| Science Wars |
Article Index for Science |
Website Links For Science Wars |
Information AboutScience Wars |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT SCIENCE WARS | |
| science and technology studies | |
| historiography of science | |
| critical theory | |
| controversies | |
|
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Up until the mid-20th century, the Philosophy Of Science had concentrated on the viability of scientific method and knowledge, proposing justifications for the truth of scientific theories and observations and attempting to discover on a philosophical level why science "worked" (see, for example, Karl Popper ). During this time there had also been a number of less orthodox philosophers and scientists who believed that logical models of "pure science" did not apply to actual scientific practice. It was the publication of Thomas Kuhn 's '' The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions '' in 1962 , however, which fully opened the study of science to new disciplines by suggesting that the evolution of science was in part sociologically determined and that it did not operate under the simple logical laws put forward by the Logical Positivist school of philosophy. Kuhn described the development of scientific knowledge not as linear increase in truth and understanding, but as series of periodic "revolutions" which overturned old scientific order and replaced it with new orders (what he called " Paradigm s"). Kuhn attributed much of this process to the interactions and strategies of the human participants in science rather than its own innate logical structure. (See Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge and Theories And Sociology Of The History Of Science ). Some interpreted Kuhn's ideas to mean that scientific theories were, either wholly or in part, '' Social Constructs '', which many interpreted as diminishing the claim of science to representing objective reality (many social constructivists do not put forward this claim, however), and that "reality" had a lesser or potentially irrelevant role in the formation of scientific theories. A number of different philosophical and historical schools, often lumped together as " Postmodernism ", began reinterpreting scientific achievements of the past through the lens of the practitioners, often assigning political and economic conditions as formative a role in theory development as scientific observations. Rather than being held up as heroes of knowledge, many scientists of the past were scrutinized for their connection to issues of gender, race, and class. Some more radical philosophers, such as Paul Feyerabend , argued that scientific theories were themselves incoherent and that other forms of knowledge production (such as those used in Religion ) served the material and spiritual needs of their practitioners with as equal validity as did scientific explanations. THE "SCIENCE WARS" This apparent "attack" on the validity of science from the humanities and social sciences worried many people, especially as the language of social construction was appropriated by groups attempting to assert political control over the use of science in society (for example, the '' (HS), an open attack on the "postmodernists". The book brought the shortcomings of relativism into sharp focus, claiming that the postmodernists knew little about the scientific theories they discussed and pursued sloppy scholarship for political reasons. The book received a moderate amount of mainstream attention and became a flashpoint for the "science wars". In 1996, '' Social Text '', a journal of critical theory, compiled a special issue of articles entitled "Science Wars" and a number of contributions from many of those in the social sciences and humanities labeled as "postmodernists". Physicist Alan Sokal submitted a paper to the issue in which he purported to argue that Quantum Physics supports postmodernist criticisms of the objectivity of science. It was published in the journal, and later Sokal revealed it to be a hoax and an experiment to see if the journal editors would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions". Its publication caused an uproar that brought the science wars to the attention of the mainstream. (See Sokal Affair .) attacked a remark made by philosopher Jacques Derrida to a colleague about "the Einsteinian constant". After describing the remark as "babble", Weinberg stated that he had "no idea what it is intended to mean". Stolzenberg presents this a revealing admission that Weinberg had not attempted to understand the context of the remark. In fact, Weinberg may well have tried to understand the context of the remark; his success in his own field of Theoretical Physics suggests that he is adept at analysing the work of his peers. A more convincing interpretation of Weinberg's "no idea ..." remark is that in Weinberg's opinion Derrida had used language which fell so far short of communicating what he intended that Weinberg could not even approximately reconstruct Derrida's point. Crucially, Stolzenberg does not then elaborate on Derrida's context himself, fuelling claims that Weinberg's "babble" description would have been further justified, rather than refuted, by revealing it. Though the events of the science wars are still occasionally mentioned in mainstream press, they have had little effect on either the scientific community or the community of critical theorists. Both sides continue to maintain that the other does not understand their theories, or misunderstands what are meant to be constructive criticisms or simple scholarly investigations as attacks. SEE ALSO REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|