Systematicity is necessary but not sufficient: on the problem of facsimile science

Paul Hoyningen-Huene argues that what makes scientific knowledge special is its systematic character, and that this can be used to solve the demarcation problem. He labels this STDC: “Systematicity Theory’s Demarcation Criterion.” This paper argues that STDC fails, because there are areas of intellectual activity that are highly systematic, but that the great majority of scientists and historians and philosophers of science do not accept as scientific. These include homepathy, creationism, and climate change denial. I designate these activities “facsimile sciences” because they mimic the appearance of science but are not, by the standards of philosophers and scientists, scientific. This suggests that we need additional criteria to demarcate science from non-science and/ or nonsense.

     

In Defense of the Epistemic Imperative

Sample (Philos Sci 82(5):856–866, 2015) argues that scientists ought not to believe that their theories are true because they cannot fulfill the epistemic obligation to take the diachronic perspective on their theories. I reply that Sample’s argument imposes an inordinately heavy epistemic obligation on scientists, and that it spells doom not only for scientific theories but also for observational beliefs and philosophical ideas that Samples endorses. I also delineate what I take to be a reasonable epistemic obligation for scientists. In sum, philosophers ought to impose on scientists only an epistemic standard that they are willing to impose on themselves.     

Kuhnian Revolutions Revisited

I re-examine Kuhn’s account of scientific revolutions. I argue that the sorts of events Kuhn regards as scientific revolutions are a diverse lot, differing in significant ways. But, I also argue that Kuhn does provide us with a principled way to distinguish revolutionary changes from non-revolutionary changes in science. Scientific revolutions are those changes in science that (1) involve taxonomic changes, (2) are precipitated by disappointment with existing practices, and (3) cannot be resolved by appealing to shared standards. I argue that an important and often overlooked dimension of the Kuhnian account of scientific change is the shift in focus from theories to research communities. Failing to make this shift in perspective might lead one to think that when individual scientists change theories a scientific revolution has occurred. But, according to Kuhn, it is research communities that undergo revolutionary changes, not individual scientists. I show that the change in early modern astronomy is aptly characterized as a Kuhnian revolution.     

Libertarianism,Climate Change,and Individual Responsibility

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that (i) even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, (ii) although the boundary-crossings that are due to our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and (iii) there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle.

     

Who’s Winning the War Against Science?

There is an outcry among scientists that they are being attacked on multiple fronts by fake news, alternative facts, climate change denial, fossil fuel industries, shrinking government funding, postmodernism, and religion. Is this siege mentality realistic or paranoid? It’s realistic. This article encourages theologians and other religious leaders to ally themselves with scientists in defense of evidence-based judgments in public policy-making.     

The Effectiveness of Couple Therapy

Abstract

Most theories and methods about couple dierapy are developed and tested in Anglo-Saxon countries. In this clinical study, we tested these theories and methods within a Swedish public health context. We assessed the outcomes of 131 couples (262 individuals) using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and the Family Climate (FC) survey. Initially, the couples displayed severe marital distress and a dysfunctional family climate. Both marital satisfaction and family climate improved considerably, which confirmed the effectiveness of these methods in a Swedish context.     

A feminist argument against statism: public and private in theories of global justice

Cosmopolitanism and statism represent the two dominant liberal theoretical standpoints in the current debate on global distributive justice. In this paper, I will develop a feminist argument that recommends that statist approaches be rejected. This argument has its roots in the feminist critique of liberal theories of social justice. In Justice, Gender, and the Family Susan Moller Okin argues that many liberal egalitarian theories of justice are inadequate because they assume a strict division between public and private spheres. I will argue that this inadequacy is replicated in statist approaches to global justice. To demonstrate this, I will show how an analogue of Okin's critique of Rawls's A Theory of Justice can be extended to his The Law of Peoples. I will conclude that statist theories inevitably assume a strong divide between public and private spheres and that by doing so they allow for situations marked by gross injustice which anyone concerned with the welfare of the world's most vulnerable should find unacceptable.     

Don't Tell Me What I Don't Want to Hear! Politicization and Ideological Conflict Explain Why Citizens Have Lower Trust in Climate Scientists and Economists Than in Other Natural Scientists

Studies suggest that citizens have higher trust in some groups of scientists than in others. However, we still know little about the causes of these trust gaps. The current study fills this knowledge gap by examining Norwegian citizens' trust in climate scientists, economists, and so-called “less politicized natural scientists.” I argue that trust in climate scientists and economists is lower than trust in less politicized natural scientists because the former fields are politicized, while the latter are not. Politicization strengthens ideological conflicts between citizens' ideology and research produced by climate scientists and economists, which leads to lower trust in these groups of scientists. I test this argument by running regression analyses on data from a representative survey of the Norwegian population. The results support the argument: Citizens have significantly higher trust in less politicized natural scientists than in both climate scientists and economists, and these differences can be explained by ideological biases in trust. Citizens with a proeconomic growth ideology have significantly lower trust in climate scientists than in less politicized natural scientists, and citizens with a left-wing economic ideology have significantly lower trust in economists than in less politicized natural scientists.     

The UK Hybrid Embryo Controversy: Delegitimising Counterpublics

The UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990 was revised in 2008 in response to legal challenges, societal changes and clinical advances since 1990. A provision permitting the creation of animal–human hybrid embryos was the subject of an extremely effective public relations (PR) campaign by embryo scientists and other supporters of such experimentation. In response, science correspondents of the ‘serious’ or ‘quality’ press commented favourably on these PR activities; this validation supplemented key messages in their press releases. The approval conferred on attempts to shape public opinion was explicitly contrasted with the public consultation exercise conducted by the UK Department of Health in 2005. Press coverage of the campaign demonstrated asymmetrical framings of the representativeness of public opinion and scientists' accounts of their proposed research. Scientists' views were represented as objective and therefore a legitimate basis for policymaking, in contrast with subjective views of putatively uninformed or opposed publics. Such opponents were cast as a counterpublic. The public interest was limited to evaluating the science on its own terms, thus pre-empting consideration of the possibility that public interests and scientists' interests may not coincide.     

The “death of freud”; and the rebirth of free psychoanalytic inquiry

The relevance of Grunbaum's recent critique of psychoanalytic theory is explored as it relates to relational/interpersonal theories. Griinbaum finds no scientific evidence for repression, the cornerstone of psychoanalysis. I argue that studies demonstrating the effects of motivated, unconscious processes are beginning to emerge in psychological research. This research, as well as interpersonal theory, refers to these processes as dissociated, not “repressed.”; I agree with Griinbaum that scientific validation of psychoanalytic theories of the mind, personality, and change cannot be gleaned from case studies alone. In relational theories the analytic situation is admittedly “contaminated”; with the analyst's participation by its very nature. There is beginning to be support for some relational hypotheses, but measures to validate these hypotheses are only now being developed. Grunbaum's criticisms have come at a time when the convergence between relational theories and theories in social/clinical psychology makes it more likely that relational hypotheses will be articulated in a more precise manner by researchers, if not by analysts.

The issues of the difficulty of measuring unconscious processes and the quest for knowledge seemingly beyond human limitations are addressed. Psychoanalysis is not only less than scientific, but more encompassing, in that it is also a creative activity that cannot be understood through science alone.

Science is not enough, nor art: In this work patience plays a part [Goethe].

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious.... To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is [Albert Einstein, quoted in Pagels, 1985].     

The Greta Thunberg Effect: Familiarity with Greta Thunberg predicts intentions to engage in climate activism in the United States

Despite Greta Thunberg's popularity, research has yet to investigate her impact on the public's willingness to take collective action on climate change. Using cross-sectional data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (N = 1,303), we investigate the “Greta Thunberg Effect,” or whether exposure to Greta Thunberg predicts collective efficacy and intentions to engage in collective action. We find that those who are more familiar with Greta Thunberg have higher intentions of taking collective actions to reduce global warming and that stronger collective efficacy beliefs mediate this relationship. This association between familiarity with Greta Thunberg, collective efficacy beliefs, and collective action intentions is present even after accounting for respondents’ overall support for climate activism. Moderated mediation models testing age and political ideology as moderators of the “Greta Thunberg Effect” indicate that although the indirect effect of familiarity with Greta Thunberg via collective efficacy is present across all age-groups, and across the political spectrum, it may be stronger among those who identify as more liberal (than conservative). Our findings suggest that young public figures like Greta Thunberg may motivate collective action across the U.S. public, but their effect may be stronger among those with a shared political ideology. Implications for future research and for broadening climate activists’ appeals across the political spectrum are discussed.     

Empathic Access: The Missing Ingredient in Personal Identity

Abstract

Philosophical discussions of personal identity depend upon thought experiments which describe psychological vicissitudes and question whether the original person survives in the person resulting from the described change. These cases are meant to determine the types of psychological change compatible with personal continuation. Two main accounts of identity try to capture this distinction; psychological continuity theories and narrative theories. I argue that neither fully succeeds since both overlook the importance of a relationship I call “empathic access.” I define empathic access and discuss its role in a complete account of personal identity.     

Core social motives explain responses to collective action issues

Managing collective action issues such as pandemics and climate change requires major social and behavioral change. Dominant approaches to addressing these issues center around information provision and financial incentives to shift behavior, yet, these approaches are rarely effective without integrating insights from psychological research on motivation. By accurately characterizing human motives, social scientists can identify when and why individuals engage, and facilitate behavior change and public engagement. Here, we use the core social motives model to sort social psychological theories into five fundamental social motives: to Belong, Understand, Control, self-Enhance, and Trust. We explain how each motive can improve or worsen collective action issues, and how this framework can be further developed towards a comprehensive social psychological perspective to collective action issues.     

Jung's Lament

This article has two premises. First, that depth psychology is more an art than a science, and second, that expanding imagination is the primary method of therapy. Both Jung and Freud considered themselves scientists, yet both had ambivalent relationships with artists and writers. Freud was given the Goethe award for literature and never the Nobel Prize for medicine, whereas Jung was confronted by both his anima and Herbert Read concerning his devaluation of his own artistic direction as well as of modern art generally. I am proposing through the article's fictional style, that in this age of evidenced-based medicine, we, as therapists, have much more to learn from writers and their fictional stories than from the abstract fantasies of science. I believe we have made an error in our field by turning so completely to developmental theories and object-relation theorists for our method. Jung hinted as early as 1916, in his paper “The Transcendent Function,” that there was a way of engaging the soul directly and allowing its voice and character to emerge. I am proposing that if we truly believe that the psyche is autonomous, then all therapy should be an encounter with “the other.” If this were the case, then active imagination could be developed as a wider and more inclusive method.

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.

―Sigmund Freud     

Climate change denial and beliefs about science

Synthese - Social scientists have offered a number of explanations for why Americans commonly deny that human-caused climate change is real. In this paper, I argue that these explanations neglect...     

Apocalypse soon? Dire messages reduce belief in global warming by contradicting just-world beliefs

Though scientific evidence for the existence of global warming continues to mount, in the United States and other countries belief in global warming has stagnated or even decreased in recent years. One possible explanation for this pattern is that information about the potentially dire consequences of global warming threatens deeply held beliefs that the world is just, orderly, and stable. Individuals overcome this threat by denying or discounting the existence of global warming, and this process ultimately results in decreased willingness to counteract climate change. Two experiments provide support for this explanation of the dynamics of belief in global warming, suggesting that less dire messaging could be more effective for promoting public understanding of climate-change research.     

ECO‐ANXIETY,TRAGEDY, AND HOPE: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

This article addresses the problem of “eco‐anxiety” by integrating results from numerous fields of inquiry. Although climate change may cause direct psychological and existential impacts, vast numbers of people already experience indirect impacts in the form of depression, socio‐ethical paralysis, and loss of well‐being. This is not always evident, because people have developed psychological and social defenses in response, including “socially constructed silence.” I argue that this situation causes the need to frame climate change narratives as emphasizing hope in the midst of tragedy. Framing the situation simply as a threat or a possibility does not work. Religious communities and the use of methods which include spirituality have an important role in enabling people to process their deep emotions and existential questions. I draw also from my experiences from Finland in enabling cooperation between natural scientists and theologians in order to address climate issues.     

The pessimistic induction and the exponential growth of science reassessed

My aim is to evaluate a new realist strategy for addressing the pessimistic induction, Ludwig Fahrbach’s (Synthese 180:139–155, 2011) appeal to the exponential growth of science. Fahrbach aims to show that, given the exponential growth of science, the history of science supports realism. I argue that Fahrbach is mistaken. I aim to show that earlier generations of scientists could construct a similar argument, but one that aims to show that the theories that they accepted are likely true. The problem with this is that from our perspective on the history of science we know their argument is flawed. Consequently, we should not be impressed or persuaded by Fahrbach’s argument. Fahrbach has failed to identify a difference that matters between today’s theories and past theories. But realists need to find such a difference if they are to undermine the pessimistic induction.     

Eliminating Terms of Confusion: Resolving the Liberal–Republican Dispute

John Rawls thinks republicanism is compatible with his political liberalism. Philip Pettit insists that the two conflict in important ways. In this paper, I make sense of this dispute by employing David Chalmers’s method of elimination to reveal the meaning underlying key terms in Rawls’s political liberalism and Pettit’s republicanism. This procedure of disambiguating terms will show how the two theories defend the same institutional arrangement on the same grounds. The procedure thus vindicates Rawls’s view of the two theories being compatible. The reason for this compatibility is that both theories are politicized—that is, they are constructed to attract the compliance of all reasonable members of a modern, pluralistic society.