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Science, Objectivity, and Moral Values
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13163 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
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11 / 1987 |
3,457 Words |
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Bernard D. Davis
Bernard D. Davis is the Adele Lehman Professor Bacterial
Physiology, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School. |
Some years ago C.P. Snow and Jacob Bronowski tried to close the gap between the two cultures--science and the humanities--by focusing on their shared esthetic values, and especially on the similarities between scientific and artistic creativity. Increasingly, however, the world has shifted attention to the relations of science to moral rather than to esthetic values. These relations have turned out to be highly controversial.
A few decades ago it was widely believed that the remarkable success of science in dealing with increasing complex questions, from Newton's laws of motion to the nature of the gene, could be extended without limit: the powerful tools of scientific methodology, applied to social studies, should eventually (and perhaps even soon) provide correct solutions to the major problems of society. Today, however, this assumption (sometimes called scientism) is obsolete. As Peter Medawar in particular has pointed out, science can solve only problems about the nature of the external world--problems for which there exist, in principle, correct answers. In contrast, problems involving moral or esthetic values have no objectively correct solutions, except in the sense of historical accuracy or of conformity to legal or other social conventions.
But if we agree that the scientific method can solve only certain kinds of problems, we are nevertheless not so clear about where the boundaries actually lie, and whether science can help us to build social policies more firmly on reality. One group of critics--including neo-Marxists, historians of science who overemphasize the "externalist" interpretation of the nature of scientific discover, and nihilists of the counterculture--consider science so dominated by the political and economic values of the surrounding community that its alleged objectivity is a myth. A second group would accept its fundamental objectivity but would deny or minimize its relevance to social problems, because they view these as challenges essentially to our moral judgment. I wish to examine the validity and the implications of these views.
Objectivity In Science
To clarify the question of the objectivity of science it is essential to recognize that the word science is used with three different meanings, depending on the context. First, science is a methodology that aims at achieving maximal objectivity in two general, interacting ways: by relying only on verifiable observations, logical inferences, and predictions that are tested against the external world and not against our social values
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