Is Falsification Falsifiable?

This is a response to a claim by Sven Ove Hansson to the effect that Poppers dictum that falsification lies at the heart of all pursuit of science has once and for all been falsified by his study of articles published in Nature during the year 2000. We claim that this is based on a misunderstanding of Poppers philosophy of science interpreting it too literally, and that alternative readings of those papers are fully compliant with falsification. We scrutinize Hansson’s arguments as well as giving an overview of Poppers falsification theory.     

“科技(Keji)”Is a Phenomenon in Chinese Language —Discussions with Academician Zou Chenglu and Wang Zhizhen

对汉语将科学和技术简称为"科技"的批评时有所闻,我也曾同意过.比如1999年<科技术语研究>编辑部征集意见时,我就建议将刊名直接叫做"科学技术术语研究".但是后来,我又觉得这在汉语中其实不是问题.读中国科学院邹承鲁和王志珍二院士<科学与技术不可合二为一>(参见<科技日报>2003年8月5日)一文,由于文中涉及到"科技部""科技处"这些建制的称谓问题,我同时认为还涉及到<科技术语研究>这个刊名问题,才感到问题有些大了,应该讨论讨论.下面,试从三个方面分析:     

Identifying Difference,Engaging Dissent: What is at Stake in Democratizing Knowledge?

Several prominent voices have called for a democratization of science through deliberative processes that include a diverse range of perspectives and values. We bring these scholars into conversation with extant research on democratic deliberation in political theory and the social sciences. In doing so, we identify systematic barriers to the effectiveness of inclusive deliberation in both scientific and political settings. We are particularly interested in what we call misidentified dissent, where deliberations are starkly framed at the outset in terms of dissenting positions without properly distinguishing the kinds of difference and disagreement motivating dissent.     

What if We were Already in the In-Between? Further Ventures into the Ontologies of Science and Politics

What follows from the suggestion to pay attention to what is in-between science and politics? Karen François’s paper “In-between science and politics” follows Latour in arguing for the need for political theory to get out of the Platonic cave that it still inhabits. Political theory needs to be brought into the wild through empirical studies of how science and politics in fact intermix. And the Latourian proposition needs to be strengthened by focusing on the embodied knowledges that enable situated objectivities to emerge. Though worthwhile, these arguments are weakened by a superficial treatment of political theory and by a lack of attention to the difficulties involved in combining Latourian actor-network theory with the “strong objectivity” of standpoint theory. Most problematically the paper purports to define as an agenda (exploring the in-between of science and politics) what whole fields of inquiry have already been in full swing exploring for quite a while. The ‘turn to ontology’ in STS and social anthropology and the development of ‘empirical philosophy’ suggests what might be at stake in such explorations.