Antecedents Redefining Science Towards Society

Introducing the Subtleties of Scientific Knowledge

  • Scientific Method:
    • Originated in the 17th century Enlightenment.
    • A repeating cycle of observation, questioning, hypothesizing, and testing.
    • Applied broadly across disciplines, becoming the consensus source of knowledge.
  • Epistemology:
    • Science adheres to Rationalism (reason-based beliefs) and Empiricism (knowledge from sense experience).
    • These principles qualify knowledge as Scientific.
  • Verification:
    • The dominant criterion for Science, up to the 1920s logical positivists.
  • Falsification Theory (Karl Popper):
    • Scientific theories should be open to being proved false.
    • Science progresses through "Conjectures and Refutations."
  • Paradigm Shifts (Thomas Kuhn):
    • Science reframed using a historical approach.
    • Scientists solve puzzles within pre-established world views (paradigms).
    • Examples: Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy, Aristotelian to Newtonian dynamics.

Redefining Science with Sociology, People, and Community

  • Science's Intertwining with Society:
    • Science is essential to people's lives.
    • Science is deeply connected within sociological aspects.
  • Environmental Concerns:
    • Nuclear fallout as an example of unforeseen long-term effects of applied science.
    • Potential dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
  • Commodification of Science:
    • Funding influences research priorities.
    • Private sector funding geared towards profit.
    • Commercially driven science leads to research bias.
    • Patenting of indigenous knowledge.
  • Cultural, Racial Discrimination, and Gender Biases:
    • Cultural discrimination during Colonialism.
    • Western science assumed superiority.
    • Western Science adopted specific policies towards non-Western sciences during the colonial era.
    • Accusations of cultural, racial, and gender discrimination.
    • Nature seen as something to dominate in Western Science.
    • Focus on quantitative measure, analysis of variation and impersonal, excessively abstract, conceptual schemes often serve to hide its own gendered character.

Differentiating the Proper Modes of Science

  • Post-Normal Science (PNS):
    • Developed by Silvio O. Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz.
    • A new style of science is needed.
    • Applied science, professional consultancy, and PNS.
    • PNS is employed when there is irreducible complexity, deep uncertainties, a plurality of legitimate perspectives, value dissent, high stakes, and decision urgency
    • PNS involves extended peer community.
    • Quality is the goal, not knowledge.
    • Brings broader notions of facts which safeguards Science against the pitfalls it had ignored in the past.
    • Management of plural legitimate perspectives.
    • Stakeholders should engage in constructive and open dialogue.