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Accommodating Diversity: Feyerabend, Science and Philosophy

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Accommodating Diversity: Feyerabend, Science and Philosophy Accommodating diversity: Feyerabend, science and philosophy CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Science, philosophy and diversity 2 Introduction There are perhaps thirty million distinct species in the world today. This means that there are thirty million distinct ways of making a living: ways of working to pass DNA on to the future. Dawkins 1998: 11 I found one of the most convincing arguments that there are many successful ways of approaching the world in an introduction to the history of science. We live on a planet where millions of very different species have found the key to their continued survival in their own unique ways of doing things. There are thirty million species that exist in this world and this means that there are at least thirty million ‘right’ answers to the question of how to survive on a planet such as ours. And it seems that one of these species, human beings, is beginning to acknowledge what the natural world around us has been telling us for centuries. There is more than one answer. Some may be unsuccessful, but there are probably as many that are successful. In many societies, we seem to be moving away from the omnipotent one, one religion, one ruler, one race, one gender, one way of doing things, towards a recognition of heterogeneity and abundance. Paul Feyerabend, one of the most controversial 20th century philosophers of science, would find it ironic that I found an example of the abundance and diversity of our world in an introduction to science. He argues that far from embracing difference, our world has been tarnished by a far-reaching homogenising influence that threatens to stifle cultural variety and inhibit freedom. The name of this influence? Science. Contemporary science encourages uniformity, encourages the idea that there is one right answer to the multitude of questions induced by living in this world. We pride ourselves on the freedom enjoyed in contemporary societies and yet, according to Feyerabend, our freedom, especially our freedom to differ from science, is being stifled. 3 Feyerabend argues, however, that science itself cannot really be held responsible for its dominance. The question of science’s worth is not scientific; it is philosophical. Underlying science’s privilege are ideas: the idea that there is one way of discovering truth, the idea that only a select group of people have access to that truth, the idea that we should ignore anything that does not fit into our ideas about what is the truth. These ideas, Feyerabend argues, stem from philosophy. Although science can be democratised and its role in society can be transformed to better accommodate difference, philosophy is intrinsically at odds with difference. To genuinely respect and accommodate diversity in society, we need to carefully examine how diversity is threatened and how we can prevent it from being marginalised. To help us to truly uphold heterogeneity and abundance, I believe we need to examine Feyerabend’s critique to discover if it can help us to accommodate diversity better. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse and critically evaluate Feyerabend's attempt to transform science, politics and philosophy to better accommodate diversity. This chapter can be divided into three sections. Firstly, I will provide background on the relationship between science, politics and diversity to prepare for my analysis and evaluation of Feyerabend’s critique of science and its role in society. Secondly, I will also provide background on the relationship between philosophy and diversity to prepare for my analysis and evaluation of Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. And lastly, I will state my research problem, research aim, and research design, and I will outline the chapters in the rest of this dissertation. 4 Science, politics and diversity Scientists are worried. In an age in which scientific advances have cloned sheep and sent a robot to explore Mars, in an age in which science has claimed that it could hold the answer to everything, people are turning their backs on science. Religion, astrology and the paranormal are more popular than science. Creation science simply will not go away and its recent counterpart, intelligent design theory, has joined it at hammering away at the scientific establishment’s ideas about the origin of life: The paradox of science in the 20th century is that this century has probably unlocked as much new knowledge as all the other centuries together, but it has ended with the same level of superstitious belief in paranormal phenomena as the end of the 19th century. And with even greater hostility towards science than ever before. Claassen 2001: 9 [translated from Afrikaans] Scientists are confused. Science has proven repeatedly that it has a sound method for analysing the world around us, and this method ensures that science produces valid results. Why then does anyone believe in the pseudo-sciences and their lack of scientific method? Science is based on a rational and empirical foundation that proves its validity, providing it with access to the truth. Creation science, astrology and paranormal psychology warp scientific laws and are all based on false premises. This means that science is right and the pseudo-sciences are wrong. Not to nod one's head in agreement would prove a very unpopular gesture in this the age of science and technology. And yet, 20th century philosophers of science have been shaking their heads vigorously: “Modern developments in the philosophy of science have pinpointed and stressed deep-seated difficulties associated with the idea that science rests on a sure foundation acquired through observation and experiment” (Chalmers 1982: xvi). 5 This does not mean that these philosophers necessarily defend the pseudo- sciences, but they are questioning the often taken for granted authority of science. Science is simply not justified in making such grandiose claims to objective knowledge and universal principles. Paul Feyerabend is one of the most well-known, or perhaps more accurately, most notorious, of these sceptics who distrust traditional views of science. Like his contemporaries, Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn, Feyerabend has questioned the authority of our typical understandings of science. Feyerabend, however, goes a lot further. Although many theorists have challenged the truth-value of science and the role of the rational scientific method, they tend to evaluate the implications of these challenges within the parameters of science and its philosophy. Feyerabend broadens the debate. Not only does science's false claims to absolute knowledge negatively impact on the practice and philosophy of science, it interferes with our experience of freedom and diversity. To understand this interference, let us use the example of the debate between science and creation science. In 1925, the famous Tennessee 'monkey trial' highlighted the increasing tension between creationism and evolutionary theory (Boyer et al 1993: 826). A biology teacher, John T. Scopes, was prosecuted for teaching evolution at his public high school. Although Scopes was found guilty, the highly publicised trial was seen as a blow to religious fundamentalist ideas about the origins of life, which were exposed as misconceptions of reality (Boyer et al 1993: 826). Now, less than a hundred years later, evolution is taught widely in American schools whereas religion is seldom part of the curriculum. This does not mean, however, that creationism, the belief that the bible gives us a true account of the origin of the world, has disappeared. Creation science continues to oppose evolutionary theory and to insist that creationism is "given 6 equal time with evolutionary biology in American public schools" (Tilghman 1994: 158). Recently its campaign has been strengthened by a slightly more scientific ally, intelligent design theory, which claims that life is not the result of random, meaningless events as science claims, but the design of an intelligent force (Watanabe 2001: 17). Scientists' problem with creation science and intelligent design is that they are not scientific: “The Biblical doctrine of Creation is not empirically testable and Creationists refuse to acknowledge scientific standards of evidence. Creationism is fraudulent science” (Tilghman 1994: 160). Feyerabend would point out that this typical argument is problematic. Firstly, it rests on the assumption that there is some clearly definable field with fixed criteria called ‘science’. Secondly, it also assumes that there is something necessarily wrong with being unscientific, that the only field that has any validity is science. This assumption is prevalent in education, in the media, in our everyday lives. And as once politics was inextricably linked to religion, it seems that science has found its biggest ally in the state. In 1999, in an interesting reversal of the Scopes trial and of the influence that religion once had over the state, a high school biology teacher in Burlington, Washington, Roger DeHart, was ordered to stop questioning evolution and to stop teaching intelligent design (Watanabe 2001: 17). Now instead of religion, science’s validity is being backed by the state. And even though science is being questioned, we live in a world in which the scientific validity of something has become the standard against which we measure it. Although creation science questions the scientific establishment, the fact that it insists on calling itself a science demonstrates how important scientific acceptance is. Feyerabend has two important problems with these assumptions. Firstly, from a descriptive point of view, science is not a clearly defined field and it 7 is not necessarily better or truer than non-science. Our descriptions of science, he claims, are simply fairy-tales. Secondly, and more importantly, our unquestioning acceptance of science is harmful: it conflicts with diversity and freedom. What is significant about the debate between scientists and the creation scientists is not whether science is right and creationism wrong according to some sort of objective standards.
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