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.     

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.     

真空管式太阳热水器热性能研究（二）—瞬时效率、日平均效率的比较分析

利用模型计算值和实验值对真空管式太阳热水器的瞬时效率、日平均效率进行了比较分析,结果表明所建立的计算模型总体上是成功的。还利用计算数据对真空管式太阳热水器和平板式太阳热水器的瞬时效率进行了比较分析,指出了两类热水器在非稳态效率曲线上的重要差别。     

防空信息战效能模糊评估的一种新算法

为了实现防空信息战效能的模糊评价,清除指标隶属度中对目标分类不起作用的冗余值,用基于熵的数据挖掘方法,通过挖掘隐藏在各指标隶属度中关于目标分类的知识信息,理清目标分类与指标隶属度之间的关系,定义区分权清除指标隶属度中对目标分类不起作用的冗余值,并提取有效值计算目标隶属度.防空信息战效能模糊评价的事例分析表明:具有多指标属性的决策问题,为了排除冗余值的干扰,则隶属度转换模型可作为有效的方法.基于熵的数据挖掘方法有效解决了模糊评价中冗余数据的干扰,从而解决了一大批多指标的决策问题.     

“中国梦”:当代青年价值观重塑的指针

中国梦是习近平同志提出的实现我国民族复兴、人民幸福的重要思想。通过对中国梦的追求,依靠党的自身建设和以人为本的指导原则、强大的中国精神和青年人热衷的新媒体平台等手段和方式,重塑当代青年正确的、积极向上的价值观,可以使他们更加清晰地了解和认识中国梦,并自觉地为实现中国梦而努力奋斗。     

王廷抡《临汀考言》的社会经济史料价值

王廷抡任汀州知府时(1696-1700),正是明末清初经历长期战乱之后,闽西政局刚刚稳定不久之际。这段历史虽然短暂,但在汀州社会发展史上却有特殊的意义。一方面,汀州尚未从战乱的破坏中恢复过来,人心涣散,经济萧条,各种不良风气比比皆是;另一方面,各种新的经济因素却已酝酿其中。王廷抡的《临汀考言》一书所反映的恰好是这一时期的汀州历史,尤其是反映了当时汀州社会经济状况的各个方面,也反映了地方官员为恢复社会正常生产生活秩序所作的努力,因而值得人们重视。