Science and Relativism

I have been procrastinating on posting this.  I want to say more about truth and how it is actually used.  So I’ll start with a review of the book “Science and Relativism” by Larry Laudan.

I’ll note that the book was published in 1990.  I purchased it, maybe 15 or more years ago.  I recently returned to it for a second reading.

The author, Larry Laudan, is a philosopher of science.  I assume that he is semi-retired by now, but that’s just a guess.

In this post, I shall mainly refrain from expressing my view of the issues.  I plan a followup post where I present that.

What is relativism?

Broadly, relativism if the position that something is relative to something else.  And cultural relativism is that something is relative to culture and cultural traditions.  Most commonly, we hear of moral relativism.  However, when discussing science the issue typically has to do with scientific conclusions and scientific truth.

I’ll quote Laudan from his preface:

But it can be defined, to a first order of approximation, as the thesis that the natural world and such evidence as we have about that world do little or nothing to constrain our beliefs.  In a phrase, the relativists’ slogan is “The way we take things to be is quite independent of the way things are.”

Laudan is skeptical of relativism.  However he also admits that he finds it difficult to understand.  He mentions the philosophers Kuhn, Quine and Feyerabend as people whom relativists see as providing a basis for their view of knowledge and of science.

The format

The main part of the book is presented as a discussion between four philosophers of science.  They are, of course, discussing the status of relativism.

The four participants are:

• Rudy, a positivist;
• Karl, a realist;
• Percy, a pragmatist;
• Quincy, a relativist.

These participants fail to reach a conclusion, and this already highlights their many disagreements.

In writing the book, Laudan was not looking for a definitive conclusion on relativism.  Rather, he wanted to bring out what were the issue.

The issues

The six chapters of the book present discussion sessions on various issues related to relativism.  I will list the topic, perhaps in an abbreviated form, and briefly comment on the discussion for each.

1: Progress

What is scientific progress?  Is science cumulative?

The general view of science is that it grows; that it improves over time.  That is to say, science makes progress.  Kuhn, however, argued that as science solves new problems it sometimes loses the ability to solve other problems.

As the discussion proceeds, it is clear that the relativist does not see science as progressing.  The other participants do see progress, but they are unable to settle on criteria by which we would judge whether there is such progress.

2: Theory ladenness

It has been observed that scientific data is theory-laden.  That is to say, the data is not separable from the theory.

All participants agree that data is theory laden.  The relativist finds this particularly concerning.  As the relativist sees it, the theory affects what will be considered data.  And the data is used as evidence for the theory.  And that makes it look circular.

The other participants suggest that this is not a vicious circle.  The see the theory ladenness as reasonable, because otherwise science would not be able to go beyond ordinary data as described by our senses.

This session also gets into the question of pessimistic induction.  It is said that all scientific theories that have been sufficiently tested have been found false.  So therefore, by induction, all theories will turn out to be false.  Most of the participants are not persuaded by this argument.

3: Holism

The idea here, is that a scientific theory is a complex whole.  You cannot refute a single statement within the theory, because of the way that the statements are connected.  Likewise, you cannot confirm individual statements within the theory.

The relativist sees this as a particular problem.  If we cannot falsify or confirm individual statements, how can we he sure that this is good science?

4: The scientific method

Is there a scientific method?  Are there methodological rules which characterize science?

The relativist asks: “what is the rationale for the rules of the scientific method?  and what are those rules.”

There isn’t a good answer provided.  This is why Feyerabend has suggested that maybe voodoo or creationism could work just as well.  The relativist in these discussion brings up that same kind of problem.

5: Incommensurability

This issue comes from Kuhn, who suggested some incommensurability between different paradigms.  As expressed in the discussion:

two bodies of discourse — whether theories, worldviews, paradigms or what have you — are incommensurable if the assertions made in one body of discourse are unintelligible to those utilizing the other.

However Kuhn partially backed away the stronger form of that claim — that all assertions are unintelligible, and instead went with the weaker version of partial inintelligibility.

6: Social determination of belief

This is the question of whether scientific knowledge is seriously influenced by the biases of those who do science.

In one sense, this is obvious.  Scientists do form a social group, and that group is engaged is setting directions for science.  It is to be expected that the interests of that group will have some influence.  The question is whether they have an improper influence that could undermine the value of science.

As with the other issues, the discussion ends in a lack of agreement.

Summary

Overall, the book gives a pretty good picture of the concerns of the critics of science.  I did find it useful.