Anti-science Phenomenon
Mood:  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

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

See also the Obituary, entitled "John Ziman: Physicist who was concerned with the social significance of science", in the Guardian (UK broadsheet) webpage @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1403544,00.html. ² Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993). Professor Holton is Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University (according to the Wikipedia entry on 'Gerald Holton' @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Holton). See also the Harvard University webpage entitled 'Physics Department Faculty: Gerald Holton' @ http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/holton.html. ³ In his Bibliogrpahical notes, Professor Gerald Holton wrote that "A rare example of a full-length treatment of anti-science is J. C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost (New Brunswick, N.T., Rutgers University Press, 1987). For specific facets of anti-science, see the essays by Helga Nowotny, Gernot Bohme, Otto Ullrich, and Hilary Rose in Helga Nowotny and H. Rose, Counter-Movements in the Sciences (Dordrecht: Reidd, 1979); and essays by Leo Marx, Lynn White, Jr., and Robert S. Morrison in Gerald Holton and R. S. Morison, Limits of Scientific Inquiry (New York, W. W. Horton, 1979)." On the website of Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan (BAAM), the webpage @ http://www.baam.emich.edu/baammainpages/baambookshelf.htm has this to say about John Bunrham's How Superstition Won and Science Lost: ⁴ Webpage entitled "How to think about the 'anti-science' phenomenon" @ http://pus.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/103. This article ("How to think about the 'anti-science' phenomenon") by Professor Gerald Holton of Harvard University appeared in the journal Public Understanding of Science -- specifically in Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 103-128 (January 1992) -- published by SAGE Publications. The PDF file of Professor Holton's article is available @ http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v15p172y1992-93.pdf.

 

This post is taken from the Mysteries of the World website -- specifically:

• Anti-science (regular version)
  
  
• Anti-science (alternate version)
  
  
  

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