Science and culture: intersection and influence

¶ … Science Making Us More Ignorant," Austin Dacey points out that while we may be more scientifically informed those generations in the past, we are still not grasping certain larger issues about humanity. These are cultural issues that, for many societies, form the basis of their core cultural value system -- who are we as a species, what is our role in the universe, is that all there is? (Dacey, 2004). Dacey does not believe science has achieved a way to help us understand complex cultural questions in a meaningful way. He uses the example of neuroscience -- we may understand the role of certain brain chemicals, the physiology of neurotransmitters, and even the brain-mind connection of emotions and cognition, but we do not understand consciousness and even the way the brain "thinks," remembers, and stores information. It is almost as if we are able to explain what a tree looks like, even how it grows, but have no real understanding of treeness.

However, one might argue that formal science is a method of inquiry -- not to understand all philosophical and cultural paradigms, but to continually work first to describe, and then to explain, the way the universe (macro and micro) work. Do we really need to understand our universal purpose to understand cosmology? Probably not, and despite the philosophical satisfaction involved, not knowing impels scientific research (Rowlands, 2004). One cannot argue, though, that science has allowed for significant changes in culture. No long do most individuals spend the larger portion of their time hunting for food, keeping comfortable, etc. Instead, science has allowed a huge increase in manufacturing techniques, breakthroughs in chemistry that change the way people live, medical improvements that extend and enhance quality of life, agricultural technology that allows greater yields, communication advances that connect the individual globally, and a host of other issues in transportation, biology, and education. Of course, this brings its own set of ethical dilemmas as well, we may grow faster technologically than in wisdom (Maitte, 2008).

Part 2 -- In the most general way, scientific realism is the empirical universe described by science -- and thus reality. There are two primary positions to scientific realism: 1) The goal of science is to produce an ideal theory that is universal, and; 2) Science has produced theories that explain the universe and will continue to develop and evolve until that perfect universal theory is attained. In other words, scientific realism says that science can find the truth about everything (Erickson, 2005, 58-60).