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chillin'Topic: Secular
"Science Under Attack"
The late Professor John Ziman, in his book Real Science (2000), wrote that "Science is under attack. People are losing confidence in its powers. Pseudo-scientific beliefs thrive. Anti-science speakers win public debates. Industrial firms misuse technology. Legislators curb experiments. Governments slash research funding. Even fellow scholars are becoming sceptical."1
"Anti-Science Phenomenon"
Similar observations had been made earlier, in 1993, by Harvard University's Professor Gerald Holton in his book, Science and Anti-Science (1993). In the last chapter of that book (Chapter 6), Professor Holton wrote about the "anti-science phenomenon".2
What exactly is meant by the term "anti-science"? While Professor Holton did not exactly gave a specific definition for the term "anti-science"3, he clearly used it to mean "opposition to science". He also used the terms "alternative science" and "parascience" as synonyms for "anti-science".
In Chapter 6 of his Science and Anti-Science book, Professor Holton also elaborated that:2
"real" science (good, bad, and indifferent; old, new or just emerging);
pathological science (as in Irving Langmuir's essay on people who thought they were doing real science but were misled); [Here Professor Holton was referring to Irving Langmuir (1881-1957), the American chemist and physicist, whose "Pathological Science" appeared posthumously in Physics Today, 42 (1989), 36; and was based on a lecture at GE Labs on December 18, 1953. A copy of that 1953 lecture is availabe at the Princeton University webpage @ http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm, which states that "Langmuir never published his investigations into the subject of Pathological Science. A tape recording was made of his speech, but this has been lost or erased. Recently, however, a microgroove disk transcription that was made from this tape was found among the Langmuir papers in the Library of Congress, This disk recording is of poor quality, but most of what he said can be understood with a little practice, and it constitutes the text of this report."];
pseudo-science (astrology and the "science" of the paranormal);
blatant silliness and superstition ("pyramid power");
scientism (the overenthusiastic importation of "scientific" models into nonscientific fields; or the vastly exaggerated claims of technocrats for scientific and technologcal powers, such as the ''Star Wars" projects); and
other forms.
In the Science and Anti-Science book2 -- as well as in an earlier journal article entitled "How to think about the 'anti-science' phenomenon"4 -- Professor Holton proposed a "framework" to understand the "anti-science phenomenon" and "to deal with the belief in anti-science", also known as (aka) "alternative science" or "parascience", using Professor Holton's own words.
Professor Holton's framework is based on the premise that "such a belief [in "anti-science", or "alternative science", or "parascience"] is grounded in a person's functional worldview", and is "one symptom of a long-standing struggle over the legitimacy of the authority of conventional science".
The belief in anti-science apparently involves two groups of people:2
firstly, the "critics of establishment [or real] science", which included those who fear that science -- that is, real science and its technological by-products -- may threaten to "overwhelm the individual in the postmodern world"; and
secondly, the "adherents of alternative [or un-real] science", such as "Creationists, New Age 'healers', astrologers".
It is Professor Holton's contention that such "opposition to science ... can take a great variety of forms, from interest in astrology to attacks on relativity theory, from false beliefs based on scientific illiteracy to support of Lysenkoism or Creationism".2
Professor Holton pointed out, for example, that in the former Soviet Union, there were numerous "publications promoting 'otherways of knowing', mystics, clairvoyants, astrologers, extra-terrestrial visitors, faith healers, and the rest of the -- to us -- familiar cast of characters".2
Still referring to the former Soviet Union (although applying to every country as well), the good professor professed that he abhored "the single most malignant part of the [anti-science] phenomenon: the type of pseudo-scientific nonsense that manages to pass itself off as an 'alternative science', and does so in the service of political ambition", and here he mentioned about the situation that used to pertain in the defunct Soviet Union, where there was Lysenkoism, Engels' Anti-Dühring, as well as attacks on the relativity theory and quantum mechanics.2
In his Science and Anti-Science book, Professor Holton also lamented that "much of the tabloid sensationalism involving UFOs is merely hucksterism feeding on primitive ignorance (unless, as with the reputed recent inauguration of a section on "UFO-logy" in the Russian Academy of Science, the craze gets official backing)."2
It is Professor Holton's professional and personal belief that we should strive to achieve the position or state where we are "rational, progressive, anti-superstitious, pro-science, and free of the medieval curses of folk magic, miracle, mystery, false authority, and mindless iconoclasm".
It is clear that Professor Holton abhors anti-science, alternative science, parascience, and the like.
References / Bibliography:
1 John Ziman, Real Science: What It Is, and What It Means (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000). The late Professor John Michael Ziman (who died at age 79, on January 2, 2005), according to the Wikipedia entry on 'John Ziman' @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Ziman
This post is taken from the Mysteries of the World website -- specifically:
- Anti-science (regular version)
- Anti-science (alternate version)
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