In #sociology, some of our students get #science in their statistics classes, and antiscience in theoretical or other methods seminars. Does this diversity make us stronger? I don't know, but failure to rigorously grapple with the science question is not a strength.
@philipncohen
Serious question: is too simplified to say that the difference comes from the different perspectices of philosophy of sc and sociology of sc. First deals how sc ought to be done, second how it is done. Soc finds many differences from phil. So one might conclude antiscience position. Whereas phil concludes that science becomes only more difficult/not worse without following phil of science principles.
@klauspforr sorry - lost me in the abbreviations!
@philipncohen perhaps a little clearer, although I am really out of my depth here: My summarized impression of the opposition of the positions of analytic or modernist science theory versus postmodernist philosophy of science is that the first camp develops statements on how science should be done, while the second camp criticizes this position with arguments on how science is done (e.g. influence of language and power). From the second position one can derive an anti-scientific position.
@philipncohen In contrast, it seems to me that ultimately the methods that result from the modernist science doctrine are exposed to the problems mentioned, but without the developed methods science would be even harder.
I don't think the distinction - that philos of science is about what should be done and sociology of science is how it is done (and the impact of power - is so clear.
Kuhn definitely was describing how science was performed. Popper argued back that he describing how it should be.
At what point does the actual practice of science deviate so much from what should be done that they no longer resemble each other? do we say say science is not doing science correctly?
Personally I liked the response of Lakatos when he said that there was in fact no other way that science could be done without people protecting the "hardcore" of their paradigms (http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Lakatos-Falsification.pdf)
@allanmccoy @philipncohen I know that both Kuhn and Lakatos are accounted to the modernist approach. But both start with an empirical and in effect sociological approach of how science is conducted. And both accounts are used to argue for a relativisic position.
@klauspforr @philipncohen Yes I would say that is true. Would you say than that "true" philosophy of science starts from a more abstract conception of science?
@allanmccoy @philipncohen I would not label one or the other as "true" but as rough positions in the historical timeline of the debate. From the perspective of what works, I would argue that the core definition of scientific methodology in relation to this is what and how scientific dialogue is convincinlgy conducted wthout refering to power differences.
@klauspforr @allanmccoy what I meant about not grappling with science enough in our training is that in actually existing US sociology you will see people denouncing science while also doing statistical tests with p values.
@philipncohen
The presence of p-value is however neither necessary nor sufficient to conclude someone has done actual statistics, to not speak of causal inference, so maybe there is no contradiction? ;)
The larger point about people denouncing science even as they dress themselves in its outwardly attributes is a good one, seen in many other contexts. I guess trying to usurp an existing position of authority is much easier to imagine than inventing an entirely new social construction for producing authority?
@klauspforr @allanmccoy
