Abstract
The demarcation problem has been one of the most important problems in philosophy of science for centuries. Still, the problem has never been solved. The failures, in fact, have been so numerous and so diverse and they have gone on for so long that Larry Laudan issued a death warrant for the problem decades ago. Who would have thought, then, that the demarcation problem would arise again, but with none of its old challenges?! True, the new version is more modest than the old: it seeks only to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate value influences in science, not legitimate from illegitimate science. No matter. That modesty enables successful demarcations to be more readily provided. After all, modern science right from the start was billed as a way—indeed, the way—to improve the lot of humanity and make the world a better place (elsewhere I have called this “Bacon’s promise”). Which value influences are the legitimate ones should thus be easy enough to settle: they are simply those that actually yield this happy outcome. Of course, the devil is in the details. So, consider one of the most pressing societal issues of our time, the structural racism that continues to oppress minority groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. Focus especially on Blacks/African Americans in the U.S. In this case the sad truth is that science, far from making things better as it was supposed to do, has for centuries made things worse. The illegitimate values that helped to produce this result included, of course, the racist values that shaped so much of the social and biological research that was done. And to an alarming degree this research is still being done. But these illegitimate values also included the racist values that continue to shape so much of the important research that is not being done, the research that would be helpful to Blacks if it were done. This is the agnotological part of the story, and it includes, as well, the failure to encourage and support the Black scientists and would-be scientists who would most likely do that research. But what of the legitimate values, the values that would produce the flourishing of Blacks? This was, remember, the outcome of science that was supposed to occur. Such legitimate values clearly include anti-racist—egalitarian—values. For it is these values that motivate and shape the critiques and corrections of the past and present science that is harmful to Blacks. Still, these legitimate values have to include quite a bit more than anti-racist values. For, critiques and corrections, as crucial as they are, only help to control the damage to Blacks that racist science causes. They don’t go the extra distance to produce the flourishing of Blacks. What else is needed is a question Black scientists have been exploring. I will suggest that an analogous question arises within feminist science studies although it has not been recognized. This is just one of the interesting issues that the new demarcation problem brings to light.
