Is Science Value Free?
Questioning the Assumptions
After reading most of science historian Naomi Oreskes book “Why Trust Science?”, I came away with a new understanding of science. Typically me and my cohort of evidence based practitioners see science as worth protecting and being pure. I myself see it as the best method towards approximate truth we have available, with the success of science being evident of that. I’m sure many of you value science as well considering you follow me and read these post, but I know you probably have reservations about science in some respects.
However, if science is a human enterprise (considering scientist are human) is it truly value free? I think the question we should answer before that is… what do we mean by values in the first place? I could give you a long winded explanation of what values probably are in ethics but they’re essentially prescriptive claims. Prescriptive claims relate to what ought to be the case (morality). These claims juxtapose descriptive claims which tell us what is (fact). A pretty smart philosopher named David Hume expressed this distinction between is (descriptive claims) and ought (prescriptive claim) through the is-ought problem.
Essentially, he argues we cannot derive morality from facts, facts about the world cannot tell us what we ought to do. For example, knowing whether a fetus develops a heartbeat after 5 to 6 weeks of pregnancy doesn’t tell us whether abortion is morally justifiable. The facts cannot necessarily tell us what we ought to do. This idea is so pervasive in moral philosophy that it is dubbed Hume’s law.
So, if science is for the pursuit of truth and knowledge via finding out facts, this separates it from morality. Science cannot necessarily tell us what we ought to do, but do the values we hold pervert science as an enterprise? I think that is a distinct question. Could values hypothetically effect science?
One argument I have used in the past and other philosophers have attempted to use is focusing on the methods of science. Philosophers such as Karl Popper and the logical positivist attempted to distinguish science from other ways of knowing through the method scientist use. The method should distinguish science from non-science and through the method a concept of truth, fact, and knowledge should emerge ideally untainted by human values.
The problem is this fixation on method above all else takes out a necessary component, the scientist actually doing the science. The scientist themselves are obviously important when it comes to the quality of research, what is studied, and how is it studied. This lead scientist like Ludwik Fleck to study the social interactions between scientist from this he came up with his idea of thought collectives. Thought collectives posits that thinking is a collective activity and this activity applies to the discovery of scientific facts.
Fleck’s work eventually influenced other ideas important in the philosophy of science such as Thomas Kuhn’s “paradigm” and Paul Feyerabend’s “epistemological anarchism”. These ideas further disrupted the assumption science has a set method which differentiates itself from non-science. If science is more so a collective activity with agreed upon norms, a history, and a culture it’s appropriate to take into consideration values held by scientist.
Oreskes makes the argument we should stop pretending science is a purely objective methodologically driven enterprise because it is actually a social activity. She argues standpoint epistemology should be considered from the work of feminist philosophers Sandra Harding and Helen Longino. Standpoint epistemology essentially states our social position will impact what we know. This would mean greater diversity among scientist can make science stronger. Specifically, Harding argues in her book, The Science Question in Feminism, that a persons beliefs, values, and life experiences will affect their work.
While Harding is a provocative individual, there is truth to the idea values might impact the work of scientist. Do we really think the #BLM and #fuckTrump hashtags on prominent scientists Twitter bios have no indication of their values? And that these values will not impact the work that they do? Obviously they do have an impact to an extent. This is probably why we would want individuals from various backgrounds and viewpoints being scientist because this allows scientist to correct each other.
Longino argues the self correcting nature of scientist actually comes from scientist correcting each other (think peer review). She dubs this the social process of “transformative interrogation”. When scientist challenge, question, adjust, and amend their ideas amongst each other this brings objectivity. Objectivity in this sense is probabilistic, with the odds hedging in favor of increased objectivity when the scientific community is more open and diverse as it allows for better correction amongst scientist. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s argument for free speech and some of David Hume’s arguments on epistemology.
Longino, Harding, and Oreskes argue we should accept the fact individual scientist are biased, have preconceptions, and hold on to values even when conducting their work rather than ignoring this.
I tend to agree with the above feminist philosophers even with the risk of committing the cardinal sin of agreeing with postmodernism (sarcasm). While method is necessary within a given scientific discipline it is not sufficient for describing science as a whole. Philosopher Paul Feyerabend quite convincingly argues the methods used within scientific disciplines are often different compared to others, common examples are the natural sciences vs. the social sciences.
While values may indeed impact scientist, science can be seen as a social activity, and there is no unifying method we should still trust science. I would argue the attitudes scientist hold, the norms within the scientific community, the success science had and continues to have supports our continuing trust in science.
Scientific theories are the best approximate sources of truth we have for the observable and unobservable… this is how engineers are able to craft airplanes that can fly and medical scientist can eradicate diseases such as smallpox. Our best scientific theories supported by multiple years of research and the many lives of others have great predictive success. You wouldn’t be able to read this article now without the work of scientist and their discoveries.
Scientist may not be value free but science as a form of knowledge production gives us the best understanding of the world around us. Nothing else comes close.