Owen Palmer

Professor McGraw

ISAT 131
February 23, 2015

Science, and the educated demographic of men and women that

comprise the community that strives to exist and adapt in this ever-evolving
field, are for the most part regarded as truth worthy, professional, and expert
mediums of judgment. However this opinion has been draining in credibility
as of late, in some part due to conflicts with the funding effect which
pertains to where research scientists are able to finding funding for their
work and the potential bias that may result, and more generally speaking the
overarching ethical landscape of the scientific community as a whole.
Science and technology, related yet distinct, are the topics of a great deal of
discussion but are usually trusted as entity that is efficient at providing an
updated consensus on the empirical truth relative to the specifics of the
situation. To distinguish from scientific supremacy propaganda, it is equally
as relevant to say that scientists and technologists have been challenged for
flaws in their pursuit and process of advancing what we accept as true, as
well as for the corruption that leaks into the field via the political and
economic components of operation. Furthermore these investigations into
the erosion of credibility in the scientific field and the consequential practical
and social dilemmas will undoubtedly relate closely with the scenario of the
MMR vaccine and alleged autism correlation. Before we proceed with current
state of the scientific community, it seems imperative to first outline where
and how science gained the once highly regarded societal standing and how
an authority in truth advancement was forged.
The progression of science has in part been attributed to a
number of different influential figures, varying in particular views, but in the
end advocating for scientific recognition and respect. Bacon is credited with
some of the earliest contributions to the structure of modern science and
how it started to gain some leeway as a medium of investigation and
research in pursuit of communal advancement. Much of Bacons work
involved the scientific method, and vital components of this methodology
such as logical reasoning, empiricism, and limiting extraneous factors.
Popper is the next influential figurehead that should be discussed, who held
firm to the belief the science was dependent on making new prediction to

test them to see if they were disprovable. This was the basis of progression
for Popper, saying that claiming bold new predictions and disproving
previously-believed theories were essential. Kuhn was to follow, with a
specific mindset for how scientific system operated. The dynamic in which
Kuhn suggested was a cycle, with a revolutions of normal science into crisis
into revolution and then again returning back to a period of normality. This
cyclic thinking was also applied in the sense that Kuhn saw the scientific
landscape as paradigm-based, meaning the community operates relatively
calmly while accepting a certain paradigm, but then eventually the
anomalies dont add up and there is revolutionary science that yields a
paradigm shift. For him science was a social process, operating within a
community where the professionals seemingly defines the profession, and
there is hindered progress due to cyclic tendencies. In what can be seen as
an effort to synergize these two sets of ideals from Popper and Kuhn, Lakatos
introduced a two system model in which the inner core layer operated
according to Kuhns principles while the outer periphery belt functioned
closer to Poppers predictions. In other words, Lakatos proposed that science
is like a cherry, with the pit being the hard inner core of more concrete
scientific concepts outlined by Kuhn and the outer cherry flesh is the
periphery protective belt of new yet regularly tested and rejected
hypotheses. Feyerabend is the last major player to allude to, a man who had
quite a noticeable amount of interaction amongst the previously cited
scientist but entered the debate with a view of his own. He argued that, in
the interest of scientific progress and betterment, the growth of knowledge
ought not to be restricted and confined to one singular scientific method.
Although advocating for less cut-and-dry structure in science, Feyerabend
still insisted that scientific truth must be able to convince the community of
authenticity before it can be accepted, which similar to Kuhns assertions
grants the authority of self-regulation to the scientific community but drags
this claim to a more dramatic extreme. Although an ongoing discussion
throughout history, the debate of what is science and how it should be
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conducted is certainly very relevant to the expressed opinions of these men.

Despite any of them achieving the dominantly most popularly accepted
theory it is more fittingly qualified that their contributions join those of other
experts in the all-encompassing mosaic that represents what science is and
stands for. Regardless of how you define or employ a methodology to
science, it remains justified to describe it as a reliable system of updating the
currently-accepted understandings of truth and knowledge insofar that
accurate technique, critical evaluation, ethical consideration are applied.
A newly emerging yet blatantly valuable counterpart of science is
becoming popular amongst scholars that have an interest in analyzing
science without being involved in the actual procedural pursuit. It is almost
as if these science studies students are in the position of an auditor,
observing from both the internal and external viewpoint to gain insight into
operation and imperative variables in the process, while also expressing
interest in whether or not the techniques are accurate and the results are
trustworthy. In the case of the MMR vaccine, Wakefields results, and the
claimed correlation between vaccination and autism, the science studies
discipline and the areas in which it focuses its evaluation would likely prove
to be invariably useful. While adjusting the lens to encompass both public
and private, amateur and professional science the general focus remains on
where and how a certain research program was executed and whether or not
there were influences introduced via reputation, authority, prestige, funding,
patronage, communication, and persuasion. These considerations could have
been, and still can be, valuable in cases such as the Wakefield vaccineautism link claim. To elaborate these techniques of auditing science, or
better yet an independent entity responsible for carrying out these
techniques, would ensure that wholesome, unbiased research is being
performed for the sole interest of advancing public knowledge with no
external economic or political interests to intervene. From their scientific
credibility could be re-instilled and scenarios of questionable integrity within
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the field could proactively be remedied with closer evaluation before being
sensationalized by the media.
Ultimately it boils down to a few inherently fundamental questions
when considering whether the scientific community is deservedly losing its
position of influence and credibility in society, but debatably the most crucial
concern is whether the research being presented can be trusted as being
conducted under an ethical commitment. Touching upon previously noted
sources of negative influence in the scientific research landscape, an ethical
commitment would be broken if members of a research program were
pressured to represent any opinion rather than a neutral one when
conducting their investigation, or if economics became more important than
the empirical discovery process, or if opportunity and authority was skewed
by prestige and reputation; but in much dismay it would be ignorant to say
these things arent already happening regularly. Science is held in the best
regard when strictly considered as a field of observing natural phenomena,
hypothesizing theories, and testing them to analyze the resulting empirical
data. Apart from this existence science gets itself into trouble,
simultaneously jeopardizing the ethical framework for the community, when
it has to operate in other domains that require economic, political, and
commercialized interaction. It doesnt seem fitting to claim that these
hindrances of science to be newly arisen in current culture, but perhaps due
to the nature of modern culture it has become increasingly more apparent to
the average citizen that these negative influences actively exist, which
contributes to public readiness to discredit and doubt the profession
collectively.
This recently stimulated sense to doubt and discredit the published
research work of the scientific community is understandable but also
undoubtedly over-accentuated, with a mostly negative connotation but the
possibility to learn, grow, and reform to better regulate the system of
advancing public knowledge. Not all research that is published is going to be
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conducted and presented as it should, that is an inherent truth within the

system, but that doesnt mean that anything should be hastily ruled out.
Recently inflated public skepticism of science is not something entirely bad,
everyone that has an interest in avoiding gullibility should express a certain
extent of suspicion constantly, but it needs to be implemented in a useful
way. The entire functioning body of science should honor the principle of
constructive skepticism, which implies not jumping to conclusions but
expressing an interest in whether the procedures, instruments, techniques,
and analyses in a research program can be trusted. This is not to be
confused with destructive skepticism, which would be more vested in being
doubtful of someones work due to previous fallbacks or lowly level of
prestige. Skepticism is what drives the confirmation or refutation of theories,
and can be associated with the core attributes of science as a whole, but it
must be allocated in the right places in the right way for it to be
advantageous. In order to disrupt the scientific Matthew effect and its
resulting hierarchy the ubiquitous implementation of unbiased yet critical
skepticism is needed within the community, which is not to say that the
results of this skepticism should lead to the degradation of the fields
reputation as a whole simply for self-regulating. Just like any other system
embedded into the public social interactional sphere it was only a matter of
time before corruption and bias would start to begin penetrating, but feasibly
it will ultimately be for the better. The scientific field has grown in size and
influence where it is now integrated seamlessly throughout society, but at
the same time it becomes an entity exponentially more difficult to regulate.
A remodeling of the infrastructure of the scientific field is warranted to adapt
to modern times, and although far from a solution, the innate tendency to be
skeptical yet critical is certainly a start for thinning out the most fundamental
principles of scientific progression.