Science as Doctrine

Applying Taxonomic Thinking

First Check Your Own Thinking

Is a doctrine a science?Closed No—why should it be?

Is science a doctrine?Closed Yes. Those who say "No" do so because of discomfort with the term's associations with dogma or belief.

Are scientific disciplines/theories/studies doctrines?Closed No, of course not.

Criticisms & Criteria

Criticisms of doctrines that they are not scientific—in that they do not get tested via the usual research methods (PH’2)—miss the point. The questions to be asked of a doctrine are: 

  • Does the doctrine illuminate?
  • Can the doctrine stand the test of reflection and reason?
  • Does the doctrine provide ethical guidance?
  • Can the doctrine enable benefit for a person and/or society?

Good doctrines pass these tests. Poor doctrines fail abysmally—but the failure of any one doctrine is irrelevant to the worth of a different doctrine or the value of doctrines in principle.

Science is unequivocally a doctrine. Common-sense buttressed by an extensive academic philosophy of science literature makes it very clear that science operates with metaphysical assumptions that cannot themselves be proven by scientific research methods.

Evaluated as a doctrine, science passes with flying colours. It is surely undeniable that science illuminates, that it has solid reasonable foundations, and that it has been of great benefit to mankind despite the various limitations it assuredly has or the various misuses to which it has been put.

ClosedMore about science as a doctrine:

As usual in doctrines, the vast majority of the population are not adherents and barely grasp what science is about. Because the public does not understand science, university chairs have ben set up to promote public understanding. But most people are resistant and easily seduced by knowledge claims based on no more than assertion or speculation or malicious intent. Even worse for science adherents, the public cannot tolerate the intrinsic uncertainty of the scientific method. So, given the opportunity, political demands chip away at scientific integrity.

Science, like all doctrines, resists criticism from without—no matter how valid. In modern times, social scientists have systematically studied scientific practices, but made virtually no inroads on identified failings. It is not enough to be committed, you must be a leading scientist in order to be socially permitted to challenge any basic aspect of the practice of science. Scandals like failures of replication, biases against publishing negative results, and failure to report conflicts of interest persist.

Now that science is well-established, prestigious and highly funded, more and more self-styled scientists are actually frauds. Rather than being true adherents to the doctrine, they pursue publication for prestige and popularity. This is not dissimilar to phoney psychoanalysts, hate-inciting buddhists, and others who claim the label while bringing the doctrine into disrepute.

None of the above disturbing features diminishes the power and value of science.

If science is a doctrine, it should have become established in accord with the theoretical (i.e. THEE-doctrinal) structure provided in the preceding topics. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that science’s temporal development does indeed broadly follow this path.

Development of Science

Like any doctrine, science can trace its origins from much earlier ideas. Many elements of the future scientific method were known to the ancient Greeks and mentioned by Aristotle. However, science did not operate as a doctrine that penetrated societies and governed investigations and learning. Instead, a different doctrine based on tradition and dogma, known as scholasticism, became established.

The illumination of science developed in the 16th & 17th Century during a period known as the Scientific Revolution. This was Stage 1...now read on.

Stage-1: The break from scholasticism was made by a series of “founders” including Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), René Descartes (1596-1650), Isaac Newton (1642–1727). These scientist-philosophers grasped, promulgated and actively applied certain fundamental realizations that still remain with us as the foundations of science:

• systematic experimentation is required,
• experiments should be reproducible and results repeatable,
• scepticism is essential,
• deference to authority should not interfere with testing,
• mathematics is the handmaiden of knowledge,
• facts subject to inductive reasoning can lead to discovery of physical laws.

Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620) is an account of these fundamental realizations. In it, he promoted the application of empirical science to everything in the natural world. He argued that knowledge is power and that if mankind can know nature, we can gain power over it and so raise mankind from its helplessness, poverty and misery into a condition of peace, prosperity and security. These are characteristic claims of originators for their illumination.

Stage-2: The early scientists communicated with each other and often competed bitterly over precedence. Small societies were established to exchange ideas and discoveries. Science as a doctrine was referred to as the «scientific method».

Stage 3: Within that early scientific community, the method/doctrine became intrinsic to the actual discovery and was always explained at the same time. So as dissemination of discoveries became prevalent, so did dissemination of the method/doctrine.

Stage 4: In 1660, the Royal Society of London was created to give social visibility to what it called the ‘invisible college’. Its motto: Nullius in verba or "take nobody’s word for it". Publication of Philosophical Transactions commenced in 1665. That journal, which established the principles of scientific priority and peer review, is still in operation. Members, called Fellows, are elected.

Stage 5: Guardians of science emerged in every generation since those early days and the method flourished in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The Royal Society itself thrived and took on the "defender of orthodoxy" role. Guardians are typically high prestige scientists with major discoveries to their name who are totally identified with science and enjoy writing in defence of the scientific method. It gradually became a tradition, that unfortunately appears to be still ongoing, to denigrate other doctrines.

Stage 6: The metaphysics, epistemology and ontology that underpin scientific assumptions have a long tradition in philosophy. However, it was only in the 20th Century that science came under the microscope as a doctrine. That exposure led to a host of both criticisms and new understandings. For example, more detailed studies of validity and alternatives to conventional methods have emerged. Notable doctrinal studies that reached public awareness include Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion and Thomas Kuhn’s view that “normal” science is interrupted by scientific revolutions.

Stage 7: As the general public became increasingly educated in the 20th Century, scientific methods became part of the compulsory syllabus in primary and secondary schooling. Scientific discoveries and methods became part of television and now social media. Science was applied to subjects as diverse as advertising, policy-making, marketing, opinion polling and much else. It is safe to say that the science doctrine, in the sense of the value of the scientific method, has finally become a cultural assumption and the Spiral of School Establishment is complete.

The requirements for adherent cohesion, as previously specified, are evident in relation to science.

Scientists support science orthodoxy. The doctrine is buttressed by their responsiveness to any threats, accountability for any activities, demonstrations of credibility, and consent to conventions. Scientists believe in science, are attached to scientific work, feel an obligation to work scientifically, are enthusiastic about science and have been socialized during their training.

Science remains Esoteric

Now that science is culturally embedded, it is rarely criticised on the basis that it is an unprovable doctrine resting on metaphysical assumptions. Such criticism is mainly evident in retaliation for science-based attacks on other forms of knowing.

Despite the triumphs of science and its undoubted completion of the Spiral, the doctrine remains esoteric. Few people appreciate what the scientific method entails and why it is so stoutly defended. Few can tolerate the scepticism, uncertainty and long time scales required by a scientific outlook.

Many people are actively anti-science: inappropriately holding it responsible for the uses to which knowledge has been put, and resenting its emotional demands.

Scientists, like all adherents, often do themselves and their cause a disservice by not perceiving the limitations of their doctrine, and turning a blind eye to doctrinal violations by fellow scientists.

Now:

Originally posted: 30-Sep-2022. Last updated: 20-Mar-2024.