“The belief in the value of scientific truth is a product of certain civilizations and not a fact of nature” (Weber, 1922)
Post-truth refers to “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016).
Scientists’ compliance with scientific values is a prerequisite for science to be successful. Most philosophers of science agree that science is a rule-governed activity for the generation of reliable knowledge about the physical world.
Scientific values and their importance
These rules or values, most importantly objectivity, universalism, and truth-orientation, have been generated over centuries, first in Europe and then in other countries, and they have been changing over time (Daston and Galison 2007; Hacking [1983] 2007). Scientific objectivity which can mean, among other things, the independence of the validity of an observation or measurement from the person who carries it out it, does not contradict the importance of subjectivity in science.
As physicist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi (1958) has pointed out, personal factors, such as knowledge, competence, and commitment to scientific beliefs, play an important role in science, but do not abrogate the necessity of objectivity, a requirement for scientific progress. In regard to big data science, computer scientist Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie (2018) likewise emphasize that “causal analysis requires the user [of statistical tools] to make a subjective commitment.”
In modern secular societies, the aspiration for science to generate rational and testable knowledge has widely replaced religion and philosophy as the authority in society. This is related to the values mentioned above, to which universality should be added —the independence of scientific results of the ethnicity, gender, or nationality of researchers.
These values are fragile and need constant support, and they have been repeatedly challenged for ideological or other reasons, for example, in postmodernist philosophical-sociological discourses about the denial of the existence of scientific facts that are related to names such as Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, David Bloor, and Steve Fuller, in the late 20th century. Though most of these discourses took place as intellectual discussions in the humanities, the underlying world view is meanwhile pervading the public and society as a whole.
The structure of scientific revolutions
A prominent example to this effect is Thomas Kuhn’s book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962), which has attracted wide attention, especially in the humanities and the public until today. Attributing a primary role to the history of science with examples mainly derived from physics, Kuhn challenged cumulative characterizations of scientific advancement, according to which science progresses and improves.
He held that science enjoys periods of stable growth – “normal science” – punctuated by periods of revisionary revolutions. “Normal science” comprises the activity of scientists within an accepted “paradigm”; it is “puzzle-solving” and “dogmatic”: “A strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education.”
Violations of the “paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science” lead to paradigm changes and scientific revolutions, in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one.
Revolutions are sudden and unstructured and not designed by rational debates. They are not objectively progressive; one paradigm is not truer than another. In addition, Kuhn believed that science guided by one paradigm is “incommensurable” with science under a different one: Paradigms cannot be compared because there is no common measure for assessing them. Kuhn was criticized for having promoted a simplistic and relativistic view of science, though many years later, he considered himself misunderstood.
The characterization as relativistic is grounded in Kuhn’s view that each paradigm has its own facts: Facts are always relative to the respective paradigm. According to political scientist Colin Wight (2018), Kuhn, and postmodern academics in general, contributed to the widespread distribution of post-truth beliefs in society.
History of biology and its influences: Finding scientific truth
I have argued elsewhere (https://www. openaccessgovernment.org/biocolloidy- and-epigenetics-the-scientific-revolution-in- biological-research/149583/) that periods of major innovations in the history of biology, such as those following the establishment of the chromosome theory of heredity, did not meet the characteristics of a Kuhnian revolution.
They had a rational basis – the new paradigms were usually (but not always) superior in scope and explanatory power – and, in most cases, not incommensurable with the previous ones. The discovery of atomic fission and its scientific and technical consequences, as well as the development of the scientific foundations of genetic engineering and vaccination are dramatic examples of scientific progress and truth.
The following example of the Lysenkoist revolution in the USSR illustrates most clearly possible consequences of the adoption of post-truth in science. Interestingly, this revolution also best fulfils Kuhn’s criteria of a scientific revolution. In the 1930s, the agronomist Lysenko developed his new anti-Mendelian paradigm of heredity based on an old Russian research tradition created by plant breeder Michurin.
Lysenko’s paradigm replaced the generally accepted distinction between genotype and phenotype and the idea that hereditary elements are solely transmitted by germ cells, by the notion that heredity is “inherent not only in the chromosomes, but in any particle of the
living body.”
Methodologically, he rejected statistical evaluation and quantitative experimentation in general. After Lysenko advanced to official leader of biological and agricultural sciences in the USSR in the 1940s, international genetic research was banned in the Soviet Union, and geneticists were dismissed from their positions and persecuted.
The replacement of the Mendelian paradigm by Lysenko’s hereditary paradigm showed characteristics of a Kuhnian revolution: It was incompatible with the previous paradigm, and it was a relatively sudden, unstructured event. However, it remained confined to the USSR (and countries controlled by it) and China. Outside the USSR, the methodology and theory of Mendelian genetics remained the guiding paradigm in basic and applied genetics.
Supported by political pressure, Lysenko’s paradigm changed the values of science, taking precedence over the values of objectivity and reliability or truth-orientation. As a consequence, the flourishing science of genetics in Russia and the USSR was completely demolished. Interestingly, when political pressure on biology eased decades after, research in the USSR returned to international science and the Mendelian paradigm; there was no movement in the opposite direction. This paradigm reversal, the sole explanation of which was the inferiority of Lysenko’s paradigm, cannot be explained by relativistic philosophy and post-truth claims.
The example of Lysenko shows that the value of scientific truth, as Max Weber stated in the past, is indeed a value that has to be upheld by society, sometimes against influential philosophical and ideological tendencies. This is also true of the post-truth era, where identity and race policies in academia are currently aiming at marginalizing this value.
A relativization of science not only downplays its potential impact on society and life in general, as the examples of atomic fission and the atomic bomb show, but also foregoes a deeper understanding of nature and future useful scientific knowledge. It would do academia good to stop these irresponsible post-truth tendencies and actively fight against them, because they are dangerous, and academia is largely complicit.
Post truth philosophy and society
Post-truth philosophy not only affects science, but also society as a whole, as Colin Wight made very clear: “As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies, there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs. The concept of ‘objective truth’ is what makes claims about social justice possible.” (Wight 2018).
References
- Daston, L. and Galison, P. 2007. Objectivity. New York, Zone Books.
- Hacking, I. [1983] 2007. Representing and Intervening. Cambridge University Press.
- Pearl, J., and Mackenzie, D. 2018. The Book of Why. The New Science of Cause and Effect. Basic Books. New York, NY.
- Polanyi, M. Personal Knowledge – Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago 1958.
- Weber, M. 1922. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. J.C.B. Mohr: Tuebingen.
- Wight, C. 2018. Post-Truth, Postmodernism and Alternative Facts. New Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2018), pp. 17-30, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26675072.
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