[MD] Science and Values

[Arlo Bensinger]

All,

Stumbled on an interesting paper. "Values in Science" by Douglas 
Allchin. This struck some MOQ chords with me.

http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/values.htm

"ABSTRACT. Values intersect with science in three primary ways. 
First, there are values, particularly epistemic values, which guide 
scientific research itself. Second, the scientific enterprise is 
always embedded in some particular culture and values enter science 
through its individual practitioners, whether consciously or not. 
Finally, values emerge from science, both as a product and process, 
and may be redistributed more broadly in the culture or society. 
Also, scientific discoveries may pose new social challenges about 
values, though the values themselves may be conventional. Several 
questions help guide disciplined inquiry into ethics and values."

Below is the short introduction, the article is also concise for 
those wishing a short but enjoyable read.

"A fundamental feature of science, as conceived by most scientists, 
is that it deals with facts, not values. Further, science is 
objective, while values are not. These benchmarks can offer great 
comfort to scientists, who often see themselves as working in the 
privileged domain of certain and permanent knowledge. Such views of 
science are also closely allied in the public sphere with the 
authority of scientists and the powerful imprimatur of evidence as 
"scientific". Recently, however, sociologists of science, among 
others, have challenged the notion of science as value-free and 
thereby raised questions--especially important for emerging 
scientists--about the authority of science and its methods.

The popular conceptions--both that science is value-free and that 
objectivity is best exemplified by scientific fact--are overstated 
and misleading. This does not oblige us, however, to abandon science 
or objectivity, or to embrace an uneasy relativism. First, science 
does express a wealth of epistemic values and inevitably incorporates 
cultural values in practice. But this need not be a threat: some 
values in science govern how we regulate the potentially biasing 
effect of other values in producing reliable knowledge. Indeed, a 
diversity of values promotes more robust knowledge where they 
intersect. Second, values can be equally objective when they require 
communal justification and must thereby be based on generally 
accepted principles. In what follows, I survey broadly the relation 
of science and values, sample important recent findings in the 
history, philosophy and sociology of science, and suggest generally 
how to address these issues (this essay is adapted from Allchin, 1998)."

Arlo