All the people in the world need to believe in something. It’s a need to trust. Everybody needs to rely onanything or anybody or maybe just himself/herself. Whether it’s religion or any other system, one needs to put faith in something. And also it’s a need to be interested in something. It’s a need to have a sense in life. A meaning of life… Something worth living for… Something worth to follow…
It’s a need to follow mind, to grab the truth. Science aims to follow mindand tries to catch the truth. And it claims it achieves that. More importantly, it convinces people.Science is serious and important. And so is where it stands in humankind’s life. There are two approaches to science. One, which Merton advocates, gives more importance to science, asserts it’s the ideal. The other one, which Shapin argues, discredits science, removes the immunity of it. On the one hand Merton attributes perfectness to science, on the other hand Shapin ruins it and takes its sacredness.
Science is thought to be rational and universal. Merton says that scientist should chase the reason. So that science can be perfect. But how can one who is not perfect produce a perfect knowledge which is exactly true, objective, trustable, and maybe inalterable?
Scientist needs to be courageous and challenger to establish his/her science and convince people. That makes the science stronger. There are not stable rules of science as it is thought. It has weak arguments as well. Only we corroborate it. After all, we produce it. There are innumerable factors that affect us. It’s not always “under normal conditions” as it is taken in the experiments of chemistry. There is not such a world. In the same way, everybody has their own thoughts, opinions, interests, etc. And it depends on them how they perceive. So that none of us perceives as the others. Everything changes continuously. It’s not possible to control everything and measure it and claim it has to be always the same way. There are, of course, exceptionals as well. Only change has no exception. With regards to Heraclitus who said, “Everything changes and nothing remains still... you cannot ever step twice into the same river.”…
Then the inquiry comes to mind, “An objective science is not possible? Everything that is called science is a lie? Do they deceive us?” It’s not about that because it’s us who want to believe in it and deal with it. It’s us who don’t want to let it slip through our fingers and lose it. Because if we lose it, there won’t be any precious occupation which is concrete and which is worthful. Science might be one of the meanings of life. Science can be a guide for humankind. Whether it’s objective or not, it’s sacred or not, it’s perfect or suspicious, we trust in science and the way it is progressive. We care about it and respect it. We produce it with a great effort and raise it just like a child. It’s the result of our labor. That’s the point, it’s our science.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder