A Standard Account of Science

The Baconian Account
According to the Baconian account of science, which is the traditional account and still seems to be prominent in the minds of most (even plenty of scientists), science is purely objective—no prejudice or bias or presuppositions whatsoever.  The scientist simply gathers the empirical data, allows the data to speak for itself and using induction formulates the theories that naturally suggest themselves by the data and induction. Notice that these are the three criteria from the first post: Science is, minimally, empirical, objective, and rational. 
Problems
First—the scientist must sort the data in some way; otherwise, all we have is a heap of data with no organization.  So science must proceed by assuming that some of the data is relevant and some not. Think about history here—the historian obviously must select some events as significant and others as not.  But such selection assumes a great deal. Similarly, the biologist thinks that some features are relevant and some not.  
Second—categorization often depends on a prior theory.  There used to be a bunch of different categories that people thought various kinds of heat belonged to.  First various theories about heat were proposed and then we began to categorize it differently. So, the way we categorize data is itself theory dependent. Prior theories are assumed to be right and are used as we lump data into different slots. 
Third—theories cannot simply be read off the data.  They are the result of human ingenuity and creativity.  After all, theories are underdetermined by data.  So no single theory can be automatically inferred from the data.  Rather, some scientist examines the data, organizes and sorts it according to some background theories and presuppositions and then proceeds to come up with various accounts of the data.  But there are countless (literally an infinite number of them) accounts of the data possible.
Serious Worry: Now it looks as though science is not rational, objective or empirical.  What should we do?

Comments

  1. M. E. G.February 1, 2019 at 10:26 AM

    The first thing we should do is cry. The second thing we should do is to either adjust our ideas of science, such as that it is purely objective, to one that is a definition based on data and interpreted by many individuals, not just one, and discussed about without using the data as a basis of prior theory until and unless the theory can be proved completely true perhaps by other theories being false or until the base theory is shown to be incorrect and new theories can arise. But truly, I don’t know. It’s stumped me. - Maddy

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 1, 2019 at 10:00 PM

    Mary Devore
    My immediate reaction is simply to say that the Baconian Account of science needs some modification, if it isn't outright false. If the definintion of science boils down to the study of the world around us, then the general features of science are tied to humanity (i.e. those doing the studying). One of the assumptions of science is the existence of the material world independent of us and our observations of it, but "science" can't exist independent of humans or at least beings capable of noticing patterns in their surroundings. So if science is dependent on us, then it can't be purely objective because human beings are not purely objective. Our very perception of the world around us (and thus our ability to study it) is based on knowledge from previous experience. I have a mental model of the world that is built on preconceived notions, assumptions and biases, some true and some false. That mental model is my basis of knowledge and theory, and it is entirely subjective. I could be totally wrong or opening up a can of worms here, so I'm curious to hear what other people think.

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