On the Criteria of Science

Robert K. Merton has listed several criteria that are central to science (Merton, passim). Merton feels that one of the most important concerns the universality of science. The results of science are valid regardless of the subjects presenting them, and they are valid everywhere, given that the object, method and interpretation of results are similar.

Science is also communal in another sense. Merton reminds us of the results of science being shared property, since science is free from special interests. The results are, however, shared property only as far as researchers are concerned. For other people, access to the results depends on the background, social status and wealth of the individuals. In this sense, the discussion on a- and b-level citizens also touches upon - perhaps most of all - science and its results.

Merton considers, as do many others, that method is an important criterion of science, and one of the core features of method is organised scepticism, which often puts science in opposition to the interests of the society's elite. Still, without scep­ticism there is no knowledge, and without being organised, scepticism would only be a relative to incidental curiosity.

Jürgen Habermas has brought an important addition to the discussion on organ­ised scepticism and criticism (Habermas 1989, 146). It especially concerns the humanities, or the “historical-hermeneutical” sciences. They are governed by the hermeneutic interest, which is practical by its nature and concerns the understand­ing of the significance of cultural phenomena. The hermeneutic approach thus also helps the self-knowledge of humans by strengthening communication and by creat­ing preconditions for the transfer of traditions in society. According to Habermas, the hermeneutic interest is also emancipatory since its basic character is critical of ideology. In its emancipation, the hermeneutic interest helps reveal social relation­ships that are based on false consciousness and the objectification of relationships it allows.

Scepticism, whether it is emancipatory by nature or not, is still not enough to constitute a criterion of science unless the scientific method also guarantees the control of the scientific research process as well as that of the propositions achieved as results of the research procedure. In this, science has a unique status in society. Statements of politics or religion, for example, are not subject to a similar control as the statements of science. This is more or less the same as the idea of the scientific community as a measure of the scientific results.

The task of science is to produce true and well-grounded beliefs. If the belief is not true, it does not produce knowledge, and if the reasons cannot be provided for a belief that turns out to be true, it remains as a mere guess.

The “knowledge” produced by DSL is “softer” than the truth but simultaneously certain to such a degree that makes communal acceptability possible. In this respect, controllability proves to be an essential criterion for DSL since an uncontrolled production of “certainty” opens the gates for arbitrariness.

Whatever we think about the criteria Merton has set for science, they have an important task in characterising the ethics of science. Truth (or certainty) is the fundamental ethos of the human search for deeper understanding. Along with beauty and goodness, truth is one of the central values of human life, and science that respects truth (or certainty) has to take its ethos seriously. Breaking the Mertonian rules is the same as acting against the ethics of science.