Ravi's point is important: "pkf i think reproduces an interesting quote from evans pritchard about how it was as satisfactory to get one's advice from the oracles of the masai (iirc) as modern science, but i am sure that is all debatable."
"what i wish to say is that your point above assumes that what constitutes science is already well known, but thats the start of the problem isnt it. by your definition, science is those things among the various activities of human beings that produce reliable results on a fairly consistent basis! so should some aspect of astrology start bearing fruit in this sense it will quickly be labelled science and subsumed into some school. which is all fine with me, except it remove the reason to privilege science before the fact."
I would add to it that thougfh referenced to an objective social reality (scientists) it strikes me now that the point of view is essentially relativist - hence I ask you to simply reread you comments below for it was only seeing them together that the penny dropped.
Please also consider if you were using this same definition in the 1930's or earlier you would have to conclude that racial differences were a proven fact and that races formed a hierachy to biological perfection.
Now the by referencing knowledge to the preserve of a body of people (thank you Ravi for this analogy) and in a sense making them the oracles and high priests of truth then scientific consensus (which always runs well behind scientific discovery) is the determining factor - we soon have the contradiction that when consensus says one thing but discovery may well say another - we would be in the position of having to go with consensus, either as lay people or as scientists, hence begin with the proposition that the better scientific explanation is no scientific explanation at all.
On the other hand, we could work this into the general theme that science is what scientists do and they then really do become the high priests in very much the same way as the bourgeoisie use to paint them back iun the 1930s when biologists supported eugenics.
I had the very much the same proposition given to me as curriculum when teaching in high school ("we must obey laws") the logic was that in law we had to acknowledge the superiority of the system and treat the legal system as high priests - in that context I answered very much the same that that would make the Nuremberg Law "just" and we would be morally oblidged to obey them. I rejected this as a firm foundation for social life as it was given and refused to teach any such nonsense.
Now I would go so far as to suggest, whereas in the past I said that your point of view had a place, that it does not, and I ask you to consider this seriously. That is that such a definition is fundementally faulted as Ravi points out.
To extend Ravi's point we lose any real relation between reality (truth) and explanation - hence we cannot say with any certainty that science does give us a better understanding of the world. We know this is not true in practice so how can we hold a theory which severes this criticial relationship and makes this fundemental aspect of science a secondary and mysterious feature which is excreted by sicentists doing what scientists do?
The human mind abhors a vacuum as much as space. No-one can hold an empty point of view on such an everyday question, everyone has some definition of why science is a better explanation than non-science. The problem is that such a definition is criticial from a practical point of view and your definition is an immensely practical one and I would say it is more or less that of most people who take science seriously.
However, there also lies its social componant, the half-truth which is ideological - it is a definition brought forward to fill a void in order to conduct social practice - its essential validity lies in this social necessity but not I think in the subject matter itself - science as opposed to other understandings.
Both of you have been honest and direct, both of you have given this much thought, the problem is not that your definition does not work, but rather it works too well - it makes sense of a division you know in pratice it is a useful guide (especially in a world deluged with quasi-science and where scientific-like guises are given to every crack-pot idea), and like most of us (myself included) for most questions it works well enough to separate the scientific from the non-scientific - hence it is a concept which their is a definite amount of passionate loyality (a tool that works so well is also a well-loved one).
But it is not sufficient and although the questions where it seems to unravel are for ther most parts fairly insignificant: is Historical Materialism a science or not? A question which, just seems to hang on that single word "science" for no apparant or practical reason - thus the question appears obtuse and the point irrelevant one way or the other. However, what such a question does is reveal the cracks in the handy ideological concept of science.
Hence the reason why such a question seems unimportant and resolved as simply a matter of opinion (it appears so because its critical aspects have been neglected and the ideological aspect remains firmly in place - an accusation I would make on the traditional arguments both for and against HM being a science), is the reverse in reality - it is a question which should challenge our ideological understanding of science to its core.
In this I now add this new element. The most socially useful science of them all (Historical Materialism) stakes out a subject matter which by its very existence stands at the core of the question "What is science?". The statement is not secondary or even a matter of opinion, it is the apparently unresolvable nature by the means of the commonly held assumption (science is what scientists do, or science is an objective view of the world etc) which points to the critical part it plays.
To resolve the question of the place of Historical Materialism hence becomes a question of resolving the real place of science in general. It provokes the necessary questions and the means of conceptual resolution - however for this to work at all we must all be prepared to let go and empty commonly held understandings and seek out deeper logics otherwise we walk away with non-answers.
PS. Having a critical view of What is science, resolving the position of HM in this regard also entails a critical re-evalution of what we take to be HM - thats where things get exciting.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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--- Message Received --- From: "Scott Martens" <sm at kiera.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 19:41:21 +0100 Subject: Re: Science, Science & Marxism
-----Original Message----- From: Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 4:31 PM Subject: Re: Science, Science & Marxism
>That's why the pragmatic/sociological definition of science helps:
astrology
>isn't science because it's not accepted as a science by people who call
>themselves scientists, it isn't taught in sciewnce depts, etc. If you
>evaluate it by scientific standards, moreover, it turns oit that it si very
>bad science, not worth serious consideration. So the scientists are right
to
>ignore it. Does it really matter whether you say it's very bad science or
>not science at all? There is no a priori determinable essence of science.
>Science is a set of social practices we stumbled on that happens to allow
us
>to do things we want pretty effectively. So why should we expect a
>definition of it more exact than a description of those practices?
I agree with you. Astrology is not science because scientists don't recognise it as such, not because there is any methodological division that cleanly shears the science from the rest.
And yet, this is not a wholly satisfactory conclusion. Astrology is a shell game where vague predictions become easily fulfilled in the minds of true believers, but science, somehow, really works. It is one of the most wildly successful practices in history. Why? Why should a social class somehow be so key to the production of real value? How does one inconsistent set of cultural values become the source of so many effective practices?
The sociological definition of science is the only one that seems to make sense. Science is a cultural structure whose members decide what is and isn't science by communal, cultural, changing standards. But that definition doesn't explain anything. It doesn't tell us why we can trust our lives every day in the claims of scientists and would never place such a faith in astrologers.
Scott Martens