Topic Summaries

Science as a belief system

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  • There are ongoing debates over whether science is an open, self-correcting system or a closed, socially constructed one. 
    • Open system: 👤 Popper (1934) sees science as based on falsification, open to testing and revision. 👤 Merton (1942) identifies CUDOS norms: communism, universalism, disinterestedness, organised scepticism. 👤 Horton (1971) contrasts science as open with magic and religion as closed.
      • Science can still be influenced by funding and institutional pressures.
    • Closed system: 👤 Kuhn (1962) argues science operates within paradigms that resist change until scientific revolutions occur. 👤 Polanyi (1944) highlights circular reasoning, subsidiary explanations, and denial of rivals as ways belief systems maintain themselves.
      • Overlooks how competing paradigms can coexist and cross-influence.
  • Interpretivist and postmodernist views: interpretivists see scientific knowledge as socially constructed. 👤 Lyotard (1979) describes science as a metanarrative used for control.
    • Risks relativism by placing scientific/non-scientific claims on the same level.

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