Antiscience
Encyclopedia
Antiscience is a position that rejects science
and the scientific method
. People holding antiscientific views are generally skeptical that science is an objective
method, as it purports to be, or that it generates universal
knowledge. They also contend that scientific reductionism
in particular is an inherently limited means to reach understanding of the complex world we live in. Antiscience proponents also criticize what they perceive as the unquestioned privilege, power and influence science seems to wield in society, industry and politics; they object to what they regard as an arrogant or closed-minded attitude amongst scientists.
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Those involved in the beginnings of the scientific revolution
such as Robert Boyle
found themselves in immediate and direct confrontation with those such as Thomas Hobbes
who were extremely skeptical regarding whether what we now think of as the scientific method was a satisfactory way to obtain genuine knowledge of the nature of the world.
Hobbes' stance is sometimes regarded as an antiscience position. "In his Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, when he distinguished 'demonstrable' fields, as 'those the construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist himself,' from 'indemonstrable' ones 'where the causes are to seek for.' We can only know the causes of what we make. So geometry is demonstrable, because 'the lines and figures from which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves' and 'civil philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth ourselves.' But we can only speculate about the natural world, because 'we know not the construction, but seek it from the effects.'" It was also Hobbes who "put forth the idea of the significance of the nonrational in human behaviour." Jones goes on to group Hobbes along with others he classes as 'antireductionists' and 'individualists,' such as Wilhelm Dilthey
, Karl Marx
, Jeremy Bentham
and J S Mill, and then he adds Karl Popper
, John Rawls
and E. O. Wilson
.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
, claimed that science leads to immorality. "Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality" and his "critique of science has much to teach us about the dangers involved in our political commitment to scientific progress, and about the ways in which the future happiness of mankind might be secured".
Nevertheless, while potentially confusing, Rousseau does not state in his Discourses that sciences are necessarily bad, as he states how high in regard figures like René Descartes
, Francis Bacon
, and Isaac Newton
should be held. As stated in the very end of the discourse, Rousseau says that there are those (aforementioned) who can cultivate sciences to great benefit, and those that, cultivating science (mostly because of society's bad influence), lead to morality's corruption.
William Blake
in his paintings and writings, reacted strongly against the work of Isaac Newton and is seen as being perhaps the earliest (and almost certainly the most prominent and enduring) example of what is seen by historians as being the aesthetic or romantic
antiscience response. For example, in a notable poem of 1795, Blake shows his revulsion for Newton in the image of the beautiful and natural robin red-breast imprisoned by the materialistic cage of Newtonian mathematics and science. In Blake's painting of Newton, he is depicted "as a misguided hero whose gaze was directed only at sterile geometrical diagrams drawn on the ground". Blake thought, "Newton, Bacon, and Locke
with their emphasis on reason were nothing more than 'the three great teachers of atheism
, or Satan's Doctrine'...the picture progresses from exuberance and colour on the left, to sterility and blackness on the right. In Blake's view Newton brings not light, but night". In a poem, W H Auden summarises Blake's anti-scientific views by saying that he, "Broke off relations in a curse, with the Newtonian Universe".
Recent biographers of Newton consider him more as a renaissance
alchemist
, natural philosopher, and magician rather than a true representative of scientific illuminism, as popularized by Voltaire
and other illuminist Newtonians
.
Antiscience issues are seen as a fundamental consideration in the transition from 'pre-science' or 'protoscience
' such as that evident in Alchemy
. Many disciplines which pre-date the widespread adoption and acceptance of the scientific method, such as geometry
and astronomy
, are not seen as anti-science.
Nonetheless, some of the orthodoxies within those disciplines which pre-date a scientific approach (such as those orthodoxies repudiated by the discoveries of Galileo
) are seen as being a product of an anti-science stance.
The term 'scientism
' derives from science studies
and is a term spawned and used by sociologists and philosophers of science to describe the views, beliefs and behavior of many strong science devotees. It is sometimes also used in a pejorative sense, for individuals who seem to be 'fetishizing
' science, or treating science in a similar way to a religion.
The term reductionism
is occasionally used in a similarly pejorative way (as a somewhat more subtle attack on scientists) although scientists can now be found who recognise that there might be conceptual and philosophical shortcomings of reductionism but feel nonetheless comfortable in being labelled as reductionists.
However, non reductionist (see Emergentism
) views of science have been formulated in varied forms in several scientific fields like Statistical Physics
, Chaos Theory
, Complexity Theory
, Cybernetics
, Systems Theory
, Systems Biology
, Ecology
, Information Theory
etc. Such fields tend to assume that strong interaction between units produce new phenomena in higher levels that cannot be accounted for solely by reductionism (for example, it is not possible or valuable to describe a chess game or even gene networks by using quantum mechanics). The emergentist view of science ("More is Different", in the words of Nobel physicist Philip W. Anderson) has been inspired in its methodology by the European social sciences (Durkheim, Marx) which tend to reject methodological individualism
.
and... legitimisation of alternatives", and that the results of scientific findings do not always represent any underlying reality, but can merely reflect the ideology of dominant groups within society.
In this view, science is associated with the political Right and is seen as a belief system that is conservative and conformist, that suppresses innovation
, that resists change and that acts dictatorially. This includes the view, for example, that science has a "bourgeois and/or Eurocentric and/or masculinist world-view."
The anti-nuclear movement, often associated with the left, has been criticized for overstating the negative effects of nuclear power
, and understating the environmental costs of non-nuclear sources that can be prevented through nuclear energy.
to the Enlightenment
, French Revolution
and the Industrial Revolution
. This movement is often referred to as the 'counter-enlightenment
'. Romanticism emphasizes that intuition, passion and organic links to Nature are primal values and that rational thinking is secondary to human life. There are many modern examples of conservative antiscience polemics. Primary among the latter are the polemics about embryonic stem cell
research, evolution
ary theory and modern cosmology
teaching in high schools, contraception
, and environmental issues related to global warming
and energy crisis
.
There are many characteristics of antiscience associated with the right, such as the appeal to conspiracy theories to explain why scientists believe what they believe, in an attempt to undermine the confidence or power usually associated to science
(e.g. in global warming conspiracy theories
). Another feature of "conservative antiscience" discourse is the widespread use of informal fallacies, in particular the false dilemma
, appeal to consequences
, appeal to fear
, and the appeal to probability
fallacies.
and cosmopolitanism
. In particular, the traditional and ethnic values emphasized are similar to those of white supremacist Christian Identity
theology, but similar right-wing views have been developed by radically conservative sects of Islam
, Judaism
, Hinduism
, and Buddhism
. New religious movements like New Age
thinking also criticize the scientific worldview as favouring a reductionist, atheist, or materialist philosophy.
A frequent basis of antiscientific sentiment is religious theism
with literal interpretations of sacred text. Here, scientific theories that conflict with what is considered divinely-inspired knowledge are regarded as flawed. Over the centuries religious institutions have been hesitant to embrace such ideas as heliocentrism
and planetary motion
because they contradicted the dominant understanding of various passages of scripture. More recently the body of creation theologies known collectively as creationism
and the more philosophically developed, teleological theory of intelligent design
have been promoted by critical or apprehensive, religious theists in response to the theory of evolution by natural selection
.
had ushered in "the ideal of a unified system of all the sciences", but there were those fearful of this notion, who "felt that constrictions of reason and science, of a single all-embracing system... were in some way constricting, an obstacle to their vision of the world, chains on their imagination or feeling". Antiscience then is a rejection of "the scientific model [or paradigm]... with its strong implication that only that which was quantifiable, or at any rate, measurable... was real". In this sense, it comprises a "critical attack upon the total claim of the new scientific method to dominate the entire field of human knowledge". However, scientific positivism (logical positivism
) does not deny the reality of non-measurable phenomena, only that those phenomena should not be adequate to scientific investigation. Morever, positivism
, as a philosophical basis for the scientific method
, is not consensual or even dominant in the scientific community (see philosophy of science
).
Three major areas of antiscience can be seen in philosophy, sociology, and ecology. The following quotes explore this aspect of the subject.
constituents". Some see antiscience as "common...in academic settings...many people see that there problems in demarcation between science, scientism, and pseudoscience resulting in an antiscience stance. Some argue that nothing can be known for sure".
Many scholars are "divided as to whether reduction should be a central strategy for understanding the world". However, many agree that "there are, nevertheless, reasons why we want science to discover properties and explanations other than reductive physical ones". Such issues stem "from an antireductionist worry that there is no absolute conception of reality, that is, a characterization of reality such as... science claims to provide". This is close to the Kantian view that reality is ultimately unknowable and all models are just imperfect approximations to it.
refers to "some sociologists who might appear to be antiscience". Some "philosophers and antiscience types", he contends, may have presented "unreal images of science that threaten the believability of scientific knowledge", or appear to have gone "too far in their antiscience deconstructions". The question often lies in how far scientists can be said to really conform to the standard stereotype of "communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, and... skepticism". Unfortunately, "scientists don't always conform... scientists do get passionate about pet theories; they do rely on reputation in judging a scientist's work; they do pursue fame and gain via research". Thus, they do show inherent biases in their work. Many "scientists are not as rational and logical as the legend would have them, nor are they as illogical or irrational as some relativists might say".
identifies a conflict "not between science and antiscience, but rather between different pathways for science and technology; between a commodified science-for-profit and a gentle science for humane goals; between the sciences of the smallest parts and the sciences of dynamic wholes... [he] offers proposals for a more holistic, integral approach to understanding and addressing environmental issues". These beliefs are also common within the scientific community, with for example, scientists being prominent in environmental campaigns warning of environmental dangers such as ozone depletion
and the greenhouse effect
. It can also be argued that this version of antiscience comes close to that found in the medical sphere where patients and practitioners may choose to reject reductionism and adopt a more holistic approach to health problems. This can be both a practical and a conceptual shift and has attracted strong criticism: "therapeutic touch, a healing technique based upon the laying-on of hands, has found wide acceptance in the nursing profession despite its lack of scientific plausibility. Its acceptance is indicative of a broad antiscientific trend in nursing".
Glazer also criticises the therapists and patients, "for abandoning the biological underpinnings of nursing and for misreading philosophy in the service of an antiscientific world-view". Brian Martin provides a view of the conflict between science and antiscience: "Gross and Levitt's basic approach is to attack constructivist
s for not being positivists". Science is "presented as a unitary object, usually identified with scientific knowledge. It is portrayed as neutral and objective. Second, science is claimed to be under attack by 'antiscience' which is composed essentially of ideologues who are threats to the neutrality and objectivity that are fundamental to science. Third, a highly selective attack is made on the arguments of 'antiscience'". Such people allegedly then "routinely equate critique of scientific knowledge with hostility to science, a jump that is logically unsupportable and empirically dubious". Having then "constructed two artificial entities, a unitary 'science' and a unitary 'academic left', each reduced to epistemological essences, Gross and Levitt proceed to attack. They pick out figures in each of several areas -- science studies, postmodernism
, feminism
, environmentalism
, AIDS activism -- and criticise their critiques of science".
The writings of Young serve to illustrate more rhetorical antiscience outpourings: "The strength of the antiscience movement and of alternative technology is that their advocates have managed to retain Utopian vision while still trying to create concrete instances of it". "The real social, ideological and economic forces shaping science...[have] been opposed to the point of suppression in many quarters. Most scientists hate it and label it 'antiscience'. But it is urgently needed, because it makes science self-conscious and hopefully self-critical and accountable with respect to the forces which shape research priorities, criteria, goals".
Genetically modified foods are another aspect of our health that which brings about antiscience sentiment. The general public has become more sensitive as of late of the dangers that a poor diet can have on one's health, as there have been numerous studies that show that the two are inextricably linked together". Anti-science dictates that science is untrustworthy, in that it is never complete and always in need of revision, which would be a probable cause for the fear that the general public has of genetically modified foods despite scientific reassurance.
It is also a common antiscientific point to state that verbal (say, literary and non-mathematical) models are poor representations of reality. If it is clear that a particular statistical or psychological study about romantic love
or religious ecstasy
(see neurotheology
), captures only a tiny fraction of such human experiences, literary accounts and simplified verbal models also cannot adequately convey their full complexity. Both verbal and mathematical models are (partial) maps of reality, providing different points of view, but inherently incomplete descriptions of the territory of human and universe existence (see map territory relation).
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
. People holding antiscientific views are generally skeptical that science is an objective
Objectivity (science)
Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...
method, as it purports to be, or that it generates universal
Universality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
knowledge. They also contend that scientific reductionism
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
in particular is an inherently limited means to reach understanding of the complex world we live in. Antiscience proponents also criticize what they perceive as the unquestioned privilege, power and influence science seems to wield in society, industry and politics; they object to what they regard as an arrogant or closed-minded attitude amongst scientists.
History
Scientific revolution
The Scientific Revolution is an era associated primarily with the 16th and 17th centuries during which new ideas and knowledge in physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry transformed medieval and ancient views of nature and laid the foundations for modern science...
such as Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
found themselves in immediate and direct confrontation with those such as Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
who were extremely skeptical regarding whether what we now think of as the scientific method was a satisfactory way to obtain genuine knowledge of the nature of the world.
Hobbes' stance is sometimes regarded as an antiscience position. "In his Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, when he distinguished 'demonstrable' fields, as 'those the construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist himself,' from 'indemonstrable' ones 'where the causes are to seek for.' We can only know the causes of what we make. So geometry is demonstrable, because 'the lines and figures from which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves' and 'civil philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth ourselves.' But we can only speculate about the natural world, because 'we know not the construction, but seek it from the effects.'" It was also Hobbes who "put forth the idea of the significance of the nonrational in human behaviour." Jones goes on to group Hobbes along with others he classes as 'antireductionists' and 'individualists,' such as Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
and J S Mill, and then he adds Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
, John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
and E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences , more commonly known as Discourse on the Sciences and Arts , is an essay by Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau which argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality...
, claimed that science leads to immorality. "Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality" and his "critique of science has much to teach us about the dangers involved in our political commitment to scientific progress, and about the ways in which the future happiness of mankind might be secured".
Nevertheless, while potentially confusing, Rousseau does not state in his Discourses that sciences are necessarily bad, as he states how high in regard figures like René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, and Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
should be held. As stated in the very end of the discourse, Rousseau says that there are those (aforementioned) who can cultivate sciences to great benefit, and those that, cultivating science (mostly because of society's bad influence), lead to morality's corruption.
William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
in his paintings and writings, reacted strongly against the work of Isaac Newton and is seen as being perhaps the earliest (and almost certainly the most prominent and enduring) example of what is seen by historians as being the aesthetic or romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
antiscience response. For example, in a notable poem of 1795, Blake shows his revulsion for Newton in the image of the beautiful and natural robin red-breast imprisoned by the materialistic cage of Newtonian mathematics and science. In Blake's painting of Newton, he is depicted "as a misguided hero whose gaze was directed only at sterile geometrical diagrams drawn on the ground". Blake thought, "Newton, Bacon, and Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
with their emphasis on reason were nothing more than 'the three great teachers of atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, or Satan's Doctrine'...the picture progresses from exuberance and colour on the left, to sterility and blackness on the right. In Blake's view Newton brings not light, but night". In a poem, W H Auden summarises Blake's anti-scientific views by saying that he, "Broke off relations in a curse, with the Newtonian Universe".
Recent biographers of Newton consider him more as a renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
alchemist
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, natural philosopher, and magician rather than a true representative of scientific illuminism, as popularized by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
and other illuminist Newtonians
Newtonianism
Newtonianism is a doctrine that involves following the principles and using the methods of natural philosopher Isaac Newton. While Newton's influential contributions were primarily in physics and mathematics, his broad conception of the universe as being governed by rational and understandable laws...
.
Antiscience issues are seen as a fundamental consideration in the transition from 'pre-science' or 'protoscience
Protoscience
In the philosophy of science, a protoscience is an area of scientific endeavor that is in the process of becoming established. Protoscience is distinguished from pseudoscience by its standard practices of good science, such as a willingness to be disproven by new evidence, or to be replaced by a...
' such as that evident in Alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
. Many disciplines which pre-date the widespread adoption and acceptance of the scientific method, such as geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, are not seen as anti-science.
Nonetheless, some of the orthodoxies within those disciplines which pre-date a scientific approach (such as those orthodoxies repudiated by the discoveries of Galileo
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
) are seen as being a product of an anti-science stance.
The term 'scientism
Scientism
Scientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the systematic methods and approach of science, especially the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints...
' derives from science studies
Science studies
Science studies is an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in a broad social, historical, and philosophical context. It is concerned with the history of academic disciplines, the interrelationships between science and society, and the alleged covert purposes...
and is a term spawned and used by sociologists and philosophers of science to describe the views, beliefs and behavior of many strong science devotees. It is sometimes also used in a pejorative sense, for individuals who seem to be 'fetishizing
Fetishism
A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others...
' science, or treating science in a similar way to a religion.
The term reductionism
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
is occasionally used in a similarly pejorative way (as a somewhat more subtle attack on scientists) although scientists can now be found who recognise that there might be conceptual and philosophical shortcomings of reductionism but feel nonetheless comfortable in being labelled as reductionists.
However, non reductionist (see Emergentism
Emergentism
In philosophy, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts with reductionism. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is in some sense more than the "sum" of the properties of the system's parts...
) views of science have been formulated in varied forms in several scientific fields like Statistical Physics
Statistical physics
Statistical physics is the branch of physics that uses methods of probability theory and statistics, and particularly the mathematical tools for dealing with large populations and approximations, in solving physical problems. It can describe a wide variety of fields with an inherently stochastic...
, Chaos Theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, Complexity Theory
Complex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
, Cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, Systems Theory
Systems theory
Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
, Systems Biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...
, Ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
, Information Theory
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
etc. Such fields tend to assume that strong interaction between units produce new phenomena in higher levels that cannot be accounted for solely by reductionism (for example, it is not possible or valuable to describe a chess game or even gene networks by using quantum mechanics). The emergentist view of science ("More is Different", in the words of Nobel physicist Philip W. Anderson) has been inspired in its methodology by the European social sciences (Durkheim, Marx) which tend to reject methodological individualism
Methodological individualism
Methodological individualism is the theory that social phenomena can only be accurately explained by showing how they result from the intentional states that motivate the individual actors. The idea has been used to criticize historicism, structural functionalism, and the roles of social class,...
.
Left-wing antiscience
One way the antiscience view is expressed is in the "denial of universalityUniversality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
and... legitimisation of alternatives", and that the results of scientific findings do not always represent any underlying reality, but can merely reflect the ideology of dominant groups within society.
In this view, science is associated with the political Right and is seen as a belief system that is conservative and conformist, that suppresses innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
, that resists change and that acts dictatorially. This includes the view, for example, that science has a "bourgeois and/or Eurocentric and/or masculinist world-view."
The anti-nuclear movement, often associated with the left, has been criticized for overstating the negative effects of nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
, and understating the environmental costs of non-nuclear sources that can be prevented through nuclear energy.
Right-wing antiscience
The origin of antiscience thinking may be traced back to the reaction of RomanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
to the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. This movement is often referred to as the 'counter-enlightenment
Counter-Enlightenment
"Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment...
'. Romanticism emphasizes that intuition, passion and organic links to Nature are primal values and that rational thinking is secondary to human life. There are many modern examples of conservative antiscience polemics. Primary among the latter are the polemics about embryonic stem cell
Stem cell
This article is about the cell type. For the medical therapy, see Stem Cell TreatmentsStem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, that can divide and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells...
research, evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary theory and modern cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
teaching in high schools, contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
, and environmental issues related to global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
and energy crisis
Energy crisis
An energy crisis is any great bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In popular literature though, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, particularly those that supply national electricity grids or serve as fuel for vehicles...
.
There are many characteristics of antiscience associated with the right, such as the appeal to conspiracy theories to explain why scientists believe what they believe, in an attempt to undermine the confidence or power usually associated to science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
(e.g. in global warming conspiracy theories
Global warming conspiracy theory
Global warming conspiracy theory refers to an allegation that the data with which the theory of anthropogenic global warming is derived has been tampered with, adulterated, achieved through anecdotal means and/or is being misrepresented so as to inaccurately accuse mankind of causing global climate...
). Another feature of "conservative antiscience" discourse is the widespread use of informal fallacies, in particular the false dilemma
False dilemma
A false dilemma is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options...
, appeal to consequences
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam , is an argument that concludes a premise to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences...
, appeal to fear
Appeal to fear
An appeal to fear is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by using deception and propaganda in attempts to increase fear and prejudice toward a competitor. The appeal to fear is common in marketing and politics...
, and the appeal to probability
Appeal to probability
An appeal to probability is a justification based on probability, sometimes regarded as a logical fallacy, when an unwarranted assumption that something will happen, because it can happen, or when the odds of an occurrence are unrealistically played down in lieu of appropriate precaution.Although a...
fallacies.
Religious antiscience
In this context, antiscience may be considered dependent on religious, moral and cultural arguments. For this kind of religious antiscience philosophy, science is an anti-spiritual and materialistic force that undermines traditional values, ethnic identity and accumulated historical wisdom in favor of reasonReason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
and cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
. In particular, the traditional and ethnic values emphasized are similar to those of white supremacist Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
theology, but similar right-wing views have been developed by radically conservative sects of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. New religious movements like New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
thinking also criticize the scientific worldview as favouring a reductionist, atheist, or materialist philosophy.
A frequent basis of antiscientific sentiment is religious theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
with literal interpretations of sacred text. Here, scientific theories that conflict with what is considered divinely-inspired knowledge are regarded as flawed. Over the centuries religious institutions have been hesitant to embrace such ideas as heliocentrism
Heliocentrism
Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a stationary Sun at the center of the universe. The word comes from the Greek . Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center...
and planetary motion
Planetary orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
because they contradicted the dominant understanding of various passages of scripture. More recently the body of creation theologies known collectively as creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
and the more philosophically developed, teleological theory of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
have been promoted by critical or apprehensive, religious theists in response to the theory of evolution by natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
.
Three areas of antiscience
Historically, antiscience first arose as a reaction against scientific materialism. The 18th century EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
had ushered in "the ideal of a unified system of all the sciences", but there were those fearful of this notion, who "felt that constrictions of reason and science, of a single all-embracing system... were in some way constricting, an obstacle to their vision of the world, chains on their imagination or feeling". Antiscience then is a rejection of "the scientific model [or paradigm]... with its strong implication that only that which was quantifiable, or at any rate, measurable... was real". In this sense, it comprises a "critical attack upon the total claim of the new scientific method to dominate the entire field of human knowledge". However, scientific positivism (logical positivism
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
) does not deny the reality of non-measurable phenomena, only that those phenomena should not be adequate to scientific investigation. Morever, positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, as a philosophical basis for the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
, is not consensual or even dominant in the scientific community (see philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
).
Three major areas of antiscience can be seen in philosophy, sociology, and ecology. The following quotes explore this aspect of the subject.
Philosophy
Philosophical objections against science are often objections about the role of reductionism. For example, in the field of psychology, "both reductionists and antireductionists accept that... non-molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones". Further, "epistemological antireductionism holds that, given our finite mental capacities, we would not be able to grasp the ultimate physical explanation of many complex phenomena even if we knew the laws governing their ultimateconstituents". Some see antiscience as "common...in academic settings...many people see that there problems in demarcation between science, scientism, and pseudoscience resulting in an antiscience stance. Some argue that nothing can be known for sure".
Many scholars are "divided as to whether reduction should be a central strategy for understanding the world". However, many agree that "there are, nevertheless, reasons why we want science to discover properties and explanations other than reductive physical ones". Such issues stem "from an antireductionist worry that there is no absolute conception of reality, that is, a characterization of reality such as... science claims to provide". This is close to the Kantian view that reality is ultimately unknowable and all models are just imperfect approximations to it.
Sociology
Sociologist Thomas GierynThomas F. Gieryn
Thomas F. Gieryn is Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. He is also the Vice Provost of Faculty and Academic Affairs. In his research, he focuses on philosophy and sociology of science from a cultural, social, historical, and humanistic perspective...
refers to "some sociologists who might appear to be antiscience". Some "philosophers and antiscience types", he contends, may have presented "unreal images of science that threaten the believability of scientific knowledge", or appear to have gone "too far in their antiscience deconstructions". The question often lies in how far scientists can be said to really conform to the standard stereotype of "communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, and... skepticism". Unfortunately, "scientists don't always conform... scientists do get passionate about pet theories; they do rely on reputation in judging a scientist's work; they do pursue fame and gain via research". Thus, they do show inherent biases in their work. Many "scientists are not as rational and logical as the legend would have them, nor are they as illogical or irrational as some relativists might say".
Ecology and health sphere
Within the ecological and health spheres, LevinsRichard Levins
Richard "Dick" Levins is a mathematical ecologist, and political activist. He is best known for his work on evolution in changing environments....
identifies a conflict "not between science and antiscience, but rather between different pathways for science and technology; between a commodified science-for-profit and a gentle science for humane goals; between the sciences of the smallest parts and the sciences of dynamic wholes... [he] offers proposals for a more holistic, integral approach to understanding and addressing environmental issues". These beliefs are also common within the scientific community, with for example, scientists being prominent in environmental campaigns warning of environmental dangers such as ozone depletion
Ozone depletion
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
and the greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
. It can also be argued that this version of antiscience comes close to that found in the medical sphere where patients and practitioners may choose to reject reductionism and adopt a more holistic approach to health problems. This can be both a practical and a conceptual shift and has attracted strong criticism: "therapeutic touch, a healing technique based upon the laying-on of hands, has found wide acceptance in the nursing profession despite its lack of scientific plausibility. Its acceptance is indicative of a broad antiscientific trend in nursing".
Glazer also criticises the therapists and patients, "for abandoning the biological underpinnings of nursing and for misreading philosophy in the service of an antiscientific world-view". Brian Martin provides a view of the conflict between science and antiscience: "Gross and Levitt's basic approach is to attack constructivist
Constructivist epistemology
Constructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental...
s for not being positivists". Science is "presented as a unitary object, usually identified with scientific knowledge. It is portrayed as neutral and objective. Second, science is claimed to be under attack by 'antiscience' which is composed essentially of ideologues who are threats to the neutrality and objectivity that are fundamental to science. Third, a highly selective attack is made on the arguments of 'antiscience'". Such people allegedly then "routinely equate critique of scientific knowledge with hostility to science, a jump that is logically unsupportable and empirically dubious". Having then "constructed two artificial entities, a unitary 'science' and a unitary 'academic left', each reduced to epistemological essences, Gross and Levitt proceed to attack. They pick out figures in each of several areas -- science studies, postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
, AIDS activism -- and criticise their critiques of science".
The writings of Young serve to illustrate more rhetorical antiscience outpourings: "The strength of the antiscience movement and of alternative technology is that their advocates have managed to retain Utopian vision while still trying to create concrete instances of it". "The real social, ideological and economic forces shaping science...[have] been opposed to the point of suppression in many quarters. Most scientists hate it and label it 'antiscience'. But it is urgently needed, because it makes science self-conscious and hopefully self-critical and accountable with respect to the forces which shape research priorities, criteria, goals".
Genetically modified foods are another aspect of our health that which brings about antiscience sentiment. The general public has become more sensitive as of late of the dangers that a poor diet can have on one's health, as there have been numerous studies that show that the two are inextricably linked together". Anti-science dictates that science is untrustworthy, in that it is never complete and always in need of revision, which would be a probable cause for the fear that the general public has of genetically modified foods despite scientific reassurance.
Opposition to reductionism and positivism
On the limitations of models
A common antiscientific point of contention arises from the fact that mathematical models do not capture the full reality of existence, as can see in this quote:The formulas of mathematical models are "artificial constructions, logical figments with no necessary relation to the outside world". These models always "leave out the richest and most important part of human experience...daily life, history, human laws and institutions, the modes of human self- expression". A failure to appreciate the subtle complexity of social worlds, means they get excluded from the formulas, even though, "no easy reductionism will do justice to the material". This approach often fails to concentrate "on social structures, processes, and actions in a specific sense (inequality, mobility, classes, strata, ethnicity, gender relations, urbanization, work and life of different types of people, not just elites)", and so tends to generate mostly meaningless oversimplifications.
It is also a common antiscientific point to state that verbal (say, literary and non-mathematical) models are poor representations of reality. If it is clear that a particular statistical or psychological study about romantic love
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
or religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...
(see neurotheology
Neurotheology
Neurotheology, also known as spiritual neuroscience, is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena....
), captures only a tiny fraction of such human experiences, literary accounts and simplified verbal models also cannot adequately convey their full complexity. Both verbal and mathematical models are (partial) maps of reality, providing different points of view, but inherently incomplete descriptions of the territory of human and universe existence (see map territory relation).
See also
- HolismHolismHolism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...
- Scientific mythology
- ScientismScientismScientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the systematic methods and approach of science, especially the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints...
- Philosophy of SciencePhilosophy of scienceThe philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
- Politicization of sciencePoliticization of scienceThe politicization of science is the manipulation of science for political gain. It occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. The politicization of...
- PostmodernismPostmodernismPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
- ScienceScienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
- PseudosciencePseudosciencePseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
- Sokal AffairSokal AffairThe Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies...
- William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
- William MorrisWilliam MorrisWilliam Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
- William R. SteigerWilliam R. SteigerWilliam Raymond Steiger was Special Assistant to the Secretary for International Affairs and the Director of the Office of Global Health Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush Administration, with a portfolio that included HIV/AIDS, malaria, avian...
- Bruno LatourBruno LatourBruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies...
- Climate change denialClimate change denialClimate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...
- Constructivist epistemologyConstructivist epistemologyConstructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental...
- Counter-enlightenmentCounter-Enlightenment"Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment...
- Ernst CassirerErnst CassirerErnst Cassirer was a German philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the 20th century...
- Faith and rationalityFaith and rationalityFaith and rationality are two modes of belief that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Rationality is belief based on reason or evidence. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or authority...
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
- Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
- Johann Georg HamannJohann Georg HamannJohann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
- Johann Gottfried HerderJohann Gottfried HerderJohann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
External links
- "What's wrong with relativism?", Physics WorldPhysics WorldPhysics World is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, both pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in research, industry and education worldwide...
, by Harry Collins - The Postmodern Critique of Science
- A Critique of Western Science by Alex Paterson
- The Critique of Science Becomes Academic by Brian Martin
- If They Believe That - Science by Reginald Firehammer
- The Ontological Reversal: A Figure of Thought of Importance for Science Education by Bo Dahlin
- Davidson, Donald, Essays on Actions and Events, OUP, 2001, ISBN 0-19-924627-0
- Alex Rosenberg and D. M. Kaplan, How to Reconcile Physicalism and Antireductionism about Biology, Philosophy of Science, Volume 72.1, January 2005, pp.43-68
- Psychoneural Reduction The New Wave, John Bickle, Bradford Books, March 1998, ISBN 0-262-02432-2 Abstract