A critical timeline synthesis: roots of the scientific method
People and world events that shaped the scientific method
A little essay on the scientific method
I am aware that critiquing the core tenant of science might trigger something deep inside you. I am not saying that the scientific method is wrong or not truthful.
I want to raise your attention to the times and core ideas from which the scientific method arose. Look at how science was defined during its times of “inception” (just to be clear, science existed long before the Western scientific method, but this time frame is what the West considers the birth of science).
Can you see how some of those ideas that shaped scientific principles actually create separation and alienation? Reduction of human beings into quantifiable numbers. Is the only acceptable truth really the truth that can be expressed mathematically and in numbers?
Let’s not overlook that the scientific method does not account for values. It cares more about being mathematical than having any amount of contemplation of values or social power structures.
The scientific method cares more about investigating those truths that are re-producible than facilitating innovation for those who are oppressed. Think about this for a second. At what cost are we trying to create perfect “knowledge” if we don’t contemplate who we listen to and why we study things? Of course, we still care about the why and who, but it is interestingly not part of the scientific process to write out these intentions. (e.g. scientific papers are still not structured that way).
Any stance someone takes to fight climate change is based on what we as humans value and hold sacred: the right to live and thrive. Science has brought about amazing innovation. Yet, we see massive social and ecological destruction - arisen from within the scientific methodology. And funnily, science does not even try to care about the right to live and thrive.
More methodologies for investigating and acting in our world are necessary! The danger is to consider the scientific method as the holy grail of truth. And it is even more dangerous to rely on it for developing practices to bring about change toward a healthier world! It can help us understand certain parts of the world, but it is only one small reductionist way of looking and acting (see this visualized in my 🔮 holism framework).
Scientific methodologies that diverge from the scientific method are described in my marble on 🔮 philosophy of science.
Science, violence, and militarism
I can recommend this article by Indian sociologist Alvares contemplating why the Western scientific method is deeply violent in nature and is intertwined with colonialism & capitalism.
Values embedded in the scientific method
While Francis Bacon and others claimed that science is value free, this position holds up values of reductionism in itself. To disregard values or the talk about values, is a political stance. Regarding this, two works are important.
- Habermas said that any science pursuit contains “knowledge constitutive interests.” I explain this concept in 🔮 MMSPhilOfSciA.
- Values (if extractive or healing) reproduce themselves in the social structures we create. There are inherent values of reductionism and quantification embedded in the scientific method, and these values will stay alive in systems arisen from such scientific work. The concept of 🔮 ONTOLOGICAL-PRIMITIVES describes the idea that values (+ purpose & sense of the sacred) are the smallest building blocks of our social systems. I tried to visualize how such ontological primitives reproduce themselves in an illustration linked above.
MMSHistOfSci-A