Paper on 4 debtes

According to Robert Merton

Groups that are being attacked should take action to reexamine their premises, reevaluate their goals, and seek external validation. According to Merton, crises frequently compel self-evaluations. Scientists and other academics have been debating Merton’s claim for a long time. While some of them concur with him, a sizable portion holds the opposing viewpoint. This essay will examine different discussions and contrast them with Robert Merton’s ideas.

Article in the New York Review of Books

In an article in 1996 in the New York Review of Books written by Michael Holquist et al. titled response to Sokal’s Hoax, the authors stated that science is a totally different from human activities because it has more relation with the reality. Therefore the trust on science cannot be reduced to any other form of human explanation(Weinberg 19). The article goes further to state that historians of science that intentionally ignore the present events and scientific knowledge are just of those United States of America military intelligence during the civil war who did not believe that their boss was wrong at that time. This debate has helped in establishing the contrast between the sciences, science and other field in that it explores the knowledge that is involved in the two and then claimed that science is more accurate and cannot have a human explanation on most of the issues. In this debate by Michael et al., agrees with Merton argument that those institutions that are facing crisis should get involved in reexamining their foundation as they might have been set on the wrong foot since their existence of formation. In the article, Michael et al., argued that from pre-Socratics great minds have tried to understand the relationship between the incommensurable to the situation of a particular moment in a given time. Therefore when institutions are faced with a crisis, at that particular moment, they need to reexamine their foundations to determine if the cause of their problems are from the foundation or just the issues that developed during the time of their growth. To this article, Merton’s claim holds true that this institution should reassess how they were formed.

Differences Between Social Science and Natural Science

This work gives the differences between social science and that of natural science and claims that natural science is more reliable as compared to the social science because it is not easy to trust scientists of social science most of the work are seen to be purely their opinion.

Article in Harpers’ Magazine

On the second debate that was in the Harpers’ Magazine and was written by Haldane titled Science and Ethics claimed that science makes humans have a different view of the nature of the world. It supplants mythology, and thus people will look at nature differently. One might see the weak in society as but of the struggle that human beings go through while another might see them as part of ruthlessness in the world and decline to give any assistance to such people. All these views are caused by science (Michael et al. 14). In this regard, it is right for some scientists to see the work of Merton as a pure lie and others to view it as the truth. This article, therefore, tends to give a neutral stand on these arguments on whether Merton is right or wrong.

Neutral Ground

This article does not give much contrast between science and the sciences or any other field but tends to give the debate a more neutral ground. It believes that one might be right or wrong depending on how the idea they have was conceived. It, therefore, does not reveal any reliable differences. It does not also suggest that the plurality embraced by science is masked by apparent conversational unities (Haldane 19). It tends to clarify what makes the different views in science and makes this suggestion from a distant. It does not want to come out clearly to criticize any form of science but concentrates more on the perception of people concerning the same object and how science makes this possible.

Ethics and Science

Haldane also argued that ethics are affected by adopting scientific claims. This makes it difficult for people to be human enough and see things from the humane point of view. In this work, there is a contrast between sciences and another field in that science gives people a more liberal mind and makes it difficult for them to think as they are expected towards their fellow human beings. Therefore since science gives people an unethical way of thinking, it is, therefore, right for to trust Merton’s idea about institutions in crisis going back to reexamine their foundation as it is possible that at some point, there could have been an error caused by believing in the ideas of early scholars who founded such institutions. However, this debate does not give more treatment to certain science than other (Weinberg 19). It gives a viewpoint that science might as well be wrong as those who have the responsibility of passing scientific information can as well alter them.

Sokal’s Hoax

Similarly, another article on the Sokal’s Hoax written by Steven Weinberg on August 1996 in the New York Review of Books, argued that those who published this article in their journal did not detect that it was a hoax. This hoax in the article was revealed by Sokal himself. This is how people can mislead others in society. It is for this reason that the article agrees with the opinions of Merton because, where such a hoax has been spread by the important documents in society or people that have a great impact on the lives of other people. Ideas of running institutions can as well be based on such a hoax and thus will one day or at some point make the organization or institutions face a crisis (Weinberg 19). This is why when institutions that are facing a crisis should reexamine their foundation as it is possible that their foundation was based on such a hoax just like that of Sokal and goes for a long time without being detected.

Realistic Point of View

This debate helps establish a contrast between science and another field in that it believes science at times might be wrong as those who pass such information might pass a hoax from generation to generation. Therefore a more realistic point of view should be adopted, and that is redoing some of the issues that were done or based on science (Huxley 33). It is also suggested that natural science is the only field that should be less doubted as it is based on nature and not social sciences that are based on ideas being spread by some people or scholars who would insist that these ideas are absolute truth and should, therefore, not be challenged. In this debate, the article also argues that science plurality is masked by apparent informal unities. Also, these debates prove that Merton’s idea of reexamining the foundation of those institutions facing the crisis. Also, these debates tend to clarify the nature of specificity of science. The debate invites appraisals, not only to the scientist’s work but also the way of life as well as the nature and status of science (Huxley 33). It gives clear differences between social science and natural science. Merton’s claims are highly supported in this debate, and it now puts social science under scrutiny as people can easily come up with dubious ideas and spread them only for them to be realized as a hoax later.

Prolegomena Article

The fourth debate is from the article titled Prolegomena. This article talks more about evolution and ethics. The article argues that the natural plants were removed from the land where they were growing, and then such places were turned into a garden and foreign plants were grown in their place. This changed the state of nature as artificially treated presented an extraordinary place that was not provided by nature. Therefore, in case of any issue, one would try to dig into the past to determine the state of these places before the different plants were grown in such places (Huxley 33). This is similar to the ideas that were being presented by Merton in his argument. When institutions are faced with a crisis, it is good to go back to their foundation and reexamine it. It is possible that they are based on artificial ideas just like the foreign plants on a place that was once a home of natural plants. This debate gives more treatment to natural science than the social science. Natural science sets the foundation to which most of the scientific arguments are based (Huxley 33). The Robert Merton debate is highly supported by this article. There is evidence that whenever everything goes wrong, one should consider taking a back step to the original root to look if the foundation was changed or was based on misinterpreted information that can appear to be a hoax later.

In Conclusion

Scientists should take the lead in giving the right information that can be subjected to critique, and a wrong or a different view should be allowed to be examined together with it to identify the source of controversy. The work also suggests that plurality that science embraces is disguised by lengthy unities.

In conclusion, Merton Robert’s idea of reexamining the foundation of institutions in crisis can be held to be true. There is enough support from these debates that some information used to set the foundations of most institutions can be a hoax or misinterpreted information as compared to the changes in ethics and views that are caused by science. Most of these debates are also establishing the differences in sciences, especially the social science and the natural science, as they two are based on different foundations. Natural science is given more treatment and respect as it is believed that it is based on good foundations as compared to social science, which is majorly people’s ideas and can be the truth or lies.

Work Cited

Huxley, Thomas Henry. “Prolegomena.” Collected Essays by TH Huxley 9 (1894): 1-45.

Michael Holquist, Robert Shulman, George Levine, M. Norton Wise, and Nina Byers, , et al.199 6

J.B.S Haldane, Science and ethics 1928

Sokal’s Hoax Steven Weinberg 1996