Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Science as a belief system
- Open Belief System
- Popper
- Every scientists' theories
are open to scrutiny,
criticism and testing by
others
- Science is governed by
the principle of falsification
- Scientific knowledge
is not sacred or
absolute truth
- Scientific knowledge is
cumulative - builds on the
achievements of previous
scientists to develop greater
understanding of the world
- Merton
- Science needs an 'ethos' or set of
norms that make scientists act in
ways that serve the goal of
increasing scientific knowledge
- CUDOS
- Communism -
knowledge must be
shared with the scientific
community
- Universalism - knowledge
is judged by a universal,
objective testing criteria
- Disinterestedness
- seeking
knowledge for its
own sake
- Organised
Scepticism - every
theory is open to
criticism and testing
- Where knowledge claims
are open to questioning
- Closed Belief System
- Kuhn
- E.g. Dr Velikovsky challenged the
fundamental assumptions of the
paradigm and was ridiculed and
hounded out of the profession
- Science is based
on a set of shared
assumptions - a
paradigm
- The paradigm tells
scientists what methods
and equipment to use
- Knorr-Cetina
- What scientists study in the
laboratory is highly 'constructed' and
far removed from the natural world
that they are supposedly studying
- E.g. water is specially
purified, animals are
specially bred and so on
- Polanyi
- Closed belief systems
sustain themselves using
three devices
- Circularity - each idea in
the system is explained in
terms of another
- Subsidiary explanations -
- Denial of legitimacy to rivals - belief
systems reject alternative worldviews
by refusing to grant any legitimacy to
their basic assumptions
- Where knowledge claims
cannot be challenged and
overturned