Module 2: The Emergence of Science

## MODULE 2 Before the emergence of science, the pre-scientific worldview provided human beings a context in their search for answers to their questions. These are some of the basic tenets of this worldview: * **Anthropocentrism**: human beings lie in the center of the universe both spiritually an...

## MODULE 2 Before the emergence of science, the pre-scientific worldview provided human beings a context in their search for answers to their questions. These are some of the basic tenets of this worldview: * **Anthropocentrism**: human beings lie in the center of the universe both spiritually and physically, the concept of the universe was defined according to the limits of human imagination. * **Geocentrism**: the earth lies in the center of this universe, with the sun, the planets, and the stars revolving around the earth. * All beings on earth have their assigned places. * Human beings are above all other beings, in that they are created in the image of God. However, humans occupy a lower rank than angels. Furthermore, every human being is ordained by God to occupy a specific place. * There are supernatural beings like angels and spirits that possess magical and extraordinary powers and exist in a hierarchy. * The secular is distinct from the holy, and religion has a powerful influence on the human mind. * Inquiring into the natural world is not as important. Qualities are more important than quantities, even as explanations to natural phenomena are based, not in any internal property but on their causes and consequences. This worldview led to the emergence of religion as a source for providing explanations. Religious texts became the sources for explanation, while myths and sorcery provided alternative sources. The beginning of science was driven by the natural curiosity and the inherent rationality of human beings, which provided the impetus for the quest for knowledge. In 1600, Copernicus challenged geocentrism. In the 16th until the 17th century, the unity and power of the church was broken by the emergence of the Reformation. Luther challenged the power of the Catholic Church and offered to focus on the individual and his/her faith. This focus on the individual was further given emphasis during the 18th century Enlightenment, when the locus shifted to the individual and his/her reason. Eventually, rationality replaced biblical revelation as the foundation of religion. This led to the emergence of the secular in many aspects of human life. It is in this context that the philosophy of Deism emerged, by arguing that God created rational human beings, and it is the possession of reason that enables them to discover knowledge and invent things. * Science first emerged in places where Islam was practiced. However, it later gained momentum in Europe where Christianity was the dominant faith. According to social historians, this growth of science in Christian Europe was enabled by a brand of Christianity that emerged out of the Reformation, which was Protestantism, which emphasized the value of individualism and the secularization of explanations to natural phenomena. This, according to Max Weber, also led to the development of the modern nation state and its bureaucratic organizations, and has upheld secularism where there is separation between the church and the state. * The developments in communication and technology have facilitated the establishment of modern economies. This effectively displaced the allegiances of the people from the feudal lords and the Church towards loyalty to the "Nation," thereby giving rise to the ideal of nationalism. The modern state emerged from this, tasked to protect the rights and the welfare of its citizens. In this context, science was appropriated by the state to become one fundamental driver towards social and economic progress. It became a secular and rational force distinct from religion in the same manner that the state became distinct from the church. * The result of this development in the realm of the quest for knowledge was manifested in the shift away from relying on sensory experience - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching - and from doctrinal and philosophical treatises from "experts" as basis for the establishment of truth claims. Instead, there was increasing use of logical reasoning to augment sensory experience. This gave rise to the emergence of the scientific method as a powerful, and for many, the only valid, method for discovering knowledge and establishing truth. * The scientific method is the lifeblood of scientific inquiry. It is a careful, systematic, patient and deliberate process of study and investigation geared towards the discovery or establishment of facts and principles. It tests probabilities formulated as hypotheses, with the process concerned on gathering evidence to support or refute such hypotheses. * Scientific knowledge developed through a dynamic and complex process. There are competing perspectives on its nature, as there are debates. Two important debates center on the goal of science and on the nature of the progress of scientific knowledge. * **On the goal of science**. Some people believe that science is a descriptive activity where the main preoccupation is to describe the natural and social world. Others, however, argue that science should be prescriptive, in that they have to formulate recommendations vis-à-vis real-world problems. * **On the nature of the progress of scientific knowledge.** Some people believe that science is a static body of knowledge, that is, that there is a totality of knowledge waiting to be discovered. This view upholds the idea that scientific knowledge is simply the totality of all products of scientific inquiry in a particular field. Knowledge 1 + Knowledge 2 + ... + Knowledge N = Totality of Knowledge. Other, however, argues that science emerge within a historical-dialectical context, wherein scientific knowledge is an outcome of the contradictions of previously opposing scientific claims. This prevailing knowledge will, in itself, be subjected to challenges by an opposing school of thought, and the resolution of the contradiction will lead to the emergence of a new set of knowledge claims that will again be subjected to challenges later: ← Knowledge 1,1 ↔ Knowledge 1,2 Knowledge 2,1 ↔ Knowledge 2,2 Knowledge 3,1 Knowledge n,1 ↔ Knowledge n,2 ← Knowledge n + 1,1 Several philosophers of science support the latter view, which is also referred to as the **historical-dialectical approach**. Philosophers of science are people who study the growth and development of scientific knowledge. * Popper (1969), argued that the prevailing scientific knowledge in a given field can only be accorded provisional acceptance. Scientific knowledge, in fact, acquires such nature because it is falsifiable. In fact, this is the distinguishing trait of science vis-à-vis religion and myth. Scientific knowledge can be subjected to falsification through alternative evidence provided by other scientists, while religion and myths, in their being manifested as existing in the realm of faith and belief, cannot be falsified. Popper further claims that scientists are preoccupied less by a goal to validate existing knowledge and more by their drive towards falsifying existing knowledge to establish a new one. Thus, scientists become more prominent and known in the field if they have discovered new knowledge and scientific breakthroughs, instead of merely validating what is commonly held. * Lakatos (1970) has pointed out that the development of scientific knowledge occurs in the context of contradictions and conflict between competing research programs. * Feyerabend (1975) argues that scientific knowledge should always be subjected to constant skepticism. That is, science should always be the object of doubt, and should not be seen as expressions of absolute truth. * Kuhn (1970) offered the idea of scientific revolutions. He argued that a particular science is governed by a paradigm, or a set of belief, value systems and techniques that define the development of knowledge in a given field. He divides the period for the development of science into a period of normal science, a period of instability, and a period for scientific revolution. * The period of normal science is characterized by well-established paradigms that provide a stable body of theories, tools and techniques within which research in a particular discipline occurs. * The period of instability occurs when researchers working within the present paradigm generate anomalous findings and results inconsistent with the explanations provided, and that these anomalies are already beyond the faults of the researchers. * The period of scientific revolution emerges when anomalies pile up and new theories are now offered to challenge the old paradigm. A period of testing these new theories, tools and methods will ensue, and may eventually lead to the emergence of a new paradigm. An example of this is when the belief on geocentrism (the earth as the center of the universe) yielded to heliocentrism (the sun as the center of the universe), and later, the latter eventually yielded to more sophisticated knowledge of the cosmos (the universe has no center). * There is a social context for the production of science and technology. However, there is this dominant belief that these are value-neutral and apolitical (that is, without politics). This view, which the Enlightenment project has enabled, effectively rendered science into an "Ideology" without it appearing ideological. That is, science became a powerful domain for the legitimation of knowledge claims, even as it effectively delegitimized other competing knowledge claims such as those offered by traditional and indigenous knowledge, or knowledge held by local communities. * Science and technology could become ideological in two ways. * Science and technology have been used to control people, or to provide justification to inequality. * Technologies of violence used in armed conflict and war to coerce people, even kill them * Technology of mass media and communication used to reshape minds and consciousness * Industrial technologies controlled by the elites lead to unequal distribution of wealth. This indirectly controls the non-elites by denying them the capacity to make choices or excluding them from decision making processes * Some scientific theories give justification to certain power relations, which indirectly reproduce the inequality inherent in such relationships. Examples of this include theories in genetics used by some socio-biologists to justify claims that the Caucasian race is superior, and the theory on evolution used by Social Darwinians to justify racial and class inequalities. * The design or attribute of technology could enable or require certain types of power relations. * Some technologies have designs that lead to the establishment of certain power relations. An example would be agricultural machineries that only the rich farmers can access, thereby further widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. * Some technologies have designs that are compatible with or require a particular social and political arrangement. * Some technologies absolutely require certain social arrangement in order for them to be operational. An example is the technology involved in flying aircrafts or of sea-vessels which require an extremely centralized hierarchy, where the pilot or the ship captain possesses absolute power over the crew and the passengers. Another example is the technology for running a nuclear reactor as source of energy, which absolutely requires heavily centralized, sensitive and secure operations. * Some technologies are compatible with, but do not necessarily require certain political arrangements. An example of this is the technology for solar energy, which is compatible with decentralized systems, since solar cells can be installed even in every home, even as it could also be possible to have centralized solar power facilities.