Brief summary of theory loading of observation
Write a brief summary (less than 250 words) in point form of either the concept of Whig history or ‘the theory loading of observation’ based on the readings or lecture notes.Reference: Author-Date Harvard Referencing systemThis theory allows for students to get feedback on their comprehension of basic introductory concepts.I have attached the class notes and other detailsPlease do good work.
STS 112
David Mercer
The ‘Theory loading of Observation’ and its
implications for doing history of science
• The material world is a systematic
collection of facts
• Looking at this world (the object), is the
perceiving subject, equipped with their
visual and cognitive apparatus
•
A
ssuming the subject, is unbiased, free
from social or cultural prejudices, they will
receive true perceptions of external facts
FIGURE 2 NAIVE VIEW OF PERCEPTION
Reality
(System of
given facts)
fact
eye
brain
perception
of fact
World→Fact→Sense Organ→Nervous System→Brain→True Perception Of Fact
“true knowledge” should be a perfect mirror image of external reality
Slide: Courtesy of Bob Brown after J.S. Schuster: The Scientific Revolution
Naive theory of observation
• Image of human observer a little like a camera that can
take ‘objective’ pictures of the outside world
• In these traditions of ‘epistemology’ normally also
assumed that humans can then accurately record/ report
these observations without distortion and also build them
into theories.
• As you can imagine, some debate about how this can
best be done and how we can try to make sure people
aren’t mistaken or biased and can use ‘objective’
language to report what they see.
Influences some simple
textbook models of science
Slide: Courtesy of Bob Brown after J.S. Schuster: The Scientific Revolution
FIGURE 2
THE METHOD STORY
hypothesis
report
generalise
(induction)
observe
Nature=
System of
given fact
Test vs
Nature
deduce
prediction
Test OK
hypothesis law
Test not OK
Start over
Implications for doing history of
science
If we take these simple views on board uncritically they
encourage a vision of the history of science as simply
an ongoing accumulation of more and more
observations and facts. In this approach when views of
past scientists disagree with the present it must be the
result of either their incorrect observations or their lack of
observations. The role of the historian of science is
then, to document the accumulation of knowledge and
the sources of distortion which might explain errors in
past science. This is a very limited vision.
Numerous areas of scholarship have suggested that
observation is a much more complex process than
indicated in the previous slides and that a lot more is
involved in humans building knowledge of the world than
simply building up observations
• Psychologists and cognitive scientists interested in processes of
perception and cognition
• Philosophers interested in epistemology and theories of the mind.
• Educationalists studying learning processes.
• Anthropologists studying differences between cultures.
• Art Historians noting at different times people perceive art
differently.
• Linguists interested in the way people structure and make sense of
language.
• Historians of Science explaining past scientific worldviews.
• Marketing and Advertising researchers wanting us to buy things or
shape our behaviours.
(a)Some very basic psychology of
perception
(b) Theory and language
+ examples taken from other
fields.
• Seeing things as wholes
• You see a building not one hundred
thousand bricks
• We make ‘sense’ of multiple inputs of
information ignoring some inputs and filling in
the gaps in other cases
• Gestalt drawings used to reveal these active
sense making processes necessary for
perception
FIGURE 4
is the ball
inside the
cube or
outside
the cube ?
• If you can’t see one or the other shape in the
gestalt diagram then perhaps you can be
‘taught’ to see it …
– interesting that you could be taught to see
something by members of a certain culture
– Maybe scientists as members of a sub-culture
are taught to see things, such as the objects of
scientific inquiry!
– Following 2 Slides: Courtesy of Bob Brown
Can you be trained to see Cloud Shapes?
Can you be trained to see Cloud Shapes?
• You need an external input of electromagnetic
disturbance and you need some prior
knowledge to fuse it with.
• Depending on which bit of prior knowledge gets
fused with the information, your brain produces
one perception or another
FIGURE 7
Reality???
We have access
to it only through
our grids of
theory/belief etc.
incoming
electromagnetic
disturbance
Perception
of duck
Perception
of antelope
Projection back
on reality i.e.
ducks/antelopes
exist in the world.
D
A
Slide above courtesy J Schuster ‘The Scientific Revolution’
• the categories set in our grids by belief, theory and
language determine the things we see inhabiting our world
– But that doesn’t mean that there’s no world out there!
• Of course there is a world, but it only gets shaped for us,
for our perceptions and our reports (facts), by our grids.
• Grids can vary from society to society, from one historical
period to another, and with different groups within a society
• The study of the history of human knowledge and belief is
therefore the study of grids and of the factors; social,
economic, political and cultural, that preserve or alter grids
• But what about at the frontiers of science?
Where new things are seen and proven
to exist (or not)
– a lot like a Gestalt switch as facts are ruled
right or wrong at the research front,
– Researchers argue all the time about what
is being seen and what is not being seen
• Languages shape ‘facts’ for their speakers and that
languages contain implicit theories which do that shaping
• People learn language and its meanings through being
parts of communities or imagined communities
• Language refers to ‘objects’ but also to itself
• Languages grow and are organic and contextual, meanings
change
• Different languages shape the world of facts differently
• Words describing colours help us see colours !
• More precise language more ‘theory loading’ ?
• The colour red easy to describe in day to day life but for an
artist an optician or physicist… ?
• everything is made out of atoms and molecules
– each type of atom or molecule has a characteristic way of
absorbing and then re-emitting certain parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum
• The surface layer of the pen is made of molecules which
have the characteristic of absorbing certain parts of the
spectrum, and re-emitting some electromagnetic radiation
in that part of the spectrum which, when it strikes our
nervous system, makes us apply the term ‘RED’
• In other words there is no ‘red’, there are only interactions
of electromagnetic radiation and molecules.
• in a very real sense, the pen isn’t red,
the pen ‘reds’ ( for further discussion see Schuster e
reading)
• Different languages = different facts
• Different theories = different facts
• Are communicable, verbal or symbolic
reports which may relate back to our
perceptions
• They are also shaped by the languages
and theories or systems of
communications in which we can utter or
form the reports
facts are socially conditioned
• facts are variable over time
– facts may vary for different people at different points of time
– and for different individuals and groups at the same time
• facts are negotiable ~ and revisable
• when facts change
– Ask why certain groups constructed their facts the way they did,
and what political, social, intellectual and historical factors
shaped and affected the way the facts were made and unmade
by the contending parties
• To explain scientific change remember to ask
sociological, psychological, historical, political and
economic questions about the players
• A radical interpretation of theory loading of facts might
suggest that we can never escape individual
interpretations/ constructs of reality !
• Less radical philosophical versions simply see theory
loading as part of human interpretation processes
always present in producing knowledge and something
that sciences need to be aware of and take into account
in certifying knowledge
• Interesting debates about what recognising theory
loading involves in practice
• STS scholars and Historians of Science often talk of the co-production of
knowledge ie: our facts are a mix of what’s out there in nature but also
inescapably shaped by human perceptions which are always in some ways
theory/ socially influenced.
• They also normally think in terms of ‘theories and grids’ in science, as parts
of the foundations of expert knowledge making communities things that
participants in these communities learn and gives them common languages
and starting points to do scientific work…
• Grids and theories can change and scientific facts can change, science
grows and scientific truth is not the same as some other versions of truth for
that reason!
• It is also sometimes argued that a strength of scientific truth is that it is
conditional that it requires formal validation and is only as good as the
arguments and evidence supporting it
• This means the History of Science also involves exploring the different/similar
ways communities of scientists have argued for and validate their work at
different times
• STS and History of Science ‘theory loading’ taken to imply the ‘social
shaping of knowledge’ ie: our theory loading is deep, mainly subconscious
learned through being part of a culture (for Natural Philosophers and
Scientists expert sub-cultures) and become embedded in our languages,
observations and practices.
• Normally not seen as an individual grid issue eg: if you are the only person
seeing the world in particular way there may not be anyone else you can
communicate with.
• The importance of ‘theory-loading’ and grids can help explain why in times
of deeper social division and conflicts there can sometimes be not only be
disputes about the implications of facts but disputes over the basic facts
themselves. If too many competing cultural grids and theories too many
competing facts generated to get social consensus?
• Other STS subjects explore these types of issues further in relation to
problems with climate change skepticism and the politics of expertise
Social Shaping in Knowledge Science via
Research Traditions(Paradigms)
• As historians of science we can get to observe the way the ways different
sciences change over time and the way what might count as a reliable
observation might not longer count between one generation of scientists
and later ones
• Changes in theories and grids are crucial to understanding the processes
of scientific change and why change is sometimes fast/ slow
• Changes to grids and theories often corresponds in historically interesting
ways to social changes within science’s and pressures from outside of them
• Later in the session we explore the ways various changes in technology,
religion and economy, and the way sciences were organised might map on
to new grids and theories encouraging emerging sciences to think of the
natural world as something to be explained using mathematics and
experiment and in the case of Darwinism nature involving a struggle for
survival
- STS 112 David Mercer
- Slide 3
- Influences some simple textbook models of science Slide: Courtesy of Bob Brown after J.S. Schuster: The Scientific Revolution
- Implications for doing history of science
- PowerPoint Presentation
- Slide 13
- Slide 14
- Slide 15
- Slide 16
- Slide 18
- Slide 19
- Slide 22
- Slide 23
- Slide 29
- Social Shaping in Knowledge Science via Research Traditions(Paradigms)
Naive theory of observation
Naïve Empiricism
Critiques of naïve empiricism
Examples
Today mainly look at:
Gestalt
Duck ? Rabbit?
Teaching to see
Theory loading of perceptions
Making sense of unfamiliar with the familiar?
But …
Language
“The pen is red”
Theory loading of facts
Facts
Radical and softer implications
Co-production and Communities?
Social Shaping of Knowledge ?