There is the conception amongst laymen and scientists alike that science “proceeds where the data takes it”. Science occasionally is taboo – think how Copernican’s views were taboo in his time (I think this can be argued exactly how controversial he was but that’s for another time); or more recently Darwin is the most obvious example of science pushing the envelope of acceptability. But are there taboos in science?
By this I mean, that in the many encounters of science with a culture, does it occur sometimes that science is trumped by the mores of the culture? I think the philosophers and historians of science (i.g. Thomas Kuhn) would say yes; there is a constant exchange, a tug of war between the two and when science wins, we identify that with the now hackneyed phrase, “the paradigm shift”.
However I don’t think this struggle is thought of much and we more or less consider science today to be impervious to the pressures of society and its interest groups. Much of the anti-ID vitriol is due to scientists wanting to keep their profession ‘pure’ from the intrusions of religion.
Aside from the more common interface between science and religion that we hear an awful lot of, there is also an interface between science and other elements of our culture. I ask the question, are there certain hypotheses that simply could not be accepted even if an overwhelming body of evidence supported them? Hypothesis that did not go against the so-called scientific method (like ID is purported to do) but hypotheses that just went against the grain of our culture. I think that yes there are hypotheses like that.
I bring this topic up because I recently finished a controversial book written in the mid-nineties which the topic of IQ variability between races was discussed at length. The book’s title is The Bell Curve. Many books have been written to (supposedly, I have not read them) debunk The Bell Curve. First of all, as a disclaimer, I will not discuss the veracity of the claims in The Bell Curve or the claim of racial variability of intelligence. What I want to probe is the topic of simply asking a taboo question. I think most would admit that saying something akin to, “African-Americans, in general, have lower intelligence than white Americans” is not acceptable in many corners of our society. Now hypothetically, this is a question that could be answered through the use of IQ test et cetera. And if our tests showed it was true? Would it be accepted? Of course, as is now the case, the accuracy of the tests can be disputed; environmental factors can be blamed et cetera. Our cultural mores could fight back quite hard, I’m sure.
Other types of scientific enterprise that might be classified as taboo? How about the innate mathematical/scientific skills of males and females? This got a lot of press a few years back when the president of an Ivy League school said that there was a difference. And then there is homosexuality. Is it innate? Is is a ‘defect’? Can it be ‘reversed’? In some sense, these are questions that could be answered by the scientific method (and maybe they have, I don’t know) but one must also wonder if what we think has been answered has not been skewed by cultural assumptions. There is the ‘gay uncle’ idea in evolutionary biology of how homosexuality has not been selected out of the gene pool.
I don’t know much about these fields and I won’t pretend to know the answers but I think we must be aware of the presuppositions and subjectivity that go into some science (especially science that is directly concerned with human life, ethics, and politics).
Tags: culture, ethics, evolution, intelligence, Intelligent Design, nature, philosophy, race, science
