Science as an open/closed belief system

Popper (1959) — science as an open belief system

• All scientific theories open to scrutiny by others and ruled by falsificationalism

Popper — requirement for knowledge-claims

• Need evidence!

  • If there’s no evidence k-c will die

Popper — falsificationism

• Theories can be empirically proven right/wrong

  • Scientists try to falsify existing theories to search for a better explanation

Popper (1959) — example of falsification

• Heliocentric model of the world disproven by Copernicus

Popper — consequence of falsificationism

• Allows for scientific understanding to grow

• Scientific knowledge is therefore cumulative, as each theory relies on precious discoveries (Newton standing on the shoulders of giants)

Merton — survival of science

• Relies on the support of other institutions and values

  • E.g. economic and military institutions

Merton — Puritanism → science

• Puritanism valued social welfare and saw studying as an appreciation of God’s work

• Therefore science valued as improved social welfare and involved science

Merton — CUDOS norms

• Need scientific ethos to ensure scientists act in ways to further scientific knowledge

• Communism

• Universality

• Disinterestedness

• Organised

• Scepticism

Merton — communism ☭

• Scientific knowledge should be communal property to allow knowledge to grow

Merton — universality

• Truth is determined by universal, objective criteria, not the characteristics of the scientist

Merton — disinterestedness

• Scientists should not be egotistical

  • Should be committed to knowledge for knowledge, not for own career

    • Publishing work encourages checks and discourages fraud

Merton — organised and scepticism

• Nothing should be regarded as ‘sacred’

• Everything should be regarded as open to criticism

Closed belief systems

• Claim special knowledge of absolute truth that cannot be challenged, doesn’t change and is seen as sacred/divine

  • E.g. religions, and challenging them makes you a heretic

Horton (1973) — example of an open belief system + 2 reasons why this is the case

• Science

  • Claims are open to criticism

  • Claims can be disproved by testing

Horton (1973) — 2 examples of a closed belief system + 2 reasons why this is the case

• Religion, magic

  • Claims cannot be overturned

  • If they are, there are ‘get out clauses’ that reinforce and prevent disproval

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — Azande people of Sudan

• Closed belief system as is self-reinforcing

  • Natural events have natural causes

  • No such thing as coincidence/chance, only witchcraft

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — example of witchcraft

• If you step on a snake on a route you walk every day and it bites you even though its never usually there, that shows that your neighbour is practicing witchcraft on you

• Witchcraft is hereditary and a psychic power coming from substance in witches’ intestines so can be done unintentionally and unconsciously

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — process of proving or disproving witchcraft

• Snake-bitten makes accusation against snake-placer

• Consult prince’s magic poison oracle

• Princes’ diviner administers benge potion to chicken

• If the chicken dies. the snake-placer is doing witchcraft (but this is subconscious)

• Snake-placer spits and sips water to cleanse self

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — way that the process is self-reinforcing

• Each step has to be done specifically and if it doesn’t work it can be blamed on not being done in the right way

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — 3 social functions performed by the ritual

1. Prevents grudges

2. Encourages considerate neighbourly behaviour to prevent accusations

3. Children keep parents in line as an accusation taints the whole family

Evans-Pritchard (1936) — ‘idiom of belief’

• Believers are trapped in their own idiom of belief

  • Accept basic assumptions (witchcraft) so cannot challenge the system

Polanyi — 3 devices that self-sustain a belief in the face of contradictory evidence

1. Circularity — each idea is explained by another idea in the system

2. Subsidiary explanations — e.g. oracle fails because of incorrect processes

3. Denial of legitimacy to rivals — don’t grant legitimacy to other basic assumptions like Earth’s age (evolutionists) for creationists

Polanyi — reason science is a closed system

• All belief systems reject challenges to their knowledge-claims

• Velikovsky published ‘Worlds in Collision’ which challenged fundamental beliefs about the Earth and the Solar System

  • Was outrightly rejected by scientists and boycotted, which damaged his reputation and that of anyone associated with him

Kuhn — reason science is a closed system

• Natural sciences are based on a paradigm and therefore reject challenges

Kuhn — paradigm

• Shared assumptions that are a set of untouchable beliefs

  • Give a broad outline of what reality is like, what problems to study and methods to use and outlines answers that should be found

• Science is just problem-solving within a paradigm and if you’re successful you get a professorship/Nobel Prize

Kuhn — role of scientific education and training

• Socialisation into faith in paradigm

Kuhn — requirement for a successful scientific career

• Working w/paradigm

Kuhn — consequence of challenging paradigm

• Ridicule!

  • Except in times of scientific revolution when the paradigm is already undefined by lots of anomalies