D Modern Science
How do we distinguish science from other activities? Is there a “unity of science”? Scientific fields could have common features that nonscientific fields don't have, or there might be connections among the scientific fields that directly link them together, or both.
A group of activities might all warrant being labeled “scientific” without sharing subject matter, methods, techniques, conceptual underpinnings, etc. Think about another activity say, fishing, and ask, “Is there is a unity of fishing?” You can go about fishing with an expensive fly-casting rod in a remote wooded stream, huge trawler nets on ocean-going factory ships, a string and a baited hook at the end of a pier, a spear while diving on a coral reef, etc. And it doesn't matter whether or not you are successful in catching anything; trying is enough because fishing is defined by its objective—to catch fish—not by the equipment or techniques used, background knowledge available, or immediate purposes (sport, profit, food acquisition, etc.).Is there an analogous unifying theme in science? We don't have to go through numerous possible answers to this question to find a practical framework. To put my cards on the table, I favor the answer that has dominated the Western intellectual tradition since the Enlightenment: science is a systematic study of nature having the core values of rationality, objectivity, testability, and reproducibility. It aims to discover universal natural Truth while accepting that attaining that goal is impossible. Science is rooted in empiricism, the Scientific Method, and freedom from authoritarian dogma. It rests on the belief that nature is quantifiably regular and understandable. And real. Science admits of no supernatural causes or effects.
Philosophers of science find almost every word in this description debatable, and we'll get to their criticisms shortly. Furthermore, because of its historical philosophical roots and its association with the industrialized West, modern science is frequently referred to as “modern Western science,” although this term ignores the increasingly voluminous contributions made by scientists from nonWestern countries.15 “Modern science” captures the affiliation with modern industrialized societies without the cultural baggage (we'll discuss an alternative, Indigenous science, in Chapter 4). The next section has a selection of philosophical concepts that all scientists should know.
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