Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 192 pages
• Published by: University of Illinois Press May 1, 1994
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0252064364
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0252064364
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Weighs: 8 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
To put some of the adventure back in everyday science, this study is the place to start. Bauer, chemistry professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, upends current contentions about science literacy in a small, dense book that could be the nucleus of a restructuring of how science works in our culture, or, in the author's terms, how its reputation works. The call for more science literacy is a shibboleth in this STS-based (science, technology, society) exposition, which is a sort of deconstruction of the general image of science. Excising popular fallacies, Bauer argues that science is particular knowledge embedded in its time's social context and, therefore, in continuous change. His critique is radical: demystify the science we learn as fact ("textbook science"), keep "frontier science" (research) from being overwhelmed by structural forces in technocracy, avoid "scientism" as a basis of social policy. Science can be made to serve us better, stresses the author, but not as a new mythology.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Concern has recently arisen over the quality of American education and our declining scientific and research orientation. Debates are emerging about what direction public universities should be taking as we head into the twenty-first century. Why and to what extent should society know about science? This book will help readers come to an informed understanding about the place of science and technology in today's world.

Reader Reviews
Very valuable discussion of science; science, technology, & society (STS) I consider this short book by Professor Bauer a must read for any person, scientist or non-scientist, who wants a concise but thorough discussion of the way science works, and of the myth, really ideal, of the scientific method, and most importantly, of what the author calls STS: science, technology, and society. I found the book remarkable because Professor Bauer is a practicing scientist, yet he delineates a philosophy of science from a very objective, dispassionate point of view. While he rightly praises science much in the last chapter, most of the rest of the book focuses not only on the limitations of science and scientific knowledge, but which sciences really are and are not scientific as he defines it. Clearly the fact that Professor Bauer has been the dean of arts and sciences at Virginia Tech has given him a balance between science and the arts, and has allowed him to see science both as an insider and an outsider. Thus the main thrust of the book is to show that what is most vital for the layperson is not to attempt to become "scientifically literate," which the author claims would be a very time-consuming task, even for a college student, but rather to see that science is a human activity whose theories and models are limited not only because scientists are human, but because almost without exception scientific "truths" are at some point superseded by better "truths," a process which repeats itself ad infinitum. It is therefore far better for the layperson to try to understand science's relationship to technology and society. The book does cover the relationship between science and technology well, but the author seems to be content to let the reader explore science's relationship to society through other sources, which I did not see in the references. Still, this is a very minor shortcoming in my view because of the many great insights and sources which he does provide. A key point stressed by Prof. Bauer in different contexts is that the power of science is that it is agreed on by consensus, but that does not always mean that the consensus is right, again because humans are fallible, and because data is *always* interpreted according to a theory or some other bias. The author, as have many other philosophers of science, refutes the common belief that in science knowledge is gained exclusively by strict Baconian impartial induction. Examples are cited where scientists could not accept data obtained wholly by scientific methods because it didn't fit their prejudices. The chapter called "The So-Called Scientific Method" is the best I've read on why the empirical scientific method, while a wonderful ideal to strive for, is nevertheless a myth. Prof. Bauer makes many important points, such as that some sciences (physics) are theory-driven, while other sciences are observation-driven (geology); some sciences can make precise theories through specific experiments (physics and chemistry), while other sciences (cosmology and paleoanthropology) cannot run experiments and are thus very "data deficient." As well chemistry, Prof. Bauer's specialty, is itself sub-divided into disciplines that work according to different methodolgies. Another chapter that is also outstanding is the following chapter, "How Science Really Works." Prof. Bauer uses as the main theme the excellent analogy devised by Michael Polyani of scientific problem solving as a puzzle of different teams communicating with each other, getting at the truth, piece by piece, separately but in tandem nevertheless. Another theme that is very helpful in this chapter is the author's cogent distinction between textbook science and frontier science. Textbook science is almost always reliable because it has passed the test of time through repeated verification. On the other hand, frontier science, which is unfortunately what is usually reported in the news precisely because it is "new" and exciting, often turns out to be dead wrong. The chapter also discusses those levels of science between these two "extremes." After reading this chapter I feel that I now have a much clearer way to assess the truth of whatever science I might be reading about. There is much more to this book than I can go into here. Again, I recommend it very highly to those who want a clear and insightful perspective on science and STS.