What makes science reliable?
- a culture-historical incite to discussion
Essay to the course in social science theory at the University of Oslo, spring 2005.
by Anita Borch, National institute for consumer research, Oslo
Introduction
At some point most researchers question the relation between reality and theory: Is my theory
reliable? Does it really reflect reality? What we all are striving for (but of historical and
practical reasons can’t admit) is the truth – the perfect symbiosis between theory and reality.
But under what conditions do we judge research as reliable? In this essay I reflect on these
questions, based on a rough description of the culture-historical understanding of “truth” and
“reliable research” in Western societies.
The cultural-historical understanding of these issues involves, of course, a multitude of
temporally and spatially based ideas, opinions and reasonings far too complex to be told
within the limit of five pages. The story has therefore been strongly simplified; cut down to
the bone and presented in a narrative way, as if it was dealing with a linear course of events
rather than interwoven processes running side-by-side with varying degree of intensity. I have
done this “harassment” without too many scrouples, reminding myself on the fact that the aim
of this essay never has been to document the complexity of scientific validity criteria over
time, rather to draw some general lines that can make a starting point for further discussion
about how we reflect around these questions today. I start with the pre-modern understanding
of truth and end up pointing at some tendencies that might have an impact on the judgment of
reliable science in the future.
The pre-modern truth
Before the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries there was a general
understanding in Western societies that human destiny was in the hands of God. The truth was
based on His Words, the Bible. However, as the modern civilisation grew and the social
mobility increased, more people could see with their own eyes that others – neighbours,
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family and friends – where able to change their lives, for instance by doing clever investments
in the market. Human beings were not necessarily abandoned by God’s will, but responsible
for their own lives. The truth was not necessarily written in the Bible, but something that had
to be experienced through humans senses; something that couldn’t be claimed, but had to be
discussed and preferably proven. The general rule was that the more observable a
phenomenon was, the truer it was1. Such a massive ontological and epistemological change
was, of course, not done over night. In fact, for four hundred years scientists kept God as an
indisputable part of science, typically regarding him as the big organiser of science and
nature. In the early 20th century, however, the secularisation process had sufficiently
undermined religious worldviews among scientists. A professional philosophy of natural
science had been developed, via Comte, Mill, the late 19th century materialism and the logical
positivism (Mjøset 2005).
The ideal truth
The modern understanding of the truth emphasising the importance of observable proves
reached its most extreme in the 1920s when the logical positivist, also called the Vienna
school, refused to accept anything unobservable as true. Having the destructions of the World
War 1 fresh in mind the logical positivist suggested that only sense data deduced from
controlled experiments should be regarded as true – under the precondition that they were
carefully registered, sentence-by-sentence, so that followers could be able to control the
results. Only by excluding metaphysics like “fascism” and “fate of people” from science, the
world could be prevented from making mistakes like the World War 1 once again (Mjøset
2005).
Yet, even though their aim was heroic enough, the logical positivist met resistance,
particularly among social scientists arguing that their notion of truth would be hard to
practise, considered that most phenomenons (ideas, structures, emotions etc.) cannot be
observed. In fact, if scientists really took the bull by the horn and excluded all metaphysics
from their work, there would be very few phenomenon left to research. Hence, in order “to
save science”, most scientists argued that the notion of truth had to include non-observable
phenomenon as well. Yet, even if the claim for observable data was regarded as unrealistic,
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The idea of the truth as something that can’t be claimed, but something that has to be discussed and preferably
proven, was not, of course, new. We know, for instance, that it was a common idea among the Greek
philosophers; Socrates, Platon and Aristoteles. And for all we know, it might have crossed some minds too as the
first human beings sat around the fire in the evening wondering what they actually saw, heard or smelled during
the day’s hunting.
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most scientists kept it as an ideal. In the end it was this claim, and only this, that distinguished
science from religion and (other) mythical worldviews.
Reliable reasoning
To save science without losing its raison d'être scientists had to modify their ideal of an
observable truth. The truth was not necessarily something that could be observed, but
something that could be represented and understood by means of theories verified or falsified,
induced or deduced, from thought experiments and empirical data. Like in the pre-scientific
period, the truth was no longer something that had to be proven by human senses, but a
question of belief. Unlike the pre-scientific period, however, this belief could not be claimed,
but had to be earned, trusted and won, not based on piety, but on scientific reasoning. More
than ever the truth leaned more on techniques and rhetoric; on scientific methods, logical
reasoning, terminology and linguistic nuances. More than ever the truth became something
that people learned to recognise and discuss through education. The term truth became totally
out of fashion and disappeared from scientific language. Rather than discussing truths,
scientists talked about the “representation” of theories – under what conditions theories could
be regarded as “reliable” in the meaning of sufficiently scientific grounded. The aim was no
longer to copy reality, but to provide solid and vital theories of reality able to defy the ages.
Hence, even though most scientists refused the idea of a scientific truth, they kept the belief in
an external (true) reality independent of human thought that could be analysed and
understood, good or bad. The change was, with other words, more epistemological than
ontological.
Pure cultivation
Reduced from true copies into trustworthy and ideally robust theories of realities
social science entered its Golden Age in the 1950-ties. The World War 2 had ended and a
great social engineering project aiming to rebuild the society started. More scientists were
needed and the education system was democratised. Since then old and new ways of
reasoning have been developed and categorised as “functionalism”, “structuralism”, “rational
choice”, “behaviourism”, “post-structuralism” etc. (Ritzer 1983). Interestingly, the present
understanding of reliable research seems to be in a time of upheaval. On one side the basic
rules seem to stand firm; the more observable, the more truth; and the better scientific
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grounded, the more reliable2. On the other side the understanding of reliable research seems to
differ, among others depending on the researchers’ “attitudes”, as described by Mjøset in his
recent work “six notions of theory in social science” (Mjøset 2005). Reading between the
lines Mjøset seems to suggest that present social scientists tend to rely of different ways of
scientific reasonings. In short researchers inspired by natural science tend to trust generalised
theories based on statistical or mathematical models; researchers inspired by social science
tend to trust case studies emphasising the meaning of context; and researchers inspired by
humanistic science tend to be more open for systematic interpretation of text and other
cultural artefacts, such as work of religion, arts, philosophy, popular entertainment,
trajectories of concepts/ideas etc. Moreover, social scientists trusting one attitude tend to
distrust other. Hence, due to these seemingly “Bourdieuan” integrating and distinguishing
processes in the field of social science3 there might be suggested that a main criteria for being
judged as “reliable” today is not only (only) scientific reasoning as such, but (also) a pure
cultivation of attitude as distinct from others.
Bricolages?
Inspired by Mjøset (2005) today’s science might be seen as a dynamic but slowly moving
field of practices regarding adequate research purpose, level of analysis, terminology, method
etc. tending to constitute identifiable and assumingly internal logical way of reasoning.
Indeed, these attitudes could be seen as complementary – as important bricks in the big puzzle
of reality. Considered, however, that members of each attitude tend to legitimise their own
attitude by questioning and criticising others, there might be argued that today’s science look
more like a battlefield where members of different truth-regims are fighting for power;
financial support and social respect.
Of course, there are counter-tendencies indicating that this belligerent picture is too
simple. Parallel to the notion of pure cultivation there is, for instance, a general tendency of
encouraging triangulation and multidisciplinary research across attitudes. An interesting
question in that respect might be whether these opposite moves will defeat each other or live
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There might be suggested, thus, that the claim for observable data has weakened. In fact, some significant
scientists particularly dealing with the relation between theory and reality have assumed that metaphysics can be
regarded as truer than physics. Ian Hacking, for instance, claimed in the 80-ties that “average a priory fantasy
about human” might be truer than “disinterested observation and mathematical model-building of cognitive
science” (Hackings 1983:131). About ten years later Richard Sennett, suggested that in post-modern societies
“superrealities” (expressed through media) is generally understood as more real than (self-experienced)
“realities” (Sennett 1993).
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Even though Mjøset limit his theory to social science, the same integrating and distinguishing processes might
be part of the natural science as well.
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side-by-side in the long run? Furthermore, if the tendency of pure cultivation continues,
another question might be whether today’s borders between attitudes will increase or – in the
contrary – decrease as the process of specialisation goes on and (eventually) makes the
attitudes fragmentise from within? For all we know, the future judgement of reliable research
will no longer be based on a pure cultivation of attitudes, but be more open for bricolages
mixing research practises in new and assumingly illogical ways.
Closing remarks
The observant readers might have noticed that the presented narrative of the cultural-historical
understanding of truth and reliable reserach has been dramatised around one particular
dichotomy; the obsevable and the not observable; between the “believers” and the “notbelievers” in metaphysical science. In this respect it differs from other stories tending to
highlight the dichotomy between natural and social science, macro and micro perspectives,
qualitative and quantitative methods etc. My choice of focus is, of course, not accidental, but
refers to the modern concern that that the striving for observable proves is basically where
science distinguishes from religion and (other) mythical worldviews. The more we move from
this ideal, the more legitimising problems we get. At the same time it would be rather
ridiculous – even self-destructive – to take the logical positivist stand arguing that all
metaphysics should be excluded from science. Many researchers dealing with metaphysis
today seem to suggest that they can “prove” reality by referring to their data material. It might
be that the data material represents a step closer to the truth. But not from necessity. That is,
however, another story...
Literature
Hacking, Ian (1983): Representing and intervening. Introductory topics in the philosophy of
natural science. Cambridge University Press 1983.
Mjøset, Lars (2005): Six notions of theory in the social science.
Ritzer, George (1983): Contemporary sociological theory. New York: Knopf.
Sennet, Richard (1993): The Fall of Public Man. London: Faber and Faber.
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