Science and the Quest for Meaning

If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses, it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations. ―Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World Growing up in the Sputnik era during the 1950s, I enjoyed what appears now to have been a unique education. Science assumed an importance hitherto unimagined prior to the Soviet challenge, and to prepare the country for possible assault, beside air raid simulations, I studied "new math" and was enrolled in advanced science courses. Drilled in facts, disciplined in scientific method, and buoyed by the wonder of nature, I saw a future bright with the scientific enterprise. Perhaps I too would become an investigator. In that spirit, an even more important foundation was being set for myself, namely a sense that science offered something close to true knowledge as the technical mastery of nature proceeded with breath-taking achievements. Weren't we about to embark for the moon? Such mammoth enterprises were undertaken under the banner of truth, and truth was attained through objective methods. It seemed that science defined its own domain, and not only remained insulated from common human foibles, but followed methods that revealed Truth. This "Legend" (Kitcher 1993), simple and distorted as it might be, nevertheless was cherished by its believers. Indeed, every Saturday morning Mr. Wizard appeared on television to elucidate nature's mysteries, and thereby confirm the precepts taught to me. The shades of grey were apparent on the screen; the colors were not. That was the world in which I awakened, one seemingly simpler than today. Of course, doctrine is fated for refutation, which already had commenced even as I was learning the solar system model of the atom. The philosophy of science that framed my generation's education still promoted a stark nineteenth-century positivism. The term positivism refers to a philosophy of "positive" (objective) knowledge, which means, simply, that valid knowledge is scientific; facts are the currency of knowledge; accordingly, forms of knowledge that do not subscribe to the scientific method cannot be validated. Positivism thus rested, ultimately, on the separation of "facts" from "values." Values were usually considered a catchall for subjectivity, but of course, epistemic values―those values that made facts, facts (e.g., objectivity, neutrality, coherence, parsimony, predictability)―were integral to the scientific enterprise. And beyond recognizing the diverse values that must be employed to create objective facts, the overlap of so-called "subjective" values in constructing scientific knowledge has increasingly become apparent. Indeed, much of the scholarship over the past fifty years characterizing scientific practice and theory formation has shown that the relationships between facts and values, even within the narrow confines of laboratory investigations, cannot be neatly divided between "objective" and "subjective" domains. And when the doors of the laboratory are flung open and the applications of research are considered, the complex relationship of facts and values becomes even more convoluted. Factoring out the ever-present commercial aspects of investigations, as well as the various agendas of government-supported research for military or economic gain, the objective/subjective schema simply defies the social and conceptual realities of scientific inquiry. The irony of science portraying itself as a fantasy―a restful space for logic and rational deliberation as sole determinants of research, one that would achieve some utopian respite from the tribulations of human-derived confusion―is a story which has been told from many points of view. Here I will narrate how the conceptual scaffolding supporting the castle in the sky fell and then offer a summary of the post-Sputnik description that replaced it. Coupled to that dismantling of the Legend, we will survey the cultural war that commenced with the reports of revisionist historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science. Citizen activists joined them under the belief that characterizing (and controlling) science was too important to leave to the self-appraisals (and choices) of scientists alone. This book is about that seismic intellectual and political shift, and perhaps, in a sense, it is a revised narrative about my own youthful naiveté. Philosophically, the positivist program began to crumble during the early 1950s (Friedman 1999), and with the loss of its intellectual dominance, a critical chorus challenged the authority of a doctrinaire scientific method and its hegemonic form of knowledge. From that dissenting position, science appeared to have spun into its own orbit. Instead of celebrating the polyphonic contributions of all sectors of scholarship, competing science/anti-science camps assembled along academic lines, in which the scientific illiteracy of the literati and the deafness of...