There’s an interesting discussion taking place in the comments on a Making Science Public guest post – by Philip Moriarty – called Science is not what you want it to be. This issue seems to relate to the significance of societal influences on our scientific understanding. To be clear, we’re not talking here about how society influences what we might fund, what we find interesting, or whether or not some individuals – or groups – might be influenced by societal biases. The issue relates to whether or not societal biases influence the physical sciences at some fundamental level; the possibility that our understanding of science is, in some significant way, influenced politics or the society in which we live.
It seems that some Science and Technology Study (STS) researchers think that this is the case. Some physicists, however, seem to disagree. The argument that a physicist would make is that our scientific understanding is constrained by the evidence. It’s possible that if the evidence allows for more than one interpretation, that societal influences may affect the weight we give to the different possibilities, but they’re still constrained by the available evidence. Additionally, as the evidence mounts, those possibilities that are no longer consistent with the evidence will be rejected.
The problem that physicists – for example – have with the argument that societal influences impact our scientific understanding, is that the implications are potentially quite severe. If STS researchers are suggesting that societal biases influence our scientific understanding, then it appears that they’re suggesting that scientists are collectively ignoring evidence, or selecting not to run tests that might invalidate a preferred interpretation.
As I see it, that’s the crux of the problem. If STS researchers are simply suggesting that societal influences affect what research we might choose to do or might affect the behaviour of some scientists; I don’t think anyone would disagree. If STS researchers are – on the other hand – suggesting that these influences affect our scientific understanding at some fundamental level, then they’re implying that something is wrong with the physical sciences. Of course, if they have evidence to support that view, that would be fine and I would be interested to know what it is. However, if they don’t, then suggesting – without evidence – that a field that relies on evidence is fundamentally influenced by biases, would seem rather ironic.
There may, of course, be subtleties that I don’t understand and it’s quite possible that I’m misunderstanding what some people are suggesting. If so, feel free to point that out in the comments. I do think that the inter-play between the physical sciences and the social sciences is important and interesting, but – at the moment – it seems that there are some fundamental disagreement and that we’d benefit if these were either resolved or clarified.