Normative science
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| - | The '''science wars''' were a series of [[intellectual]] exchanges, between [[Scientific realism|scientific realists]] and [[Postmodernism|postmodernist]] critics, about the nature of scientific theory and intellectual inquiry. They took place principally in the [[United States]] in the 1990s in the academic and mainstream press. Scientific realists (such as [[Norman Levitt]], [[Paul R. Gross]], [[Jean Bricmont]] and [[Alan Sokal]]) argued that scientific knowledge is real, and accused the postmodernists of having effectively rejected scientific [[Objectivity (science)|objectivity]], the [[scientific method]], [[Empiricism|empiricism]], and scientific knowledge. Postmodernists interpreted [[Thomas Kuhn]]'s ideas about [[scientific paradigm]]s to mean that scientific theories are [[social constructs]], and philosophers like [[Paul Feyerabend]] argued that other, non-realist forms of knowledge production were better suited to serve people's personal and spiritual needs. | + | In the [[applied sciences]], '''normative science''' is a type of information that is developed, presented, or interpreted based on an assumed, usually unstated, preference for a particular policy or class of policies. Regular or traditional [[science]] does not presuppose a [[policy]] preference, but normative science, by definition, does. Common examples of such policy preferences are arguments that pristine [[ecosystems]] are preferable to human altered ones, that native species are preferable to nonnative species, and that higher [[biodiversity]] is preferable to lower biodiversity. |
| - | Though much of the theory associated with 'postmodernism' (see [[poststructuralism]]) did not make any interventions into the [[natural sciences]], the scientific realists took aim at its general influence. The scientific realists argued that large swaths of scholarship, amounting to a rejection of objectivity and realism, had been influenced by major 20th-century [[poststructuralist]] philosophers (such as [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[Jean-François Lyotard]] and others), whose work they declare to be incomprehensible or meaningless. They implicate a broad range of fields in this trend, including [[cultural studies]], [[cultural anthropology]], [[feminist studies]], [[comparative literature]], [[media studies]], and [[science and technology studies]]. | + | In more general philosophical terms, normative science is a form of [[inquiry]], typically involving a community of inquiry and its accumulated body of provisional knowledge, that seeks to discover good ways of achieving recognized aims, ends, goals, objectives, or purposes. Many political debates revolve around arguments over which of the many "good ways" shall be selected. For example, when presented as scientific information, words such as [[ecosystem health]], [[biological integrity]], and [[environmental degradation]] are typically examples of normative science because they each presuppose a policy preference and are therefore a type of [[policy advocacy]]. |
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| - | * [[Bogdanov affair]] | + | * [[Fact–value distinction]] |
| - | * [[Critical theory]] | + | * [[Is–ought problem]] |
| - | * [[Deconstruction]] | + | * [[Normative economics]] |
| - | * [[Historiography of science]] | + | * [[Normative ethics]] |
| - | * [[Normative science]] | + | * [[Policy advocacy]] |
| - | * [[Science for the People]] | + | * [[Truth]] |
| - | * [[Scientism]] | + | |
| - | * [[Social construction]] | + | |
| - | * [[Sokal affair]] | + | |
| - | * [[Strong programme]] | + | |
| - | * [[Suppressed research in the Soviet Union]] | + | |
| - | * [[Teissier affair]] | + | |
| - | * ''[[The Two Cultures]]'' | + | |
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In the applied sciences, normative science is a type of information that is developed, presented, or interpreted based on an assumed, usually unstated, preference for a particular policy or class of policies. Regular or traditional science does not presuppose a policy preference, but normative science, by definition, does. Common examples of such policy preferences are arguments that pristine ecosystems are preferable to human altered ones, that native species are preferable to nonnative species, and that higher biodiversity is preferable to lower biodiversity.
In more general philosophical terms, normative science is a form of inquiry, typically involving a community of inquiry and its accumulated body of provisional knowledge, that seeks to discover good ways of achieving recognized aims, ends, goals, objectives, or purposes. Many political debates revolve around arguments over which of the many "good ways" shall be selected. For example, when presented as scientific information, words such as ecosystem health, biological integrity, and environmental degradation are typically examples of normative science because they each presuppose a policy preference and are therefore a type of policy advocacy.
See also
