Scientific Progress and Policy

Scientism has recently experienced a resurgence of interest in philosophy. One version of scientism often defended is ontological scientism—the view that any kind or property not mentioned in the theories of science has only a subordinate, secondary kind of reality. It is worth noting that a dominant tradition in the history of philosophy of science—classical American pragmatism—undertook decades of critical engagement with contemporaneous scientistic beliefs, many of which resemble those being debated at the present time. This anti-scientistic philosophy has multiple points of relevance for contemporary debates and defenses of ontological scientism.

Philosophers of science tend to adjudicate debates about the value-free ideal by appealing to case-studies of value-laden science. Interpreting case-studies, however, faces a methodological challenge: measuring the causal impact of values where values interact with myriad causal factors. This challenge can be met, but not easily. Insofar as it is unmet, philosophers would do well to attend to other research questions. I propose we model values in science as goals as opposed to decision vectors. Rather than investigate proper reasons for scientific choices, we might focus on investigating proper goals of scientific inquiry.

When does science progress? I argue that recently proffered accounts of scientific progress are untenable. In contemporary discussions, a distinction between a scientific episode constituting progress and promoting progress is made: An episode may promote scientific progress even though it does not constitute scientific progress. By paying attention to scientific practice, in particular to scientists’ appraisal of developments in techniques and methodologies, I show that the constitution/promotion distinction is problematic. This is bad news for the extant accounts since virtually all the accounts appeal to the constitution/promotion distinction.

How should universities evaluate scientific research? This paper critically assesses the quantitative approach to the evaluation of scientific outputs based on publication metrics. First, I provide an overview of the standard indicators, such as Impact Factor and h-index. Secondly, I show that one limitation of the metrics system is that it lacks adequate criteria to distinguish research fields that should be kept separate for evaluative purposes. Finally, I claim that this limitation negatively affects the use of such metrics. In particular, it risks to hinder the development of normal science in a Kuhnian sense in some of such fields.