_Of course_ science, which is just the practice of scientists, is loaded chock full with prejudices, that is, views held without reflection because they are indoctrinated into scientists in college, grad school, and professional life, views which are not considered open to rational debate because anyone professing the contrary is simply dismissed as a crank or a nut or an ignoramus. These prejudices range from very high level metaphysical and epistemological doctrines like: to matter scientifically our ideas must be quantifiable and have measurably observable results to medium level dogmas like: mass-energy is conserved, entropy increases, and so forth, to specific dogmas of various sciences, such as Watson's felicitously and honestly named Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.
As Kuhn insisted softly and Feyerabend loudly and fiercely, these dogmas and prejudices cannot be defended come what may without question-begging against perspectives that do mot share their premises, (That is what makes them dogmas and prejudices.) In the most abstract form. this is is a simple consequences of the Quine-Duhem Thesis: that any proposition (e.g., that the sun goes across the sky because Helios drives his chariot over the Ocean each day) can be maintained come what may if you are willing to make enough changes elsewhere in the web of belief.
However, this does not commit us to relativism or skepticism, where that is understood as the the idea that all views are equally good, valid, and defensible (relativism) or no views are any good (skepticism). The reason why not can be made into a very long story and is highly contentious. But to put it crudely, briefly, and dogmatically, science as a practice and a set of beliefs can be defended not despite our interests but because of them. Its immense predictive and explanatory power enables us to do lots of stuff we want to do (as well as some stuff we wish wouldn't be done), and that other people want to do to do as well -- hence the imperialistic success of science in colonizing and conquering other perspectives. I mean, stuff like build bridges that stand up, fly airplanes, miniaturize computers, cure diseases, etc. Competitive, or formerly competitive, perspectives with different aims, such as religions that focus on salvation, which science does not pretend to provide, have been forced to accommodate themselves or (as in this country with evolution) pigheadedly deny the superiority of explanations that are superior on even their accounts.
And as old Chuck the Beard said, it is precisely because science serves the interests of industry, precisely because it embodies those values and prejudices, that we can be confident of its objectivity. Other perspectives don't have the built in self-corrective mechanisms that have enforced upon it by the recalcitrant nature of the subject matter. But that is not result of lack of prejudice but a result of prejudice, of obdurate insistence on empirical testability and ultimately conforming our views to the evidence of the senses and elegance of mathematics.
This isn't to say that science can tell us everything that is important. It may have a lot to say, for example, about love and sex, but it will never illuminate the human heart the way that Donne or Tolstoi can; it can tell us lots about light and sound, but it will never replace Vermeer or Brahms. But to say that it is not complete is not to say that it is not objective, any more than to say it is prejudiced, dogmatic, and interested is to say that it is not objective in the sense that really matters.
Well, lots more can be and has been said. But since there seems to be a lot of confusion here I just wanted to remind folks of the results of last 200 or so years of philosophy of science (these insights being found incipiently in Hegel, more fully in Marx, and completely articulated in the pragmatists old and new).
--- Andy F <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/06, boddi satva <lbo.boddi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > No, I'd say that scienTISTS are filled with
> prejudices, but science as
> > a discipline is not.
> >
> > I think we're talking about science as a
> discipline here.
>
> So how can engineering as a discipline be filled
> with prejudices and
> science not?
>
> --
> Andy
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