Maxwell on Values in Science: Guardian

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  • Nicholas Maxwell
  • The Guardian, Friday 12 March 2010
  • Article history

George Monbiot is surely right to bemoan the profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs that exists between science and the public (With complex science, we must take much on trust. The trouble is we can't, 9 March).

Many members of the public instinctively and irrationally distrust, even fear, science. Thus, for climate sceptics, "No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us". And scientists don't help by producing specialised "gobbledegook" so incomprehensible that even scientists "studying neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer understand each other".

The situation might be helped if scientists stopped deceiving us, and themselves, about the nature of science itself, and adopted a more truthful view. At present most of them take for granted the view that the intellectual aim of science is to acquire knowledge of truth, the basic method being to assess, impartially, claims to knowledge with respect to evidence – nothing being accepted permanently as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. But this is nonsense. Physics only ever accepts theories that are unified – that attribute the same laws to all the phenomena to which the theory in question applies – even though many empirically more successful disunified rivals can always be concocted.

This means that physics persistently accepts a substantial thesis about the universe independent of evidence: there is some kind of underlying unity in nature, to the extent at least that all seriously disunified theories are false. This substantial, influential and highly problematic assumption needs to be acknowledged within science, so that it can be criticised and, we may hope, improved. The aim of science is not truth per se, but rather truth presupposed to be unified, or explanatory.

And it goes further. The aim of seeking explanatory truth is a special case of the more general aim of seeking truth that is, in some way or other, important or of value. Values, of one kind or another, are inherent in the aims of science. But values are, if anything, even more problematic than untestable assumptions concerning an underlying unity in nature. Values implicit in the aims of science need to be acknowledged, so that they can be criticised and, we may hope, improved.

Finally, knowledge of valuable truth is sought so that it may be used by people, ideally to enhance the quality of human life. There is a humanitarian or political dimension. But this, again, needs to be critically assessed and, we may hope, improved.

In short, in holding that the intellectual aim of science is truth alone, scientists seriously misrepresent its real, problematic aims, and thus prevent urgently needed critical assessment by scientists and non-scientists alike. More honesty about the nature of science might improve science, and public attitudes towards it – and might even encourage scientists to produce less gobbledegook.

NickMaxwell

21 Mar 2010, 6:15PM

Yet again, I am criticized on the basis of elementary misrepresentations of what it is I am saying, Philip Strange asserts that my

main criticism is against the use of evidence to support scientific knowledge

. Nonsense. I say nothing of the kind. Strange goes on to say I cite

physics, where

I say

unified theories are accepted independent of evidence

. Again, nonsense. I say nothing of the kind. My argument is that unified fundamental physical theories are accepted (of course on the basis of empirical support) even though empirically more successful disunified rivals can be concocted. Two considerations, in other words, govern acceptance of fundamental theories in physics: empirical considerations, and considerations that have to do with unifying (or explanatory) power. To say that is very different from the idiotic assertion Strange attributes to me, that physical theories are accepted

independent of evidence

. Strange, like Professor Jon Butterworth before him, seems to be incapable of attending to what I do say, in my article, and in my numerous publications, one or two of which he could have consulted before sounding off in such an idiotic fashion.

I am pleased to see Strange agrees with me that values play an important role in science. There is no disagreement between us here.

Many scientists accept the view that the basic intellectual aim of science is truth, the basic method being to assess claims to knowledge solely with respect to empirical success and failure, nothing being accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. This standare empiricst view I have shown to be untenable, very briefly in my Guardian article, and at much greater length in a number of publications. See in particular my:

(1) Do We Need a Scientific Revolution?, Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry, vol. 8, no. 3, September 2008: http://www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk/Essays.htm#the
(2) From Knowledge to Wisdom: The Need for an Academic Revolution
in R. Barnett and N. Maxwell, eds., Wisdom in the University, Routledge 2008. See also London Review of Education, 5, 2007, pp. 97-115: http://www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk/Essays.htm#abstract
(3) The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science(Oxford University Press, 1998).
(4) Is Science Neurotic?, Imperial College Press, 2004.
(5) From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution for Science and the Humanities (Blackwell, 1984; 2nd extended edition, Pentire Press, 2007).

When my book From Knowledge to Wisdom was published in 1984, Professor Longuet-Higgins gave it a glowing review in Nature. He said:

Maxwell is advocating nothing less than a revolution (based on reason, not on religious or Marxist doctrine) in our intellectual goals and methods of inquiry ... There are altogether too many symptoms of malaise in our science-based society for Nicholas Maxwell's diagnosis to be ignored.

Professor Christopher Longuet-Higgins, Nature

Unfortunately, my diagnosis has been ignored, and now two scientists attribute to me idiotic views that have nothing to do with what I have to say whatsoever. I despair.

I would like to suggest that, before more such comments are added to Commentisfree on this topic, people have a look at least at one of my publications indicated above

Positivism and the "Enlightenment"

Positivism was introduced by Auguste Comte at the beginning of the 19th Century. His intention was to address what he saw as the intolerance, prejudice,  of the dominant worldview of that time.


This period is labelled the "enlightenment"






Key Ideas of the Enlightenment

  

Individualism - The individual is the starting point for all knowledge and action, and individual reason cannot be subjected to a higher authority (such as God or the Church).

Rationalism - Reason, or the process of rational thought, independent of experience, is innate within the human mind and is the only basis for organizing knowledge.

Empiricism - The only valid way to gain knowledge about the world is through observation or sensory experience.

Scientific Method - Science allows us to order observable facts and to discover the laws that govern them.

Progress - Knowledge gained by scientific methods can be used to explain or predict events, resulting in the improvement of the human condition.

Universalism - Scientific methods for acquiring objective knowledge are universal so they can be applied to all spheres of endeavour.

  The Main Characteristics of Positivism

1) Positivism is based on phenomenalism, which assumes that every phenomenon in the world has an independent existence, or "essence", which remains constant and can be observed.
(Assigns an object/machine like fixed identity to everything - people too, denies a level of Union and Freedom of Identification)

2) Positivism assumes that every phenomenon is governed by laws that a detached investigator using appropriate methods may discover.
(Assumes an observer can be detached (see observable quantum effects))

3) The knowledge discovered using these methods is believed to be objective and factual.
(Inducing from certain measurable examples a good idea?)

4) Positivism claims that once knowledge is gained it can be used to explain events, make predictions about future events, and control phenomena in ways that will be advantageous to the controllers.
(Who are the controllers?)

5) Positivist research is organized around the principles of verifiability or falsifiability (Popper).

6) Positivism makes a very rigid distinction between fact and value and portrays itself as neutral, objective or value-free.

(There is always a value jusgement when choosing hypothesis and criteria to judge hypothesis) (see Maxwell)

(Strange then that it is called "Positivism" which seems to assume an absolute "value")

7) The positivist or scientific method aims to build theories by incorporating different levels of classification.

8) Positivists believe in the essential unity of the scientific method, that the methods for acquiring knowledge are the same in all spheres of experience.

(Adapted from   (MRes :Lecture Notes) Kathleen Watt )

Also

9) Positivism assumes that value is inherent in the object