In defense of the value free ideal, Gregor Betz
- the most important distinction:
“The methodological critique is not only ill-founded, but distracts from the crucial methodological challenge scientific policy advice faces today, namely the appropriate description and communication of knowledge gaps and uncertainty.”
The acceptance of miscommunication between scientists and policy makers is an important step to illuminate public on crucial issues.
- a clarification question/criticism:
“Scientists are expected to answer these questions with “plain” hypotheses: Yes, dioxins are carcinogenic; or: no, they aren’t. The safety threshold lies at level X; or: it lies at level Y.”
I think those are not even hypotheses. A hypothesis should clarify a problem/challenge at certain conditions. For example, ‘If this …, then that …’ would be a candidate of a hypothesis but ‘plain’ statements are not a part of scientific communication. I feel that throughout the paper, the author emphasized more on effective communication instead of value judgments.
Inductive Risk and Values in Science, Heather Douglas
- the most important distinction:
“as most funding goes toward “applied” research, and funding that goes toward “basic” research increasingly needs to justify itself in terms of some eventual applicability or use.” pg.577.
I think this applicability criterion is bringing scientists, policy makers, and citizens together, although all three groups can try to impose different values into science.
- a clarification question/criticism:
“In cases where the consequences of making a choice and being wrong are clear, the inductive risk of the choice should be considered by the scientists making the choice. (…) The externality model is overthrown by a normative requirement for the consideration of non-epistemic values, i.e., non-epistemic values are required for good reasoning.” pg.565.
What if we don’t know the consequences? What are the cases in which being wrong is so clear? I guess I don’t understand why the externality model is overthrown either.
Coming to Terms with the Values of Science: Insights from Feminist Science Studies Scholarship, Alison Wylie, Lynn Hankinson Nelson
- the most important distinction:
“We have so far emphasized ways in which feminist critics reveal underlying epistemic judgments that privilege simplicity and generality of scope (in the sense of cross‐species applicability) over empirical adequacy, explanatory power, and generality of scope in another sense.(…) the kinds of oversimplification that animate the interest in reductive and determinist accounts of sex difference-played a role in their evaluative judgment that the costs of the trade‐offs among epistemic values characteristic of the standard account were unacceptable.” pg. 16.
I really appreciate this distinction emphasizing ‘simplicity over empirical adequacy’. Apparently, the short-cuts through the best explanation clogged the way of ‘true science’. The kinds of contextual values can advance science not only by including women, but also considering all the under-represented groups in a way that their relationships with their inclusion make a difference. I heard an example from a documentary, which is correlating the ancient beliefs to the natural happenings. I think Aztecs mythology revealed there was a meteorite falling in time and they transferred this event as a story to the today’s people. Before talking to the indigenous people, the huge crater (due to the meteorite) couldn’t be explained. The alternative history and the alternative science are holding hands, nowadays, because of the efforts of feminists and the under-represented groups (which is highly debatable with why there is an ‘over-represented group’, such as white American male domination in power positions, even in conference speeches, keynotes etc.).
- a clarification question/criticism:
“The prospects for enhancing the objectivity of scientific knowledge are most likely to be improved not by suppressing contextual values but by subjecting them to systematic scrutiny; this is a matter of making the principle of epistemic provisionality active.” pg. 18.
I think this is a bit vague. How can we make the principle of epistemic provisionality active? Whose role is this?
Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry, Helen E. Longino
- the most important distinction:
“This constitution is a function of decision, choice, values and discovery. (…) thus contextual values are transformed into constitutive values.” pg.100.
Causality in time brings the relations between phenomena. The conceptualized phenomenon is subjected to the historical development of an idea. Therefore, the constitution of the object of the study is affected by the contextual values of its time.
- a clarification question/criticism:
“Where we do not know enough about a material or a phenomenon (…) the determination by social or moral concerns (…) little to do with the factual adequacy of those procedures.” pg.92.
Here, I can suggest a minor engineering insight. I admit that it cannot be applied to all the cases, but I think it is helpful in many cases. When we design something – it can be a little screw or an aircraft wing- we always consider the worst-case scenarios. If we calculate the maximum stress which a part can handle, we put a safety factor of 5, for example. It means we design a part to compensate for 100 kPa where the max expected pressure would be 20 kPa. We propose a life-time for a product as much as longer than it will be needed. Accordingly, we report all the possibilities could be encountered in which cases. Therefore, even if we don’t know the exact procedure, we can put some safety factors and make them standard. I know, for example, aircraft turbine blades are designed for 6-sigma failure possibilities, which means 1 failure in a million! However, we also know Boeing-Max skipped some safety checks in sensors, resulting in two deadly crashes!