Place of Science in a World of Values and Facts
Place of Science in a World of Values and Facts

Author: Loucas G. Christophorou

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2005-12-27

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0306476231

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This is an engrossing book. It is also an unusual book: it is written by a scientist who is quite willing to talk about the softer side of life, about things such as love and respect and responsibility, and to try and position them in the context of his science. He is also willing to talk about religion, the manner in which it relates to science and science to it, and to attempt reconciliation of both. He sets himself a tough task, to tread the narrow path between the maudlin and the severely sober. In this, he is eminently successful. He is successful not because he aims at any grand synthesis, but because he has chosen the more modest path of simply laying out the cards on the table. This work is also unusual for another reason. The majority of books that attempt to explain science to a lay public, that try to describe its workings, its raison d'être, its hidden contents, its societal impact, its implications for our future, etc. , are written by theorists. This is hardly surprising. The theoretician, after all, is expected to think deeply, to be the great unifier, to be concernedwith meaning. Very few books about science are written by scientists, ones who spend their time in a working experimental laboratory. This is such a book. And because it is, it is also a very different book.

Science Values and Objectivity
Science Values and Objectivity

Author: Peter Machamer

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2004-11-28

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0822970864

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Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science?As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume Theory and Method in the Neurosciences surveys the nature and structure of theories in contemporary neuroscience, exploring many of its methodological techniques and problems. The essays in this volume from the Pittsburgh -Konstanz series explore basic questions about how to relate theories of neuroscience and cognition, the multilevel character of such theories, and their experimental bases. Philosophers and scientists (and some who are both) examine the topics of explanation and mechanisms, simulation and computation, imaging and animal models that raise questions about the forefront of research in cognitive neuroscience. Their work will stimulate new thinking in anyone interested in the mind or brain and in recent theories of their connections.identify the crucial values that play a role in science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to the very activity of scientific research.Recently, social constructivists have taken the presence of values within the scientific model to question the basis of objectivity. However, the contributors to Science, Values, and Objectivity recognize that such acknowledgment of the role of values does not negate the fact that objects exist in the world. Objects have the power to constrain our actions and thoughts, though the norms for these thoughts lie in the public, social world.Values may be decried or defended, praised or blamed, but in a world that strives for a modicum of reason, values, too, must be reasoned. Critical assessment of the values that play a role in scientific research is as much a part of doing good science as interpreting data.

Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal

Author: Heather E. Douglas

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2009-07-15

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 082297357X

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The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be "value-free." In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence.Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.

A Tapestry of Values
A Tapestry of Values

Author: Kevin C. Elliott

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-01-02

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0190260823

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The role of values in scientific research has become an important topic of discussion in both scholarly and popular debates. Pundits across the political spectrum worry that research on topics like climate change, evolutionary theory, vaccine safety, and genetically modified foods has become overly politicized. At the same time, it is clear that values play an important role in science by limiting unethical forms of research and by deciding what areas of research have the greatest relevance for society. Deciding how to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate influences of values in scientific research is a matter of vital importance. Recently, philosophers of science have written a great deal on this topic, but most of their work has been directed toward a scholarly audience. This book makes the contemporary philosophical literature on science and values accessible to a wide readership. It examines case studies from a variety of research areas, including climate science, anthropology, chemical risk assessment, ecology, neurobiology, biomedical research, and agriculture. These cases show that values have necessary roles to play in identifying research topics, choosing research questions, determining the aims of inquiry, responding to uncertainty, and deciding how to communicate information. Kevin Elliott focuses not just on describing roles for values but also on determining when their influences are actually appropriate. He emphasizes several conditions for incorporating values in a legitimate fashion, and highlights multiple strategies for fostering engagement between stakeholders so that value influences can be subjected to careful and critical scrutiny.

Emerging Dynamics: Science, Energy, Society and Values
Emerging Dynamics: Science, Energy, Society and Values

Author: Loucas G. Christophorou

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-08

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 3319907131

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Emerging Dynamics: Science, Energy, Society and Values focuses on the impact of science, science-based technology and scientific values on present-day humanity and its future. The book advocates for a science willing to accommodate both human values and scientific facts. The four main subjects focused on throughout the text are: The overwhelming impact of modern science and science-based technology on virtually every aspect of human life Human values and their significance for science and society The need for mutual accommodation between scientific values and the traditional values of society The fundamental role of energy for civilization and society. The book cuts across scientific disciplines and looks at modern civilization through the knowledge provided by the physical, chemical, biomedical and other branches of natural science. The book is unique in its holistic approach, combining knowledge acquired by deduction, reduction-induction, and experimental scientific methods with knowledge acquired through history, philosophy, the arts, faith and cultural traditions. Modern civilization’s most distinct characteristics are due to science, science-based technology and energy. The role of energy in the sustainability of civilization and the impact of biomedical science on man are especially emphasized throughout this timely book, making a case for a hopeful future based on both science and values. A science guided in its applications by human values and a value system cognizant of the facts of science and willing to accommodate them

The Moral Landscape
The Moral Landscape

Author: Sam Harris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-09-13

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 143917122X

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Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Facts, Values and the Policy World
Facts, Values and the Policy World

Author: Phil Ryan

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2023-09

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1447364554

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This book tackles the prevailing contradiction within policy analysis, that rigorous thought should be uncontaminated by values, despite policy analysis being inherently values based. In resolving the issue, this book provides a new, solid foundation for policy analysis.

Science and Moral Imagination
Science and Moral Imagination

Author: Matthew J. Brown

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2020-11-17

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 0822987678

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The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed “the ideal of moral imagination,” emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science.

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays
The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays

Author: Hilary Putnam

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2004-03-30

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0674013808

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If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective." Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a "matter of fact" as well as to Kant's distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.