In this blog post, we take a critical look at the reliability of the term “scientific” as it is often used in the media and examine its background.
The myth of “science” used in the media
If you look at news and newspaper articles, you will often see the word “scientific.” For example, articles such as “Scientific reasons why drinking four cups of coffee a day is good for your health” and “First impressions are important, scientifically proven” appear countless times every day. These articles show that the word “scientific” is used not only in scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, and biology, but also in various fields such as economics, society, culture, and psychology. This is probably because research using scientific methods is actually widely conducted in fields other than science. However, when the media uses the word “scientific,” it is necessary to question whether they are introducing scientific research or scientific methods with pure intentions.
Science has never been more important in modern society. Over the past few centuries, scientific advances have led to the second and third industrial revolutions, and we are now on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. As a result, people have become healthier and live longer, and they have developed a belief that science can solve all problems. The media, which values credibility, seems to be actively exploiting this myth of science. However, science cannot be viewed as a religion, and its status does not come from belief. Therefore, when we encounter the word “scientific” in the media, it is very dangerous to accept it at face value, intoxicated by the myth of science. It is better to take a step back and examine the basis of its credibility. To do so, it is important to first understand the status of science, or in other words, the basis of its credibility.
Where does the status of “science” come from?
‘Science’ is regarded as a discipline that explores the truth about nature based on rationality. If this common perception is consistent with “science,” then the status of “science” can be seen as coming from rationality and truth. Looking at the history of the philosophy of science, we can see that this discussion has led to a debate over what constitutes the basis for the legitimacy of science. Popper argued that falsifiability is the basis for the legitimacy of science, and that true science must be falsifiable. He argued that Freud’s psychoanalysis and Marx’s materialism are not science because they are not falsifiable.
Popper argued that if a theory continues to survive despite being falsifiable, it can be considered reasonable and close to the truth, and therefore justified as science, and many accepted this argument. However, falsificationism had problems and was soon refuted. Even if there are observations that contradict a theory, if those observations are theory-dependent and hypothetical in nature, they cannot be used as evidence to disprove the theory. This is because, according to the same logic, it would be impossible to disprove the theory on which the observations depend, and if this logic is followed, there would ultimately be no theories that could be disproved. Ultimately, according to Popper’s argument, even theories that are falsifiable cannot be proven, making it impossible to verify theories. Therefore, it is difficult to justify science based on “falsificationism.”
After Popper, Thomas Kuhn attempted to find the basis for the legitimacy of science elsewhere in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn argued that science is based on “paradigms” and that the development of science consists of normal science → crisis → revolution → new normal science. Here, “paradigm” can be defined as a collective term for the basic theories accepted by the scientific community and the research, research methods, and problems based on those theories. Therefore, according to Kuhn, the term “science” as commonly used can be understood to mean normal science, and normal science derives its legitimacy from the paradigm on which it is based. An important feature of “paradigms” is their incompatibility, which simply means that different paradigms are based on different hypotheses and theories and therefore cannot communicate with each other. Therefore, according to Kuhn, science is not unified and can be seen as relative depending on which paradigm it follows. This was accepted as a revolutionary idea in that it was far from the existing idea that science is based on rationality and truth.
According to Kuhn, “science” can be seen as relative depending on the “paradigm” on which it is based, which can be seen as weakening the basis of the legitimacy of science. In addition, the boundaries of ‘science’ have become blurred, which can be seen as weakening the uniqueness of “science.” Nevertheless, the status of “science” cannot be ignored because of the status of normal science within science itself. Until it lost its throne due to revolution, normal science had a solid system based on the support of the majority and was considered to be closest to the truth, regardless of whether it was actually true or not. Therefore, the paradigm based on normal science can be seen as justified by its status alone, and it can be said that it had a very high status until the revolution occurred.
However, there are a few points to note. First, just because the word “science” is often used to refer to normal science does not mean that all “science” has the same status as normal science. There are countless sciences based on paradigms different from normal science, and their relative reliability cannot be compared to that of normal science. Another point is that even within normal science, the status of a phenomenon may differ depending on whether it is generally accepted as a law or simply a phenomenon discovered using scientific methods.
How should we accept the use of “science” in the media?
Based on the discussion so far, returning to the original newspaper article, we can see that it is necessary to consider the paradigm from which the reliability of the word “science” used in the article derives. However, this is not an easy process.
The ambiguity of the word “paradigm” itself, ignorance of specialized fields, and the difficulty of judging the status within a paradigm make it difficult to judge the reliability of “science” used in newspaper articles. However, this does not mean that it is completely impossible to make a judgment. For example, when reading an article such as “Scientific reasons why drinking four cups of coffee a day is good for your health,” we can judge that the research introduced in the article cannot be considered to have the status of a law because it used statistical methods that are considered to be within the paradigm, but the experimental control variables were insufficient and the experimental group was not large enough.
However, it is difficult to make such a judgment in all cases, so rather than making a judgment as a reader, it is necessary to look more closely at the evidence used in the article. Most reliable research is published in prestigious academic journals, and publication in a prestigious academic journal can be considered recognition of its status within the paradigm of normal science. Therefore, when the word “science” is used in the media, it is necessary to check the academic journal in which the research was published or the research institute where the research was conducted to confirm the credibility of the research. If there is no such basis, it is necessary to question its reliability.
We have examined whether the word “science” used in the media has been used merely as a tool to attract readers by relying on the myth of “science,” or whether it actually has the credibility to match that myth. Considering that highly credible research is published only a few times a year, it is clear that when we read the word “science” in the media, its reliability is not very high in most cases. Therefore, it is dangerous to uncritically accept the word “science” in the media and consider it to be the truth. Even if the media tries to blind us with the myth of “science,” we must remain alert and maintain a critical attitude toward “science.”
