Normal Science Research Articles

Science, Race, and Scientific Truth, Past and Present

This article examines the violation of longstanding scientific norms, in particular universalism, objectivity, and truth orientation by new identity policies such as the principle of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI). The imposition of this principle by public opinion, administration, and mass media, particularly in the United States but also in other countries, contradicts the principle of equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, nationality, and class, by putting the emphasis of assessment on group identities. The implementation of this principle has begun to damage careers, threaten scientists and lower standards in academia. In order to provide a historical perspective, I review how the violation of scientific norms has impacted scientific success in past authoritarian countries, in particular the USSR under Stalin, and Nazi Germany. The comparison with past authoritarian countries does not aim at equating situations from then and now, but can help understand social and political mechanisms of current events. It also highlights in a drastic way consequences that a violation of scientific norms may have for science today.

КОММУНИКАЦИЯ НАУКИ И ОБЩЕСТВА В РАБОТАХ ЗАРУБЕЖНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЕЙ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ БАЗЫ ДАННЫХ PROQUEST DISSERTATIONS & THESES)

Science communication or communication of science and society has become very important in 21st century because of an ever-growing role of science and technology in people’s lives. People themselves have in turn increasingly been engaged in science and technology decision-making. Science communication has been researched abroad for several decades, became meanwhile an independent field of study of which dissertations and thesis are a part. This article describes the collection of international doctoral dissertations included in the world’s most comprehensive repository ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global (PQDT). Taking into consideration the global terminology controversy and the lack of a unified definition of “science communication”, the first stage of study was a combined keyword search using the search terms selected from the PQDT index: attitudes towards science, citizen science, popularization of science, post normal science, public engagement with science, public understanding of science, science communication, scientific literacy. The search resulted in 2213 dissertations written in 1950–2022 in 11 languages from 19 countries. Further analysis showed that the most active research is being carried out in the USA, China, and the UK. 77 % of the works were written in English, 22 % in Chinese. The first works dated back to the 1950s, but an exponential increase in the number of dissertations began only in the 1980s and could be explained by a new policy making formulated in many countries in the second half of the 1980s to ensure developing and improving science communication. At the second stage, another search was carried out for each term separately to have a picture of trends. It is revealed that until the early 2000s the main dissertation topics were attitude towards science and scientific literacy. In the 2000s, such developing topics as public engagement with science, citizen science, and post-normal science reflected the changing nature of science communication and the transition from the one-way communication model “from scientists to public” to models of public participation and engagement. Since the 2010s, research interests have been shifted to public engagement and new ways of scientists and non-scientists interaction. One of the most actively developing directions is the co-production of knowledge aka citizen science, but the problem of scientific literacy also still remains relevant.

Rebalancing commercial and public interests in prioritizing biomedical, social and environmental aspects of health through defining and managing conflicts of interest.

Biomedical research is intended to benefit human beings and their health. Toward that end, scientific norms involve examining and criticizing the work of others and prioritizing questions that should be studied. Yet, in areas of health research where industry is active, it has often utilized well-honed strategies aimed at evading scientific standards and at dominating the research agenda, largely through its financial support and lack of transparency of its research practices. These tactics have now been documented to uniformly support industry products. Commercial entities are aided in this pursuit by public policy that has significantly embedded commercial interests and agendas into federal research funding and infrastructure. Therefore, to understand the resulting landscape and its effect on priority in health research agendas, traditional definitions of individual conflicts of interest (COI) and the less well developed institutional COI must be supplemented by a new construct of structural COI, largely operating as intellectual monopolies, in support of industry. These arrangements often result in financial and reputational resources that assure dominance of commercial priorities in research agendas, crowding out any other interests and ignoring justified returns to the public from investment of its tax dollars. There is no sustained attention to mechanisms by which public interests can be heard, normative issues raised, and then balanced with commercial interests which are transparently reported. Focus on research supporting approval of commercial products ignores social and environmental determinants of health. Commercial bias can invalidate regulatory research protections through obscuring valid risk-benefit ratios considered by IRBs.

The DECAY of Merton’s scientific norms and the new academic ethos

ABSTRACT This article provides a conceptual reformulation of Merton’s scientific ethos widely known by the acronym CUDOS (i.e. communism, universalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism). While Merton perceived the threat to the autonomy of science as coming from outside the walls of academe, mainly in the form of nationalism and racism, the subsequent rise of neoliberalism and global market forces means that the scientific ethos is being undermined largely from within the university itself, leading to the DECAY (i.e. differentialism, egoism, capitalism and advocacy) of CUDOS. The STEM-ification of the humanities and social sciences academic community has led to the rise of a post-academic ethos. This manifests itself in professional pragmatism with academics facing both ways at the same time by remaining largely committed to Mertonian norms in theory but needing to adapt to the performative demands of DECAY as a new set of institutional norms that prevails in practice.

An Empiricism with High Metaphysical Ambitions: On Short’s Charles Peirce and Modern Science

Abstract: T.L. Short’s Charles Peirce and Modern Science, in which he discusses Peirce’s intimate relation to modern science, simultaneously functions as Short’s own philosophical testament. Short’s overall argument is that Peirce takes inquiry to be the main definition of science, implying that all other definition attempts or central issues of science are but products of inquiry: methods, experiments, observations, conclusions, results, syntheses, theory buildings, system constructions, laws, predictions, metaphysical assumptions, scientific values, etc. On this basis, Short develops central Peircean ideas such as inquiry into inquiry, phenomenology, and his “normative sciences” as elements of a reinvigorated and metaphysically ambitious version of empiricism. In this process, however, certain problems appear, such as Short’s tendency to refute any relevance in scientific investigations of systematicity, the a priori, the strive for conclusions and results.

Short on Peirce as a Scientific Philosopher

Abstract: In his new book, Charles Peirce and Modern Science (2022), T. L. Short convincingly presents Charles S. Peirce as a scientific philosopher whose philosophical views were influenced by his empirical and experimental work in geodesy, astronomy, chemistry, and psychology. This includes his treatment of metaphysics, theory of categories, cosmogony, phenomenology or phaneroscopy, semiotics, and normative science. In all of his works, Peirce exemplified the spirit of modern science, not as a system builder looking for final truths, but rather as a fallibilist inquirer who was always ready to refine and revise his conjectures. In these comments, it is first pointed out that there existed a European counterpart to Peirce’s scientific philosophy: the program of “inductive metaphysics,” which is today continued as “abductive metaphysis” by analytic philosophers. Peirce’s contributions to nomological probabilistic explanations are then mentioned as a complement to Short’s treatment of statistical explanation. Finally, it is argued that Short’s remarks about Peirce’s ironical relation to modernity are based on a narrow interpretation of the values and achievements of modernity.

The Principle of Necessity in Hayreddin Karaman's Fatwas

Fiqh, a normative science based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah, is our guide in living Islam in accordance with its own values and the conditions of the day. Although there are many definitions of necessity, necessity is a situation that compels one to do or eat something forbidden by religion. In this context, Hayreddin Karaman, one of today's jurists who contributes with his fatwas and writings on the necessity of necessities, social necessity, and the abuse of the principle of necessity, is in a unique position. This paper aims to reveal Karaman's contribution to the interpretation of the principle of necessity in Islamic law in today's conditions. In this direction, the question of how Karaman reflected the principle of necessity in his fatwas was asked. The literature review method was used to answer this question, and the findings obtained were analyzed. Karaman's acquis, his works, his writings published on various platforms, and scholarly studies about him have been analyzed. Karaman has theoretical explanations and fatwas on in which cases the needs will be considered necessary and how to apply the relevant rule of Mecelle without abuse. Karaman made an essential and up-to-date contribution to Islamic law by developing an understanding of the necessity that he based his ijtihad on. Karaman opposed those who claimed that the door of jurisprudence was closed, and he wanted to rule and resolve new issues and problems with new jurisprudence by developing new issues and problems without abandoning the classical method. He stated that Muslims need the principle of necessity to get out of the bottleneck caused by today's economic and social conditions in implementing Islamic Provisions and presented necessity as an intermediate solution on the way to Islamisation. Karaman distinguishes between individual and social life while operating the principle of necessity. In the individual sphere, necessity ends to the extent that the individual realises his basic needs. On the other hand, the social sphere disappears with the provision of society's power in minimum conditions. According to him, a Muslim must be strong. In order not to be weak, it is necessary to make use of the licence of "temporary lifting of some prohibitions". He has given fatwas based on the principle of necessity on many issues, such as whether or not it is possible to obtain a housing loan granted by the state, the congregation of prayers in polar regions, and the possibility of treatment with alcoholic drugs.

Signs of deliberative applications in the ancient Arabic linguistic lessondièctics as a model

We recently spotted a relationship problem of Arab linguistic heritage to linguistics. This heritage which is still standing up to the latest linguistic theories; The underlying origins and disciplines of the theory of Arabic grammar established by the sculptor in the study and analysis of the linguistic phenomenon. One of the most important features of this theory is what is common in the textbooks of the grammar. So our research is betting on extrapolating the various scientific norms on which the ancient Arabic linguistic lesson was based. and to counteract this with the various theories and scientific principles defined by contemporary Western linguistics in their various synthetic, semantic and deliberative dimensions, Focused on " the deictic expressions " as a witness in our dissertation, Finally, let us present an objective perception of our linguistic heritage that is abundant away from all provisions of value or subjectivity.

Empirical evidence of widespread exaggeration bias and selective reporting in ecology.

In many scientific disciplines, common research practices have led to unreliable and exaggerated evidence about scientific phenomena. Here we describe some of these practices and quantify their pervasiveness in recent ecology publications in five popular journals. In an analysis of over 350 studies published between 2018 and 2020, we detect empirical evidence of exaggeration bias and selective reporting of statistically significant results. This evidence implies that the published effect sizes in ecology journals exaggerate the importance of the ecological relationships that they aim to quantify. An exaggerated evidence base hinders the ability of empirical ecology to reliably contribute to science, policy, and management. To increase the credibility of ecology research, we describe a set of actions that ecologists should take, including changes to scientific norms about what high-quality ecology looks like and expectations about what high-quality studies can deliver.

The Ottoman Approach to Scientific Classification in Tafsir History: A Study of Taskopruluzade Ahmad Efendi’s ‘Miftâhu’s-Saâde’

This study presents an analytical investigation of the historical aspect of tafsir within the Ottoman tradition, as found in the literary composition "Miftāhus-Sa'âda," which was authored by Taskopruluzade (d. 968/1561). This work holds a significant role in the classification of knowledge, serving as the foundational underpinning for the establishment of scientific traditions within the Ottoman Empire. Through the lens of this work, the historical narrative of tafsir is recontextualized to align with the scientific framework inherent in the Ottoman tradition, thus imparting a distinctive character to the realm of Qur'anic interpretation during the Ottoman Empire's tenure. Employing historical research methodologies encompassing heuristics, verification, interpretation, and historiography, this investigation critically examines the history of scientific classification, a bedrock for shaping the taxonomy of categorized disciplines within their respective contexts. The research delves deeply into the composition of "Miftâhu’s-Saâde," offering a comprehensive perspective on the evolution of tafsir history. The findings of this research underscore that, in the process of Science Classification congruent with the scientific ethos of the Ottoman Empire, Taskopruluzade, within "Miftâhu’s-Saâde," undertakes three pivotal tasks. Firstly, he evaluates classical tafsir works through the lens of scientific classification norms entrenched in the Ottoman tradition. Secondly, these appraised tafsir works are juxtaposed with others, facilitating the establishment of benchmarks and taxonomies that wield considerable influence in guiding the trajectory of tafsir history. Thirdly, a comprehensive exploration ensues into the interplay between interpretive works and the activities of interpretation. The implications of this discourse offer a substantive contribution, deepening the comprehension of tafsir history and the classification of knowledge within the scholarly milieu of the Ottoman Empire.

Boundary experts: Science and politics in measuring the Sustainable Development Goals

AbstractThe Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) purport to cleanly separate politics and technical matters, embodied by the political negotiation of goals and targets, and the technical creation of an indicator framework. This article analyses how this boundary between science and politics is managed in practice. The statisticians tasked with selecting indicators through the Inter‐agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG‐SDGs) are seconded to a global process from national statistical offices. Boundary management requires acceptance of certain normative and political aspects of creating an indicator framework, such as claims to national relevance. Others, like overt national intervention, are however considered impermissible. Each statistician must manage their role as a boundary expert that experience irresolvable tensions due to representing specific countries while being mandated to propound scientific practices and norms. Building on this empirical inquiry, the article sketches out a new normative ideal for knowledge pluralism in the measurement of sustainable development. It argues that indicator processes would benefit from more pluralistic indicator bodies than the IAEG‐SDGs. Including diversified knowledge and perspectives from civil society and international organisations would explicate already existing political contestation. It would also contribute to capturing more of the complexities of sustainable development in future monitoring frameworks through consideration of a broader selection of methodologies.

Incompatibility between Euclidean Geometry and the Algebraic Solutions of Geometric Problems

The transition from the “early-modern” mathematical and scientific norms of establishing conventional Euclidean geometric proofs has experienced quite mixed modes of reasoning. For instance, a careful investigation based on the continued attempts by different practitioners to resolve the geometric trisectability of a plane angle suggests serious hitches with the established algebraic angles non-trisectability proofs. These faults found the root for the difficult geometric question about having straightedge and compass proofs for either the trisectability or the non-trisectability of angles. One of the evident gaps regarding the norms for establishing the Euclidean geometric proofs concerns the incompatibility between the smugly asserted algebraic-geometric proofs and the desired inherent Euclidean geometric proofs. We consider an algebraically translated proof of the geometric angle trisection scheme proposed by [1]. We assert and prove that there is a complete incompatibility between the geometric and the algebraic methods of proofs, and hence the algebraic methods should not be used as authoritative means of proving Euclidean geometric problems. The paper culminates by employing the incompatibility proofs in justifying the independence of the Euclidean geometric system.

Beyond Kuhnian paradigms: Normal science and theory dependence in ecology.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn has influenced scientists for decades. It focuses on a progression of science involving periodic, fundamental shifts-revolutions-from one existing paradigm to another. Embedded in this theory is the concept of normal science, that is, scientists work within the confines of established theory, a process often compared to a type of puzzle-solving. This Kuhnian aspect of scientific research has received little attention relative to the much-scrutinized concepts of revolutions and paradigms. We use Kuhn's normal science framework to reflect on the way ecologists practice science. This involves a discussion of how theory dependence influences each step of the scientific method, specifically, how past experiences and existing research frameworks guide the way ecologists acquire knowledge. We illustrate these concepts with ecological examples, including food web structure and the biodiversity crisis, emphasizing that the way one views the world influences how that person engages in scientific research. We conclude with a discussion of how Kuhnian ideas inform ecological research at practical levels, such as influences on grant funding allocation, and we make a renewed call for the inclusion of philosophical foundations of ecological principles in pedagogy. By studying the processes and traditions of how science is carried out, ecologists can better direct scientific insight to address the world's most pressing environmental problems.

Playing the long game: Carrying out principled tests of psychological phenomena before developing formal theories

AbstractSome participants in the conversation about changing scientific norms have recommended that researchers articulate detailed, formalized theories from the outset. Also, leading psychology journals have historically prioritized research that conveys at least the appearance of a satisfying theoretical conclusion. We argue that simply demonstrating social phenomena is a vital component of the theory‐generation process itself, and that it is counterproductive to require authors to derive all predictions from established theoretical frameworks. Our point goes beyond calling for descriptive and exploratory research: much can be learned by carrying out carefully formulated confirmatory tests of a phenomenon before claiming to know its relationship with past or future theories. The heart of science is the practice of subjecting ideas to systematic, transparent tests, regardless of whether those ideas stem from broad, thoroughly articulated theories or provisional reasoning about phenomena. Publication standards that require definitive theoretical or practical conclusions incentivize hasty ones. We need researchers playing the long game, so we need outlets for research that has not fully established what is going on and why. This special issue aimed to provide such an outlet.

Linguistic and Didactic Potential of Working with Text in the Course of Proffessionally Oriented Teaching the Russian Language to Inophones — Future International Lawyers

Communicative and functional co-direction in the process of learning and teaching any foreign language gives the text the function of the highest unit of teaching speech communication. The article aims to study the linguistic and methodological basis of teaching foreign students professionally-oriented communication of international legal character in Russian. The aim of the study is to develop a comprehensive methodologically grounded approach to the process of teaching the language of specialty to future specialists in the field of international law and international relations. The research is based on an interdisciplinary approach to the problem under study, since the formation of professional competencies in this group of foreign students takes place in the Russian language, which is primarily a means of obtaining a specialty for them. The general scientific methods of cognition used in this study include, in particular, observation of the speech behavior of foreign speakers in the educational and scientific spheres of their activity, analysis of textual and linguistic material relevant to the students, experiment as a means of approbation of the developed methodology, as well as analysis of the obtained results. The article substantiates a comprehensive approach to the study of professionally oriented text, describes grammatical, lexical and conceptual difficulties characteristic of professional non-adapted texts in the specialty “Jurisprudence. International Law”. The novelty of the approach lies in the description of the typology of pre-text, and post-text exercises and tasks that contribute to the acquisition of scientific speech norms by foreign speakers, the formation of receptive, reproductive and productive speech activity relevant for professional communication of a future international lawyer. At the same time, the lexical material, on the basis of which the above system of exercises and tasks (“ETS”) was created, has not been previously included in such studies. The final part of the article presents the results of the final testing of students, conducted for experimental purposes and confirming the effectiveness of the proposed integrated methodological approach. The methodology of working with professional texts in the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language to future international lawyers presented in the article can be used by Russian and foreign methodologists in order to create a linguistic and didactic model of professionally oriented teaching for other contingents of foreign students, as well as by practicing teachers working on the creation of professionally oriented teaching tools (textbooks, teaching aids) in the context of an interdisciplinary approach to teaching Russian as a foreign language

Seeking evidence and explanation signals religious and scientific commitments

Who is more committed to science: the person who learns about a scientific consensus and doesn't ask questions, or the person who learns about a scientific consensus and decides to pursue further inquiry? Who exhibits greater commitment to religious teachings: the person who accepts doctrine without question, or the person who seeks further evidence and explanations? Across three experiments (N = 801) we investigate the inferences drawn about an individual on the basis of their epistemic behavior – in particular, their decision to pursue or forgo further inquiry (evidence or explanation) about scientific or religious claims. We find that the decision to pursue further inquiry (about science or religion) is taken to signal greater commitment to science and to truth, as well as trustworthiness and good moral character (Studies 1–3). This is true even in the case of claims regarding controversial science topics, such as anthropogenic climate change (Study 3). In contrast, the decision to forgo further inquiry is taken to signal greater commitment to religion, but only when the claim under consideration contains religious content (Study 1–3). These findings shed light on perceived scientific and religious norms in our predominantly American and Christian sample, as well as the rich social inferences drawn on the basis of epistemic behavior.

Wittgenstein’s Notebooks, Diaries and Diaristic Remarks

Abstract In my paper I will discuss the difference between Wittgenstein’s notebooks, personal diaries and his so called diaristic remarks scattered throughout the Nachlass. This includes a distinction between his philosophical and his diaristic entries. Secondly, I will outline the editing history of Wittgenstein’s Notebooks 1914 – 1916, his Secret Diaries (Geheime Tagebücher 1914 – 1916), Culture & Value and his diaries of the 1930s (Denkbewegungen). Finally, I will focus on Wittgenstein’s coded remarks (in the wartime notebooks and in his diaristic remarks found in the Nachlass) and then discuss their significance not only in terms of his personal attitude toward life, ethics and religion but also in terms of their role in the context of his philosophizing. In doing so, I will discuss the question of the extent to which Wittgenstein’s method of encoding can be seen as a means for a special type of text, conceived for a sphere not readily accessible to normal language and science – a sphere he avoided talking about in the context of strict philosophical dispute.

A Kuhnian revolution in molecular biology: Most genes in complex organisms express regulatory RNAs.

Thomas Kuhn described the progress of science as comprising occasional paradigm shifts separated by interludes of 'normal science'. The paradigm that has held sway since the inception of molecular biology is that genes (mainly) encode proteins. In parallel, theoreticians posited that mutation is random, inferred that most of the genome in complex organisms is non-functional, and asserted that somatic information is not communicated to the germline. However, many anomalies appeared, particularly in plants and animals: the strange genetic phenomena of paramutation and transvection; introns; repetitive sequences; a complex epigenome; lack of scaling of (protein-coding) genes and increase in 'noncoding' sequences with developmental complexity; genetic loci termed 'enhancers' that control spatiotemporal gene expression patterns during development; and a plethora of 'intergenic', overlapping, antisense and intronic transcripts. These observations suggest that the original conception of genetic information was deficient and that most genes in complex organisms specify regulatory RNAs, some of which convey intergenerational information. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/qxeGwahBANw.

Diversity and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)

The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is an empirically based, hierarchical model of the structure of psychopathology that was created in response to the limitations of traditional, categorical psychiatric classification frameworks. The HiTOP model has become increasingly popular in clinical psychology and psychiatry since its publication in 2017. In this Review, we consider the applicability of the HiTOP model to diverse, underrepresented and epistemically excluded populations. We first review the philosophy underlying psychopathology research in general to understand the impact of scientific norms on the inclusion of diverse populations within the research canon. We then review the HiTOP approach to modelling psychopathology, and how diverse populations have been included within HiTOP-related research to date. We conclude by highlighting ways for future research to increase the applicability of the HiTOP framework to diverse populations. Seriously engaging with the HiTOP model’s suitability for diverse, underrepresented and epistemically excluded populations is imperative in order to achieve the HiTOP consortium’s goal of delineating a fully empirical classification of psychopathology, and to provide a model that can guide the field of psychopathology research and training to increase representation. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is an empirically based, hierarchical model of the structure of psychopathology. In this Review, Rodriguez-Seijas et al. consider the applicability of the HiTOP model to diverse, underrepresented and epistemically excluded populations.

“Promising” and “Inaction” in the Evaluation of Academic Journals: Thoughts on the Construction of Academic Credibility Value

Comparatively speaking, academic credibility has dual tension at system and the value level, which cannot be replaced by academic administrative power. Academic evaluation and academic research are integrated and inseparable, and the process of academic journal evaluation and its own development cannot be separated from the participation of academic community. At present, it is urgent to build academic credibility based on academic spontaneous order at the boundary between administrative power and academic power, and strengthen the maintenance of credibility by scientific rigid system norms, so as to form consistent action and self-discipline of academic community and constantly improve academic ecology.