Future


Write an essay of 3-4 double spaced pages on the following topic.  You must cite your sources and quote and paraphrase correctly but you can use informal references. Make sure to organize your argument into paragraphs with topic sentences and use specific evidence.

Takehome final exam question: How and why have changes in society since the early modern era changed the questions scientists ask?  Use an example from each book to support your argument. Note that this question is about the impact of society on science, not the other way around. You probably want to pick examples of scientific questions that are more shaped by society, not the ones that are very narrow.

examples of the questions scientists ask:

• once you begin to understand genetics, can it be applied to improve the human race?
• think of other examples for discussion on Friday
  

Today's reading: article on The Future of Science is Art
The old view was that scientific knowledge is a linear ascent, that is, progress is steady and always forward.  As we collect more data science will give us more answers. Some people believed that science was the sole source of Truth

But it is more complicated than that; the scientific method you were taught in middle school is oversimplified. Science is messy and human and there are other kinds of knowledge

• The arts are a different kind of knowledge, they feel true
• Religion is another kind of knowledge, based on tradition and transcendent experiences

ways in which science is different from other kinds of knowledge:

• science is better way to progressive cumulative knowledge that enables us to affect our environment
  
• collects more and more information, but that isn't enough by itself
• stages of science; collect information--classify information--explain why things are that way, in those categories--describe the patterns with mathematical laws--be able to predict--be able to control
• but some people question whether we want to eventually be able to control everything, turn the world into a garden shaped to be comfortable for us
• back to how science works:
  
• if your hypothesis or theory or scientific law or paradigm (set of assumptions) is wrong you won't get very far
• a change in paradigm is a scientific revolution--can shake up a lot of established knowledge
  
• scientific knowledge is testable knowledge, that is what enables it to be progressive
• testable: you can do an experiment that shows what you thought was wrong, it is falsifiable
• the way science is tested and self-corrects is a social mechanism, how scientists compete and question each other and demand evidence
  
• science isn't perfect, it is a human activity, but it is powerful, allows us to have impact on the world
• our culture tends to believe science works--and that has given it political clout and access to resources
• or increasingly, some people feel threatened by its authority and reject it
  
• objectivity is a very important goal, even if not completely achieved

Reductionism:

• the idea that biology can ultimately be entirely explained by chemistry and chemistry can ultimately be entirely explained by physics. Everything we see can ultimately be explained by other more fundamental phenomena.  Life is nothing but the workings of chemistry, can be explained mechanically.
  
• But this isn't working for neuroscience, understanding the mechanics of the brain isn't getting us closer to understanding consciousness.
• Emerson Pugh: "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."
  

 Different understandings that there is more than reductionist science can explain:

• this author says that our minds are more than the sum of their parts in a way that the arts capture
• reductionist science can't capture emotions and emotional resonance
  
• other people might say that the more is the soul or a life force
• what is consciousness
  

William James was a pioneer of psychology but also studied The Varieties of Religious Experience: he wanted to study both the mechanics of the brain and the mind from within

Science is based on experimental data and testability, and that is what makes it self-correcting....eventually
but where does creativity come from? seeing a painting could give a scientist a new idea to try out
it does discover things more surprising than we ever imagined, things that we can understand only by analogy

there are fields that blend the two, such as architecture.  Example of science studying the arts

Two key points to the article:

• scientists use metaphor a lot and might benefit from better metaphors
• science needs to move beyond reductionism
• scientific truth is not the only truth