because they are unaware of their own actions. 
  • It is helpful in encouraging them to treat neighbours considerately & as they believe witch-craft is hereditary children try to keep their parents in line, as accusations against their parents could damage a childs reputation; social control, conformity & cooperation. 
  • The belief system is resistant to challenges; the chicken may have died due to the potion alone - not the situation. Yet they argue it only proves that the potion is bad, the test only reinforces their ideas. They are stuck in an 'idiom of belief', accepting the system's basic assumptions without challenging it.
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Science as a belief system pt3

  • Self-sustaining beliefs - Polanyi; belief systems have three devices to sustain themselves in the fact of apparently contradictory evidence.
  • Circularity (each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea in the system, a cycle)
  • Subsidiary explanations (giving different explanations for why their belief is correct, e.g, bad potion)
  • Denial of legitimacy to rivals (reject alternative worldviews by refusing to grant legitimacy to their basic assumptions, e.g, creationist' completely reject evolutionist' theories on the creation of life).
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Science as a closed system

  • Dr Velikovsky published theory challenging origins of earth, scientists were 'closed' & rushed to reject his work. Scientists lost jobs for believing his theory should be fairly tested.
  • Kuhn; scientist refuse challenges to theories because science like geology, biology & physics are based on set of shared assumptions (paradigm). Tells scientists what problems to study, methods to use, what will count as evidence; filling in details of the research.
  • Those who challenge are disregarded as scientists, hounded out of profession, unless it is a time of scientific revolution; an accumulation of anomalies that paradigm cannot account for. 
  • Interpretivists; all scientific knowledge is socially constructed, it is not objective truth & scientists take 'facts' that are only a product of shared theories or paradigms. 
  • Knorr-Cetina; telescopes/microscopes allow scientists to observe & construct new facts, in their highly 'constructed' labs, far from the natural world that they claim to be studying. 
  • Marks (feminist) argues that science was used to justify excluding women from education; suggesting thst it would 'shrink their ovaries' and make them unfeminine. 
  • Lyotard (postmodernist); Science is a number of 'metanarratives' that falsely claim the truth, it does not find ways to better society it instead is used through techoscience to gain profit.
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