Science as a closed system

SCIENCE AS A CLOSED SYSTEM

Polyani argues even science is a closed belief system .
In 1950 Immanuel Velikovsky’s theory of alternative explanation to the Earth’s origin was rejected and boycotted without even being read.
Thomas S Kuhn- argues mature science I.e. biology or physics is based on shared assumptions which he calls paradigm.
This tell them what reality is like and what will count as evidence etc.
Normal science is like ‘puzzle solving’ filling details of the paradigm’s. Those that do this successfully win Nobel prizes etc.
Scientific education and training is being socialised into faith into the paradigm and successful career depends on working with this.
Anyone who challenges the fundamental assumptions of paradigm, as Velikovsky, will usually be subjected to ridicule.
Rare period as Kuhn describes as ‘scientific revolution’ where the faith in paradigm has been undermined by accumulation of anomalies- results that paradigm can’t account for, only then do scientists become open to radically new ideas.
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE Interpretivists developed Kuhn’s ideas say that scientific knowledge is socially constructed- those things that scientists take to be true and real are a product of shared theories or paradigms that tell them what they should expect to see and of particular instruments they use.
Kuhin argues inventions of new instruments that help scientist make observation construct or fabricate new facts.
What scientists study in labs is highly ‘constructed’ and highly removed from real life e.g. animals are specially reared in labs.
　
LITTLE GREEN MEN Ethno methodologist Steve Woolgar (1998)- scientists are involved in trying to make sense of interpreting the world as everyone else.
When confronted with evidence from experiment they need to decide what it means, and do so by devising and applying theories or explanations. They also need to persuade others to accept their interpretation.
Woolgar notes, a scientific fact is simply a social construction or belief system that scientists are able to persuade their colleagues to share- not necessarily a real thing ’out there’.
MARXISM, FEMINISM AND POSTMODERNISM They see science as serving the dominant groups. Ruling class for Marxists and men for feminists. E.g. theoretical work on ballistics was done to develop new weapons.
Biological ideas have been used to both justify male domination and colonial expansion. Science can be seen as a form of ideology.
Postmodernists say science is a number of meta narratives that claim to posses the truth and how the world works as a means of progress to a better society. Science is just one more ‘discourse’ way of thinking that is used to dominate people.
Some postmodernist argue that science has become ‘techno science’, simply serving capitalist interest by producing commodities for profit.