Society and the scientific community initially rejected Snow’s hypothesis, and even when the evidence turned out to support his ideas, psychological and historical biases delayed his theory from being accepted. This forced him to use a two-pronged approach; he used` data to convince the scientists and elaborate, innovative maps* to convince the committees and the general public (Johnson, 186). This to me is an example of the interconnected relationship between the opinions of society and the opinions of science. This is similar to the class discussion we had about societal bias affecting early hospital/clinic cases of HIV. The book also makes the claim that the visual mapping techniques used by Snow can create maps that are superior to a map that simply “shows you where streets intersect” (Johnson, 219-20). This implies that, through technological innovations, maps can evolve with different communities to reflect ‘insider-secrets’ of the neighborhood. When applied to science, a hyper-connected, updated, and information-filled society could lead to more rapid acceptance of new theories, or could lead to more subgroups and delay agreement even further.
Do you have any examples of times when bias has significantly affected the overall acceptance of solid scientific theories?
Do you think that quickly expanding technology that aims to connect people all over the world is beneficial or harmful in our society, or is there information saturation?
*You can look at a Voronoi Diagram here if you want.
-kathryn joy evans
“Do you have any examples of times when bias has significantly affected the overall acceptance of solid scientific theories?”
Not offhand, but I do have another example of the opposite — when bias and incorrect preconceptions boosted the acceptance of unsound (pseudo)scientific theories, like miasma. The social phenomenon of miasma theory reminded me of scientists/”scientists” who tried and claimed to find biological differences between races (which were linked, in their minds, to a white supremacist hierarchy), as well as the related racist social darwinism. In those cases, social prejudice seems to have been the only source of bad science, as opposed to prejudice combined with biological evolutionary aversion to smells of decay. Both cases, though, indicate that science–or what is considered science at a given point in history–is not reliably neutral. For all scientists strive to and revere objectivity, their reasoning still passes through a crucial, dangerous-to-ignore filter: their minds, including all the biases (social and biological/evolved) they may or may not be aware of.
Great point Cameron, “phrenology” came to mind when I saw what you wrote about racism being embedded so deeply that scientific “facts” were actually invented to support racist ideology. The point you bring up about science never being completely neutral is definitely true, which just goes to show the importance of peer reviews, critics, and reproducibility. Something important to keep in mind especially when looking at public health issues.
Do you think that quickly expanding technology that aims to connect people all over the world is beneficial or harmful in our society, or is there information saturation?
This question is one that I’ve thought about before, and I think it’s particularly tough to answer. Though it’s easy to see that modern technology makes information more readily available and connected, it also put information through a sort of inflation- there is so much out there that not a lot of it is quality stuff.
In the past, the problem was not knowing enough- for example, simply not knowing about cholera disease and how it worked prevented us from stopping it. Today, we know too much- conflicting theories, ideas and research take up a huge amount of resources and precious time before we can actually begin to solve problems. Political agendas and corporate interests divert our attention from real problems to petty issues.
So, to answer your question, a simpler world with people doing work for the right reasons is more appealing to me then a world in which we are much more capable, but often only looking out for our own interests.
Josh Setton