I hope this course has provided you with an opportunity to think about science & society and the meaning of science.

To conclude these blog pages and wrap things up … recall that we began our exploration of Science & Authority with Max Weber’s concern that science does not inform us about the meaning of the world (What should we do? How should we live?). As a class, we purposed to (temporarily) look away from the science-engineering-math “way of knowing” (NQR in the W&M’s COLL curriculum) toward the “other side” of campus in hopes of answers to such questions in alternative knowledge domains.

For many of us, the academic culture of the social sciences (CSI) and the humanities (ALV) was foreign. It may even have been troubling to read the many critiques of the “scientific way of knowing” that arise from these domains.

Some of you were surprised at the intellectual rigor and critical perspective that the CSI and ALV fields demand. (I responded this way in college when first exposed – in a class that might have been titled “poetry for engineers” – to the diligence and exactitude of a professional literary critic.)

For the most part, our CSI and ALV readings took the perspective of sociology (problematics of modernity) or philosophy (of science). Time has not allowed sampling of other CSI and ALV viewpoints such as economics, phenomenology, and creative arts, all of which are worthy disciplines whose approach can inform your continued thinking about the meaning of science and the dynamics of authority.

In the class discussion yesterday there seemed to be a consensus that historical and sociological analysis can provide perspective on science. Nevertheless, you believe that the NQR “way of knowing” – at its best – remains distinctive in its routine engagement with empirical aspects of the natural world. Most pointedly, the process of laboratory experimentation and the guidance of mathematical theory make the epistemology of molecular biology, chemistry, and physics markedly different from ALV and most CSI disciplines.

The natural sciences are somehow – not superior – but more compliant and cumulative than humanities and social science. In addition, there is the pragmatic consideration that natural scientific knowledge is repeatedly confirmed whenever its technological applications “just work.”

If I read the room correctly, you acknowledge the validity of the historical and sociological critique of science, but reject the ideology that the “culturally embedded status of all claims for universal factuality” means that “science as just one system of belief among many alternatives, all worthy of equal weight…” You seem well-equipped to rebut this perspective on science.

As STEM majors and science professor, we (understandably) have a preference for the NQR way of knowing when it is applicable. Even so, I hope you will eschew the “imperialism” of the reductive mindset and confidently call out scientistic overreach and the dehumanizing aspects of technological society when you encounter them.

Looking back over the long arc of the semester, it occurs to me that in our criticisms of scientific experts we may sometimes “blame science for problems that mainly reflect basic human qualities such as pride and greed” (Jewett 2020, p. 260).

Similarly, I wonder to what extent science is a `whipping boy’ for larger concerns. The scientific revolution played an important role in the transition to modernity, but perhaps we are too quick to ascribe the `dark side of modernity’ to science. Does the cultural influence of science in the process of secularization make science (as a distinctive way of knowing, as publicly verified knowledge) culpable for our soul-sick technological society or the imperial wars of secular states? I think not. I certainly hope that my science is not to blame.

Further Reading

Jewett, A. (2020). Science Under Fire: Challenges to scientific authority in modern America. Harvard University Press. [Amazon]