Jim
Time to get more serious...

Realism and anti-realism:
At it's core science wants to be a realism - Scientific Realism is the position
that
scientific theory construction aims to supply us with a literally true story of
what the
world is like and that acceptance of a scientific theory involves a belief that
it is true.
This fits the crisis theory of science that Kuhn (and Lyotard as an ex-marxist
realist)
desire to be true. Anti-realism (conventionalism) is the alternative position
that the aim
of science can well be served without giving such a literally true story and the
acceptance
of a theory may propoerly involve something less (or other) than the belief it
is true.

Theories about the structure of the human genetic code are either true or false
and a
correct theory will be a true one. However since science cannot be said to get
things
"right" the best that a Scientific Realist can say is that we often get close to
the truth.
The intention is that we are aiming to discover the costruction of things and
knowing what
makes up the universe. (Science in these terms has no need to be modest it has
been quite
extraordinally successful).

What does a scientist do under these different perspectives? A realist argues
that when
someone proposes a theory he is asserting it to be true. But the anti-realist
the theorist
is not asserting it is true ; he proposes a theory and then claims it has this
or that
virtue. These virtues may simply be empirical adequacy, comprehensivness,
acceptability,
productiveness and so on. An anti-realist position is a conventionalist one, it
does not
necessarily deny that a 'real world' exists. Science aims to give us theories
which are
empirically adequately and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that
which is
empiricially adequate. In this framework it is possible to engage in a discourse
even when
you do not accept that a theory is correct.

To clarify - all language is infected by theories. If we could remove from our
languages
theory laden terms such as 'digital computer', 'video recorder', 'picasso',
'god' and
continuing with 'mass', 'elements' etc and so on back into the pre-history of
the
indo-european languages we would end up with nothing usefule to say at all. The
way we talk
(scientists included) and exist is guided by previously accepted theories. This
is true of
scientific experimental reports. The reconstruction of language as positivists
envisiged
(and Deleuze and Guattari implied) is simply not on. But we must not then become

scientific realists, ambiguity and adequacy require more of us than that. I
define science
in terms of the aims of sciences and epistemological attitudes. The issue is
what aim the
activity has, what should we believe when we accept a theory. What is proper is
it: belief
that a theory is true? or something else? I believe that it is crucial to accept
what is
observable as relevant (hence empirical adequacy).  It can be said that for an
anti-realist
what it decides to believe about the world will depend on the epistomological
communities
range of evidence. At present most people consider the community as being the
human race -
but this may mutate by adding other animals through ideological and ethical
changes which
will add the animals to the communitiy.

science in society: (Latour)
Science and technologists working can be studied as a social activity - my
personal
favorite amoungst this growing field is Bruno Latour - he occupies a relativist
and
critical approach which is not to be understood as imposed by Latour on the
scientists
being studied; rather he proposes that it is what the scientists do. This is of
course
unproven. In his text 'Science in Action'  he discusses at great length how
social context
and technical content are essential to scientific understanding and in doing so
effectivly
places science within the context of a wholely human activity. What he fails to
do is to
adequately deal with relativism and its relationship to reality, this may be
unimportant to
Latour since he is dealing with essentially narrative knowledge - from which
perspective
the truth and accuracy of the scientific theory is unimportant. Science studies
is
explicity historical and as interested in failed theories as succesful ones.
Latour is very
much a non-post-modernist. He argues somewhere or other that both mdernists and
post-modernists have effectivley left 'belief' untouched. He suggest that both M
and PM
naively believe in belief. Varieties of belief beckon for M and PM  - a
selective refusal
to believe in the content of belief from fetishisms and God to science. Here the
thing to
avoided at all costs is being naivly taken in. Salvation comes from revealing
the labour
hidden behind the illusion of autonomy and independence... To do away with
belief is of
course to adopt to an anti-realist position and look for other methods of action
and
mastery. Alternatively you can end up with the
belief-as-shared-community-of-knowledge
which is equally horrendus...

enough for now

regards

SDV

jim clark wrote:

> What sdv's reply demonstrates to me is the kind of unreflective
> commentary that characterizes so much of the criticism of
> science.  The underlying assumptions of the "devastating" reply
> were:  (1) I don't know Kuhn, (2) Kuhn actually said (or meant)
> what many have attributed to him, (3) Kuhn is the be-all and the
> end-all of philosophical/historical positions on science, (4)
> Kuhn's analysis of historical events was in fact an accurate
> characterization of science, (5) philosophy and history are the
> proper disciplines to resolve these difficult questions,
> (6) one can develop accurate models of science without
> rigorous application of scientific methods to the problems, and
> so on.
>
> Scientists interested in these issues should not assume that they
> have been well-addressed to date, at least not if one adheres to
> the rational and empirical criteria emphasized in scientific
> modes of thought.  Of course, if one is willing to ignore reason
> and evidence, then my criticisms are probably irrelevant.
>
> Best wishes
> Jim
>
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> James M. Clark                          (204) 786-9757
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