Does environmental science crowd out non-epistemic values?

While no one denies that science depends on epistemic values, many philosophers of science have wrestled with the appropriate role of non-epistemic values, such as social, ethical, and political values. Recently, philosophers of science have overwhelmingly accepted that non-epistemic values should play a legitimate role in science. The recent philosophical debate has shifted from the value-free ideal in science to questions about how science should incorporate non-epistemic values. This article engages with such questions through an exploration of the environmental sciences. These sciences are a mosaic of diverse fields characterized by interdisciplinarity, problem-orientation, policy-directedness, and ubiquitous non-epistemic values. This article addresses a frequently voiced concern about many environmental science practices: that they ‘crowd out’ or displace significant non-epistemic values by either (1) entailing some non-epistemic values, rather than others, or by (2) obscuring discussion of non-epistemic values altogether. With three detailed case studies – monetizing nature, nature-society dualism, and ecosystem health – we show that the alleged problem of crowding out emerges from active debates within the environmental sciences. In each case, critics charge that the scientific practice in question displaces non-epistemic values in at least one of the two senses distinguished above. We show that crowding out is neither necessary nor always harmful when it occurs. However, we do see these putative objections to the application of environmental science as teaching valuable lessons about what matters for successful environmental science, all things considered. Given the significant role that many environmental scientists see for non-epistemic values in their fields, we argue that these cases motivate lessons about the importance of value-flexibility (that practices can accommodate a plurality of non-epistemic values), transparency about value-based decisions that inform practice, and environmental pragmatism.     

Does democracy require value-neutral science? Analyzing the legitimacy of scientific information in the political sphere

Philosophers now commonly reject the value free ideal for science by arguing that non-epistemic values, including personal or social values, are permissible within the core of scientific research. However, little attention has been paid to the normative political consequences of this position. This paper explores these consequences and shows how political theory is fruitful for proceeding in a world without value-neutral science. I draw attention to an oft-overlooked argument employed by proponents of the value free ideal I dub the “political legitimacy argument.” This argument claims that the value-free ideal follows directly from the foundational principles of liberal democracy. If so, then the use of value-laden scientific information within democratic decision making would be illegitimate on purely political grounds. Despite highlighting this unaddressed and important argument, I show how it can be rejected. By appealing to deliberative democratic theory, I demonstrate scientific information can be value-laden and politically legitimate. The deliberative democratic account I develop is well suited for capturing the intuitions of many opponents of the value free ideal and points to a new set of questions for those interested in values in science.     

Bias and values in scientific research

When interests and preferences of researchers or their sponsors cause bias in experimental design, data interpretation or dissemination of research results, we normally think of it as an epistemic shortcoming. But as a result of the debate on science and values, the idea that all ‘extra-scientific’ influences on research could be singled out and separated from pure science is now widely believed to be an illusion. I argue that nonetheless, there are cases in which research is rightfully regarded as epistemologically deficient due to the influence of preferences on its outcomes. I present examples from biomedical research and offer an analysis in terms of social epistemology.     

Science,politics and regulation: The trust-based approach to the demarcation problem

Drawing on literature on values in science and a case-study of UK cancer policy, this paper argues for a novel account of the demarcation project in terms of trustworthiness. The first part of the paper addresses the relationship between science, politics and demarcation. In 2010, the UK government decided to pay more for cancer drugs than for drugs for other diseases; in 2016, this Cancer Drugs Fund was reformed so as to lower the evidential standards for approving cancer drugs, rather than paying more for them. Are these two ways of treating cancer as “special” importantly different? This paper argues that, if we the argument from inductive risk seriously, they seem equivalent. This result provides further reason to doubt the notion of demarcating science from non-science. However, the second part of the paper complicates this story, arguing that considerations of epistemic trust might give us reasons to prefer epistemic communities centred around “broadly acceptable” standards, and which are “sociologically well-ordered”, regardless of inductive risk concerns. After developing these claims through the cancer case-study, the final section suggests how these concerns might motivate novel versions of the demarcation project.     

The x-phi(les): unusual insights into the nature of inquiry

Experimental philosophy is often regarded as a category mistake. Even those who reject that view typically see it as irrelevant to standard philosophical projects. We argue that neither of these claims can be sustained and illustrate our view with a sketch of the rich interconnections with philosophy of science.     

Epistemic divergence and the publicity of scientific methods

Epistemic divergence occurs when different investigators give different answers to the same question using evidence-collecting methods that are not public. Without following the principle that scientific methods must be public, scientific communities risk epistemic divergence. I explicate the notion of public method and argue that, to avoid the risk of epistemic divergence, scientific communities should (and do) apply only methods that are public.     

Between relativism and pluralism: Philosophical and political relativism in Feyerabend's late work

Relativism is one of the most problematic terms associated with philosophical discourse, with Feyerabend considered among the most important twentieth century theorists subscribing to it. This paper provides a detailed overview of relativist positions advanced in Feyerabend's mid-to-late work and investigates the associated epistemic and political applications. Emphasis is placed on how Feyerabend supported certain aspects of relativism, and at what stage he rejected others. It is noted that Feyerabend had already imposed limitations on relativism in Farewell to Reason, in which he entertained the possibility of epistemic definition within stable contexts, and advanced the notion that opportunities and equality associated with political and cultural units could only be valid within a democratic system. In Conquest of Abundance, political relativism is largely discarded, while epistemological relativism is increasingly treated as an appeal for diversity in all areas.In this re-reading of his work, it becomes clear that Feyerabend was already advocating a moderate form of epistemic and political relativism in the middle of his career, which he subsequently developed in the direction of “ontological pluralism” in his later work. This paper thus shows that Feyerabend's relativism should not be completely rejected, but rather that it continues to offer interesting food for thought.     

Subjectivity and emotion in scientific research

A persistent puzzle for philosophers of science is the well-documented appeal made by scientists to their aesthetic emotions in the course of scientific research. Emotions are usually viewed as irremediably subjective, and thus of no epistemological interest. Yet, by denying an epistemic role for scientists’ emotional dispositions, philosophers find themselves in the awkward position of ignoring phenomena which scientists themselves often insist are of importance. This paper suggests a possible solution to this puzzle by challenging the wholesale identification of emotion with subjectivity. The proposed method is a naturalistic and externalist one, calling for empirical investigation into the intersubjective processes by which scientists’ emotional dispositions become refined and attuned to specific objects of attention. The proposal is developed through a critical discussion of Michael Polanyi’s theory of scientific passions, as well as plant geneticist Barbara McClintock’s celebrated “feeling for the organism.”     

Constructing dystopian experience: A Neurath-Cartwrightian approach to the philosophy of social technology

Social situations, the object of the social sciences, are complex and unique: they contain so many variable aspects that they cannot be reproduced, and it is even difficult to experience two situations that are alike in many respects. The social scientists' past experiences that serve as their background knowledge to intervene in an existent situation is poor compared to what a traditional epistemologist would consider ideal. A way of dealing with the variable and insufficient background of social scientists is by means of models. But, then, how should we characterize social scientific models? This paper examines Otto Neurath's scientific utopianism as an attempt to deal with this problem. Neurath proposes that social scientists work with utopias: broad imaginative plans that coordinate a multitude of features of a social situation. This notion can be used in current debates in philosophy of science because we notice that utopias, in Neurath's sense, are comparable to models and nomological machines in Nancy Cartwright's conception. A model-based view of science lays emphasis on the fact that scientists learn from the repeated operation of such abstract entities, just as they learn from the repetition of experiments in a laboratory. Hence this approach suggests an approximation between the natural and the social sciences, as well as between science and utopian literature. This is exemplified by analyzing the literary dystopia We, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, to show that reasoning from and debating about utopian writings, even if fictional and pessimistic, creates phenomena of valuation, which are fundamental for constituting a background of experiences in the social sciences.     

The re-emergence of hyphenated history-and-philosophy-of-science and the testing of theories of scientific change

A basic premise of hyphenated history-and-philosophy-of-science is that theories of scientific change have to be based on empirical evidence derived from carefully constructed historical case studies. This paper analyses one such systematic attempt to test philosophical claims, describing its historical context, rationale, execution, and limited impact.     

Symmetries and the philosophy of language

In this paper, I consider the role of exact symmetries in theories of physics, working throughout with the example of gravitation set in Newtonian spacetime. First, I spend some time setting up a means of thinking about symmetries in this context; second, I consider arguments from the seeming undetectability of absolute velocities to an anti-realism about velocities; and finally, I claim that the structure of the theory licences (and perhaps requires) us to interpret models which differ only with regards to the absolute velocities of objects as depicting the same physical state of affairs. In defending this last claim, I consider how ideas and resources from the philosophy of language may usefully be brought to bear on this topic.     

Towards a science of the individual: the Aristotelian search for scientific knowledge of individual entities

This article seeks to take a step towards recognizing that science can deal with the concrete and individual as well as the universal. I shall concentrate on some of Aristotle’s texts, as there is a long tradition going back to Aristotle, according to which science deals only with the universal, although his work also contains texts of a very different tenor. He tries to improve the process of definition as an attempt to bring science closer to the concrete, but ends up realizing that there are some unreachable limits. There is, however, a second Aristotelian approach to the problem in Metaphysica M 10, a passage which takes scientific rapprochement to the individual further by introducing a distinction between science in potential and science in act. The former is universal, but the latter deals with individual substances and processes. Aristotle himself acknowledges here that in one sense science is universal and in another it is not, a position that raises important ontological and epistemological problems. Some suggestions are also offered concerning the kind of truth applicable to science in act, that is, practical truth.     

Incredulity towards Lyotard: a critique of a postmodernist account of science and knowledge

Philosophers of science have paid little attention, positive or negative, to Lyotard’s book The postmodern condition, even though it has been popular in other fields. We set out some of the reasons for this neglect. Lyotard thought that sciences could be justified by non-scientific narratives (a position he later abandoned). We show why this is unacceptable, and why many of Lyotard’s characterisations of science are either implausible or are narrowly positivist. One of Lyotard’s themes is that the nature of knowledge has changed and thereby so has society itself. However much of what Lyotard says muddles epistemological matters about the definition of ‘knowledge’ with sociological claims about how information circulates in modern society. We distinguish two kinds of legitimation of science: epistemic and socio-political. In proclaiming ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’ Lyotard has nothing to say about how epistemic and methodological principles are to be justified (legitimated). He also gives a bad argument as to why there can be no epistemic legitimation, which is based on an act/content confusion, and a confusion between making an agreement and the content of what is agreed to. As for socio-political legitimation, Lyotard’s discussion remains at the abstract level of science as a whole rather than at the level of the particular applications of sciences. Moreover his positive points can be accepted without taking on board any of his postmodernist account of science. Finally we argue that Lyotard’s account of paralogy, which is meant to provide a ‘postmodern’ style of justification, is a failure.     

基于词频分析的我国2005年科学学发展动向探析

以北京大学出版社出版的《中文核心期刊要目总览》（2004年版）中科学学类的12种核心期刊2005年所载论文作为统计数据源,采用词频统计的内容分析法,分析我国2005年科学学研究的动向。统计结果表明：企业、技术、创新、管理、科技、发展、知识、战略、评价、产业、科学等领域是2005年我国科学学的主要研究热点,这些研究热点的出现,说明我国科学学研究的应用化走向。通过与国际科学学研究动向进行比较,认为我国应该加强科学学理论与方法的研究,使科学学理论研究、应用研究、方法研究相互交融、相互支撑。否则大量的科学学应用研究因为缺少了理论与方法的支撑犹如空中楼阁,从而限制了研究成果质量的提高。     

Putting pragmatism to work in the Cold War: Science, technology, and politics in the writings of James B. Conant

This paper examines James Conant’s pragmatic theory of science—a theory that has been neglected by most commentators on the history of 20^th-century philosophy of science—and it argues that this theory occupied an important place in Conant’s strategic thinking about the Cold War. Conant drew upon his wartime science policy work, the history of science, and Quine’s epistemological holism to argue that there is no strict distinction between science and technology, that there is no such thing as “the scientific method,” and that theories are better interpreted as policies rather than creeds. An important consequence that he drew from these arguments is that science is both a thoroughly value-laden, and an intrinsically social, enterprise. These results led him to develop novel proposals for reorganizing scientific and technological research—proposals that he believed could help to win the Cold War. Interestingly, the Cold War had a different impact upon Conant’s thinking than it did upon many other theorists of science in postwar America. Instead of leading him to “the icy slopes of logic,” it led him to develop a socially- and politically-engaged theory that was explicitly in the service of the American Cold War effort.     

Scientific freedom: its grounds and their limitations

In various debates about science, appeal is made to the freedom of scientific research. A rationale in favor of this freedom is rarely offered. In this paper, two major arguments are reconstructed that promise to lend support to a principle of scientific freedom. According to the epistemological argument, freedom of research is required in order to organize the collective cognitive effort we call science efficiently. According to the political argument, scientific knowledge needs to be generated in ways that are independent of the major political powers because of the important role it plays for the citizens and their capacity to form well informed political preferences. Both arguments are examined critically in order to identify their strengths and limitations. I argue that the scientific freedom established by both rests on a number of critical preconditions, and that the arguments’ force must be weighed against competing societal interests and values in each case of their application. Appeal to a principle of scientific freedom should therefore never mark the end, but rather the beginning of a public debate about the ends and means of science.     

Out of the fog: Catalyzing integrative capacity in interdisciplinary research

Social studies of interdisciplinary science investigate how scientific collaborations approach complex challenges that require multiple disciplinary perspectives. In order for collaborators to meet these complex challenges, interdisciplinary collaborations must develop and maintain integrative capacity, understood as the ability to anticipate and weigh tradeoffs in the employment of different disciplinary approaches. Here we provide an account of how one group of interdisciplinary fog scientists intentionally catalyzed integrative capacity. Through conversation, collaborators negotiated their commitments regarding the ontology of fog systems and the methodologies appropriate to studying fog systems, thereby enhancing capabilities which we take to constitute integrative capacity. On the ontological front, collaborators negotiated their commitments by setting boundaries to and within the system, layering different subsystems, focusing on key intersections of these subsystems, and agreeing on goals that would direct further investigation. On the methodological front, collaborators sequenced various methods, anchored methods at different scales, validated one method with another, standardized the outputs of related methods, and coordinated methods to fit a common model. By observing the process and form of collaborator conversations, this case study demonstrates that social studies of science can bring into critical focus how interdisciplinary collaborators work toward an integrated conceptualization of study systems.     

科技政策、科研管理评论与报道

中美医学科学研究体系与管理有以下特点 :(1)资助和管理的政府机构 ,我国主要有国家科学技术部、国家自然科学基金委员会和国家卫生部 ;美国主要是国立卫生院 (NationalInstitutesofHealth ,NIH)。 (2 )项目的资助模式上 ,我国为“3+ 2”计划体系 ,即三大项目体系 (国家高技术研究发展项目计划 ,国家科技攻关计划和基础研究计划 )和两大科技平台条件建设体系 (研究开发条件建设计划和科技产业化环境建设计划 ) ,不同基金资助基础到产业化研究的不同阶段和类别 ;NIH基金按疾病领域、经费和院内、外研究机构 ,从基础、应用基础和平台条件建设以及产业化整体系统资助。 (3)管理和运行模式上 ,我国有两种模式 ,一是国家部委到地方科委再到高校和科研院所 ,二是国家部委直接到各高校和科研院所 ;NIH直接到高校和各科研院所。 (4)基金的构成特点上 ,我国医学科学研究来自三大项目和两大条件计划体系的每个部分 ,申请项目必须根据项目研究的不同性质和阶段找准计划体系中不同计划的特定资助方向 ;NIH基金系统支持医学研究的各个领域和不同研究阶段。 (5 )经费的投入上 ,我国医学科研经费投入约占总科研经费投入的 2 0 %左右 ,历年投入总和只相当于NIH一年经费的几十分之一。 (6 )规划计划上 ,NIH宏观和微观相结     

Measures of effectiveness in medical research: Reporting both absolute and relative measures

Biomedical research, especially pharmaceutical research, has been criticised for engaging in practices that lead to over-estimations of the effectiveness of medical treatments. A central issue concerns the reporting of absolute and relative measures of medical effectiveness. In this paper we critically examine proposals made by Jacob Stegenga to (a) give priority to the reporting of absolute measures over relative measures, and (b) downgrade the measures of effectiveness (effect sizes) of the treatments tested in clinical trials (Stegenga, 2015a). After exposing significant flaws in a central case study used by Stegenga to bolster his first proposal (a), we go on to argue that neither of these proposals is defensible (a or b). We defend the practice, in line with the New England Journal of Medicine, of reporting both absolute and relative measures whenever feasible.