File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1999/bhaskar.9910, message 28


Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 22:58:24 +0800
From: nicola taylor <nmtaylor-AT-carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re: BHA: magic and science




Hello Colin

I remain unconvinced by your argument that science 'works irrespective of
whether you believe it or not'.  Indeed, the vast lit on economic
development is peppered with debates about why the same scientific
techniques and technologies applied successfully in the UK do not 'work' at
all in Nigeria, and 'work' with unanticipated outcomes in Bangladesh.  One
reason put forward for why our technologies do not 'transfer'
unproblematically is that the 'outcomes' of science depend upon the way we
'use' our technologies, and that depends upon contexts of application:
social practices, beliefs, values etc.

Take the case of Medicine in Nigeria.  The World Health Organisation has
now recognised that the reason that science does not 'work' in Nigeria, is
not because Nigerians are illiterate or stupid but because they do not
accept our belief that we can control nature and predict outcomes with a
degree of certainty (the belief that science 'works').  WHO argues that
Western medical techniques and technologies will only achieve successful
outcomes in Nigeria if they are adapted and incorporated within 'Nigerian
socio-cultural models, and any attempt by the social system to disengage
outcomes from practices will cause a disfunctioning effect' (Ataudo, 1985,
'Social science and medicine, 21(12), 1345-7).

To echo Ruth, pragmatic theories of truth are not a sound way to go.
Because a technology 'appears' to work for us, does not mean that others
can use it, or that they need to.

I don't want to be too uncharitable, but your alternative argument that
'outcomes' can be considered outside the context of 'practices' sounds to
me like the same old technological determinism that everyone on this list
is trying to get away from.  To take your own examples: if you toss a nerve
gas canister at me, all things being equal (such as the wind not blowing
the wrong way), I will probably cark it - whether or not I believe that I
will.  In this very simple way, then, 'science works'.  Behind the
empirical 'observable' phenomenon, however, there are three things:  (1) a
technique, (2) an intention, and (3) a whole system of values.

Among the values I would include your own personal beliefs (that the
implement you are using will work as intended, to achieve a predetermined
purpose), and the social beliefs of other people in the society of which
you are a part (perhaps you come from a technologically sophisticated
society where there exists a belief in the neutrality of scientific
discovery - such as would allow the development of nerve gas in the first
place).   

Your second argument is that you do not need to understand science to use
it.  Yes, of course, but does this in itself substantiate a claim that
science can be defined soley in accordance with 'outcomes'?  Imagine that
genetic engineers in one society successfully isolate a gene for
intelligence, and this technology is then used in another society to breed
a race of highly intelligent people; would you say that this is an
'unintended consequence' - a purely objective result?  I wouldn't.  I'd say
that it has a lot to do with the high 'value' that these two societies put
on 'intelligence', itself a result of scientific practices ever since
Galton began measuring heads.  

I think that the fact/value divide is implied by my perspective:  if
'practices' and 'results' are distinct but dialectically interconnected
elements of science, then you and I do have some responsibility for the
effects of science, at least to the extent that we condone the practices
that lead to effects, and to the extent that we advocate alternative
practices and effects.  Science considered as an open ended venture of
intertwined practices and results, suggests a big role for judgement; and
judgement depends on anticipated communication with others in a community
who understand what you are saying.  What I am communicating is a
'disbelief' in the efficacy of any attempt to view the elements of
society/nature or practice/result in isolation.

The feminist lit provides some very useful arguments in this regard.  e.g.
Zoe Soffia's argument that the critical-rational ideal underpinning what we
call 'science' contains within it an irrational 'desire' to dominate.  If
her argument is accepted, the issue of the distinction between science and
magic cannot, be dealt with as an issue of rational (predictable) effects
and irrational (unpredictable) beliefs.  Rather 'the issue is whose
irrationalities are researched and developed' (1996, p142).  I think this
is the way to go.  Re methodology, Sofia's talks about 'situated
knowledges'; so does Irigaray, who argues for a new symbolic orientation to
women's experience, and Kristeva, who argues for the playful subversion of
the imaginary.

I playfully suggest that the critique of science is not just a theoretical
exercise.  It is a practice of questioning dualisms, and exorcising
determinisms.  This requires an interrogation of what Gramsci called our
'common sense' notions of what science is.  Hopefully, our investigation of
tacitly accepted assumptions also occasionally has results that change
things for the better.  Or perhaps that is only my belief.

Cheers, Nicky 





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