Rediscovering Science in Religion and Society: A New Way to Talk About Science

Abstract

Recent attention in the media and among students has renewed the relevance of the question what should be considered scientific, and what place science has in contemporary society. To get an overview of the theoretical framework, selections from philosophers of science Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Bruno Latour are reviewed to see what they consider essential to science. The expectation was to find three conflicting definitions, but instead it is concluded that these philosophers do not necessarily disagree with one another. They describe different aspects of the same concept, but focus on either science as method, as a philosophy and set of scientific values, or as descriptive politics. None of them are truly wrong, because all of what they describe is crucial to knowledge production as a whole. The third of the above-mentioned views, that of science as description, can be considered the most controversial. This thesis elaborates on it in the form of Robin Horton, who writes about religious theory and makes a comparison to science. He argues that both science and religion are about explanation, prediction, and control, and about creating deeper meaning by imposing patterns on unobservable phenomena. In addition, both represent a reflection of society while providing the cognitive tools to engage in that society, and operate on a ‘Theory Of’/’Theory For’ dynamic, which is responsive to pre-existing beliefs and needs. This critical reflection is meant to show how constitutive all of the sciences are to human civilization, democracy, and society. Despite impersonal ideals of the laboratory and the ivory tower, science is very strongly linked to the experience of reality and society: to who we think we are, to what the world is, and where we think we should be going. The main argument is therefore that all three elements of science, and the different modes and topics of research, should be investigated equally and understood within this distributed context. No single discipline is outside the politics of knowledge described in Horton and Latour: to deny certain disciplines their validity is equal to denying the corresponding parts in society. Inquiry into the nature of disciplines usually follow method, result or history. This standard needs to be revised by asking the right questions: a shift from only what a science is for, to also what it is about. This is important because, following Latour and Horton’s line of reasoning, a discipline itself is largely the product of what it studies. Secondly, it is suggested that one way to showcase and promote this vision of science - and to reinvigorate the human sciences in the process - is to teach accessible concept-based courses, which seek application in people’s lives and careers.