The Hegemony of the Physical Sciences – An Exploration in Complexity Thinking

There are at least two broad perspectives from which the status of our scientific knowledge claims can be understood. The first is a purely realist view of scientific knowledge, referred to as scientific realism. According to this view the “theoretical entities that are characterized by a true theory do actually exist even though they cannot be directly observed. Alternatively, the evidence that confirms a theory also serves to confirm the existence of any theoretical or ‘hypothetical’ entities characterized by that theory” (Fetzer and Almeder, 1993: 118). What this definition suggests is that our scientific knowledge is capable of giving us direct absolute knowledge of entities that exist independent of the existence of any observer, i.e., rigorous application of the scientific method(s) yields theories of certain entities that exist mindindependently (independently of what we believe or feel about those entities). So in this view an objective reality does exist and through the application of method we can have objective scientific knowledge of this ‘reality’. In complete opposition to the realist position is constructivism. This position argues that though there does exist an objective reality we can never have direct objective knowledge concerning that reality. According to this view knowledge is manufactured rather than discovered. The manufacturing process is inherently bias through our methods of production and is incapable of delivering objective value-free knowledge of some external reality: objectivity becomes no more than a myth. Social constructivism, which is a form of idealism, in its extreme form, regards scientific knowledge as merely a socially constructed discourse that is inherently subjective in nature. As there can be no objective knowledge then there can be no dominant discourse because there can be no test or argument that could conclusively support the dominance of one discourse over another. Accordingly, science is just another approach ‘out there’ to making sense and should be treated with no more reverence than any other approach. As Masani (2001) laments “constructivism is anti-scientific to the bone.”