Re: [asa] Coulter, and science

*Science is the search for the widest possible consensus among competent
researchers.*

Interesting... I'm not familiar with Zimon, what work is this from? This
definition seems problematic to me. First, you'd have to define
"competent." It seems to me that "competence" would have to be in reference
to a field of endeavor, which means that you'd then have to demarcate
"science" from other fields of endeavor, which makes the definition
circular. And I'm not sure that a search for wide consensus in itself is
either good or normative. By definition, "groundbreaking" reseach goes
against the prevailing consensus, doesn't it?

I'm partial to a Kuhnian / post-Kuhnian view of "science." I like Lakatos'
focus on the relative success of particular research projects. I think any
much more of an attempt to demarcate "science" from other ways of knowing
ends up in an inescapable epistemic bog.

On 7/11/06, David Bowman <David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Regarding Moorad's request:
>
>
> >Perhaps we can hear someone's operational definition of science so
> >that we all know what science is and what it is not.
> >
> >Moorad
>
>
> I'm kind of partial to the definition put forward by John Zimon:
>
> "Science is the search for the widest possible consensus among
> competent researchers."
>
> Dave Bowman
>
>

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Received on Tue Jul 11 10:10:04 2006