Science, Truth, and Democracy (Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Philip Kitcher again shines as a well informed philosopher of science. This book can be regarded as a sequel to his magnum opus _The Advancement of Science_. It deals with the relativists and antirealists quite well, though does presuppose some familiarity with these debates.

However, I find that Kitcher's new position on the nature of science and its relations to society at large suffers from an apparently glaring oversight. He tells us that those who have a stake in the outcome of scientific research should have a say in how it should proceed, be funded, etc.

Since we have long known (and Kitcher himself is aware of the fact) that the outcome of basic scientific research is unknown, i.e. we do not know what position (if any) it will affect, we cannot realistically adopt Kitcher's suggestion. His proposal is emmently sensible in technology, where the goal is not to know but to change or prevent change. But the history of science shows that the proposal of making basic science sensitive to people's interests _that_ way will not work. Further, it is vague, even if it could be done: how do we determine the effect? Christian conservatives like Philip Johnson would curtail or slow research into evolution because he feels it is socially undermining; biologists and
other scientists (rightly) regard this as distressing. Science *should* puncture illusions, as Kitcher points out happens. On the other hand, if the "say" is simply to be a sort of "gripe session" where people can say their piece to scientists, this is a recipe for squabble, or worse, just ignoring people, which is the (perceived) problem in the management of science now.
(I think actually that the insistence from some that science is alienating because it is undemocratic is wrong, but that's another story.)

One should not read this book, however, without a grasp of some of the issues this review sort of brings up. As another reviewer said it is sort of for the academic. I wish that weren't so: but sometimes we academics have to debate amongst ourselves a bit first, before popularizations come out. Of course this is just some of the same concerns again ... and around we go.

This concise and clear book is an extended essay examining the role of science in democratic societies. Kitcher is a well known philosopher of science and this book is an attempt to move philosophical investigations of science as a general phenomenon beyond the relatively narrow epistemic concerns of most philosophy of science. Despite the relative brevity of this book, Kitcher has a relatively ambitious agenda. He wishes to examine the epistemic credentials of science of an enterprise, to explore the consequences of the epistemic reliability of science in terms of its social functions, and to sketch out the proper way democracies should deal with science. Kitcher is particularly concerned with steering a valid course between 2 opposing, almost caricature positions; the view that science has virtually unique moral value and is largely insulated from social influences and the view that science has weak epistemic foundations with the research agenda and results driven by pragmatic and authoritarian concerns.

Kitcher espouses what he terms modest realism; a definite endorsement of the epistemic validity of science with a strong fallibalist orientation. The section of the book in which he deals with attacks on the epistemic validity of science is one of the strongest portions and his fallibalist realism is a strong position. Kitcher, however, suggests that while the methods and achievements of science are definitely valid, the choice of research problems and programs is, however, driven strongly by other concerns. In this sense, Kitcher sees science as hardly insulated from social and personal concerns and in important senses capable of being manipulated in potentially sinister ways. Kitcher is very concerned with the ways in which science and scientific knowledge may be abused to the disadvantage of disadvantaged members of society. Kitcher attacks the idea of the moral purity of scientific investigation and the highly arbitrary (and really impossible to defend) distinction between science and technology. Kitcher's proposed approach is what he calls "well-ordered" science in which selection of research programs, the actual selection of individual projects, and use of knowledge generated would be the subject of some form of inclusive deliberative democracy to ensure socially appropriate scientific investigation. I want to stress that Kitcher is no starry-eyed idealist, this is not a serious reform proposal but rather an intellectual device to measure how far we are away from a really democratic approach to science, an intellectually useful instrument. This brief sketch doesn't do justice to Kitcher's careful development of his arguments, including some useful examples. One example used is the experience of the human genome project, whose development and governance Kitcher demonstrates as violating his concepts of well-ordered science.

Kitcher's arguments, however, are problematic in several respects. Its hard to disagree with the general proposition that pragmatic and social concerns influence the selection of research problems and sometimes how science is practiced. Kitcher takes this argument too far. As an example of pragmatic approaches to science he gives the example of different methods of taxonomic classification in animals and prokaryotes, pointing out the use of the biological species concept (BSC) for the former and molecular methods for the latter. But, these differences are more epistemically based than Kitcher's discussion implies. How much sense does the BSC make for organisms with high rates of horizontal gene transfer? If the taxonomy example is representative of Kitcher's conception of how scientific practice is driven by pragmatic, strictly extra-scientific concerns, then Kitcher's emphasis is misplaced. Kitcher points also to the historical variation in choice of research problems as an example of how science is influenced by strictly extra-scientific issues. But, one of the most important determinants of selection of research problems is the knowledge and theory generated by prior scientific investigations. The issue of the origin of the universe became a major scientific issue only after Einstein's development of General Relativity Theory. It seems likely that science as an enterprise is driven more by internal concerns than Kitcher's discussion implies and has a greater degree of autonomy than his model suggests.

Kitcher's concern about the abuse of science and the potential for negative impacts on the disadvantaged does him credit but may also be misplaced. As pointed out recently by the historian Naomi Oreskes, this is not the major recent problem with science and science policy. The biggest recent social conflict related to science has been the unwillingness of major interest groups in our society to accept the unpalatable consequences of major scientific findings. The present and likely future consequences of environmental problems, particularly anthropogenic global warming, resulted in major efforts to discredit both the general conclusions and some of the individual investigators involved. Since the most severe consequences of climate change will fall upon the poor in poorer nations, this is a direct counter-example to his concerns about the abuse of science. The discovery of anthropogenic global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain, among others, are massive challenges to traditional models of social and economic organization, and have been resisted bitterly by conservative forces. Again, this is solid evidence that science has a good deal more autonomy than Kitcher's model indicates.

Kitcher also argues that science, as a general activity, does not deserve a uniquely privileged status. He has a strong argument based essentially on the difficulty of constructing a consensus view of human values. Fair enough, but from a more pragmatic and historical point of view, its very clear that providing scientists with generous funding and considerable freedom in running the scientific enterprise has consistently yielded great dividends. In the weakest part of the book, Kitcher tries to argue that the evidence for the consistent benefits of science is poorly developed. Its not too strong to call this part of Kitcher's book rubbish. Given Kitcher's general level of rigor, this is a rather surprising and disappointing argument.

Finally, I share Kitcher's high regard for open, democratic, "deliberative" procedures. In this context, its worth mentioning that one of few institutions in our society that uses such procedures successfully are grant application review panels for NIH, NSF, and other funding agencies (including some private foundations that fund research). In this respect, and in some others, our democracy would be improved substantially by making public life more like science.

I am impressed with Kitcher, actually stunned. This book needs to be read by every politician in office. The fact that our government does in fact function much better than middle east gov's is due to separation of church and state, but now what we need is to really incorporate that idea, especially with a little more truth. The science of life is accepted as Kitcher mentions as irrefutable by all, but the truth of it is jet lag, not really here. I say yes, read this book, to anyone. I want to recommend another book very similar to this but in entertaining format which puts this subject across well, SB 1 or God By Karl Maddox.