What is Knowledge, Science and Reasoning?

I have noted that there are many people who are operating as knowledge workers but who have very little understanding of knowledge itself. Many people have been driven by necessity to analyse, disseminate and debate knowledge but unless they know what knowledge is, what facts are, what evidence is and so on they often end up caught in frustrating and confusing discussions that do little to improve our collective knowledge.

To help those who are willing to help themselves, here are some links related to the subject. There are approximately 50 pages of links with quotes from the linked pages and a few comments of my own interspersed throughout. This just provides an overview of some of the major terms and issues involved and the links may serve as a jumping off point for further research. If a term is interesting to you then please do further searches on the term to find out more about it.

The main categories of links are:
Epistemology (Theory of Knowledge)
Argument (What is an argument and its main features)
Science in Society (What is science and how does it relate to its social context)
Technology in Society (Science and technology are closely related)
Sociological Factors in Science (Science is a social activity conducted by humans)
Bias (We all have many biases – we need to understand them to not be their victim)
Ego (The ego is the 'doer' and the 'seeker' in the process of inquiry)
Ego Defense Mechanism (The ego protects itself from knowledge that threatens the ego)
Empiricism and Naïve Realism (Empirical science has anti-sceptical naïve realist roots)

Epistemology

Epistemology - EvoWiki: Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. For most of philosophical history, "knowledge" was taken to mean belief that was justified as true to an absolute certainty. Any less justified beliefs were called mere "probable opinion." This viewpoint still prevailed at least as late as Bertrand Russel's early 20th century book The Problems of Philosophy. In the decades that followed, however, philosophers came to think of knowledge as meaning "justified true belief," and the notion that the belief had to be justified to a certainty was forgotten. In the 1960s, Edmund Gettier criticised this definition of knowledge by pointing out situations in which a believer has a true belief justified to a reasonable degree, but not to a certainty, and yet in the situations in question, everyone would agree that the believer does not have knowledge. The problems show that there are situations in which a belief may be justified and true, and yet most would not consider it to be knowledge. Although being a justified, true belief is necessary for a definition of knowledge, it is not sufficient. At the least, the set of our justified true beliefs contains things that we would not say that we know. Some epistemologists have attempted to find strengthened criteria for knowledge that will not be subject to the sorts of counterexamples Gettier and his many successors have produced. No one has yet succeeded in doing that. Kirkham (see the References section below) has argued that this is because the only definition that could ever be immune to all such counterexamples is the original one that prevailed from ancient times through Russell: to qualify as an item of knowledge, a belief must not only be true and justified, the evidence for the belief must necessitate its truth. But this conclusion is resisted since it would probably entail a sweeping skepticism. Much of epistemology has been concerned with seeking ways to justify knowledge statements. It is common for epistemological theories to avoid skepticism by adopting a foundationalist approach. To do this, they argue that certain types of statements have a special epistemological status — that of not needing to be justified. Empiricists claim knowledge is a product of human experience. Statements of observations take pride of place in empiricist theory. Naive empiricism holds simply that our ideas and theories need to be tested against reality, and accepted or rejected on the basis of how well they correspond to the facts. The central problem for epistemology then becomes explaining this correspondence. Empiricism is associated with science. While there can be little doubt about the effectiveness of science, there is much philosophical debate about how and why science works. The Scientific Method was once favoured as the reason for scientific success, but recently difficulties in the philosophy of science have led to a rise in Coherentism.
Empiricism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In philosophy, empiricism means, roughly, "try it and see". It is a theory of knowledge that is practical rather than abstract, and asserts that knowledge arises from experience rather than revelation. Empiricism is one view held about how we know things, and so is part of the branch of philosophy called epistemology, which means "theory of knowledge". Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. [But its assumptions about the validity of sense experience are unquestioned innate ideas that cannot be verified empirically.] In the philosophy of science, empiricism emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.
Rationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". In more technical terms it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive". Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the radical position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge"
Foundationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology (typically, theories of justification, but also of knowledge) that holds that beliefs are justified (known, etc.) based on what are called basic beliefs (also commonly called foundational beliefs). Basic beliefs are beliefs that give justificatory support to other beliefs, and more derivative beliefs are based on those more basic beliefs. The basic beliefs are said to be self-justifying or self-evident, that is, they enjoy a non-inferential warrant (or justification), i.e., they are not justified by other beliefs... A belief is epistemically justified if and only if (1) it is justified by a basic belief or beliefs, or (2) it is justified by a chain of beliefs that is supported by a basic belief or beliefs, and on which all the others are ultimately based.
Anti-foundationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Anti-foundationalism is a term applied to any philosophy which rejects a foundationalist approach, i.e. an anti-foundationalist is one who does not believe that there is some fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or foundation of inquiry and knowledge.
Coherentism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: As a theory of truth coherentism restricts true sentences to those that cohere with some specified set of sentences. Someone's belief is true if and only if it is coherent with all or most of his or her other beliefs. Usually, coherence is taken to imply something stronger than mere consistency. Statements that are comprehensive and meet the requirements of Occam's razor are usually to be preferred.
Foundherentism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In epistemology, foundherentism is a theory of justification that combines elements from the two rival theories addressing infinite regress, foundationalism prone to arbitrariness and coherentism prone to circularity
Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.
Materialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism. Fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. "materialists tend to indiscriminately apply a 'pebbles in a box' schema to explanations of reality even though such a schema is known to be incorrect in general for physical phenomena. Thus, materialism cannot explain matter, let alone anomalous phenomena or subjective experience, but remains entrenched in academia largely for political reasons."
Physicalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. The term was coined by Otto Neurath in a series of early 20th century essays on the subject, in which he wrote: "According to physicalism, the language of physics is the universal language of science and, consequently, any knowledge can be brought back to the statements on the physical objects." The ontology of physicalism ultimately includes whatever is described by physics — not just matter but energy, space, time, physical forces, structure, physical processes, information, state, etc. [In order to hold to the belief in a "physical universe" it has been declared that anything understood within the current scientific paradigm is 'physical' and anything not understood is 'unreal'.] Because it claims that only physical things exist, physicalism is generally a form of monism. In contrast, subjective idealism, as exemplified by the metaphysics proposed by George Berkeley, holds that there is no physical reality at all and that everything that exists is mental or spiritual (ie it is also monistic, but in disagreement over the fundamental nature of that monistic reality).
Nominalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Nominalism holds that verbal abstractions employed by humans are only manners of speaking, having no existence beyond human thought and discourse. Nominalism is "the doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names." Nominalism has also been defined as a philosophical position that various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name. Nominalism is the view that only actual physical particulars are real, and that universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things.
Paradigm shift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn, when scientists encounter anomalies which cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has thereto been made. The paradigm, in Kuhn's view, is not simply the current theory, but the entire worldview in which it exists, and all of the implications which come with it. There are anomalies for all paradigms, Kuhn maintained, that are brushed away as acceptable levels of error, or simply ignored and not dealt with (a principal argument Kuhn uses to reject Karl Popper's model of falsifiability as the key force involved in scientific change). Rather, according to Kuhn, anomalies have various levels of significance to the practitioners of science at the time. To put it in the context of early 20th century physics, some scientists found the problems with calculating Mercury's perihelion more troubling than the Michelson-Morley experiment results, and some the other way around. Kuhn's model of scientific change differs here, and in many places, from that of the logical positivists in that it puts an enhanced emphasis on the individual humans involved as scientists, rather than abstracting science into a purely logical or philosophical venture.
Philosophical realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Philosophers who profess realism also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality. We may speak of realism with respect to other minds, the past, the future, universals, mathematical entities (such as natural numbers), moral categories, the material world, or even thought. Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality.
Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): The nature and plausibility of realism is one of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary metaphysics, perhaps even the most hotly debated issue in contemporary philosophy... it is misleading to think that there is a straightforward and clear-cut choice between being a realist and a non-realist... It is rather the case that one can be more-or-less realist about a particular subject matter. Also, there are many different forms that realism and non-realism can take.
Constructivist epistemology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Constructivist epistemology is a epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge held by many philosophers of science. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world through strict scientific methods. In opposition of positivism that states that scientific knowledge comes from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific methods: quantitative research. Constructivism believes that there is no single valid methodology and there are other methodologies for social science: qualitative research.
Knowledge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Knowledge is defined (Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief". There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories. Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate.
Constructivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: disambiguation page listing various forms of constructivism.
Relativism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Relativism is the idea that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to, i.e., dependent on, some other element or aspect. Some relativists claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context. The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.
Positivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is knowledge that is based on actual sense experience. Such knowledge can only come from affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. Metaphysical speculation is avoided.
Phenomenology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Phenomenology has at least three main meanings in philosophical history: * For G.W.F. Hegel, phenomenology is an approach to philosophy that begins with an exploration of phenomena (what presents itself to us in conscious experience) as a means to finally grasp the absolute, logical, ontological and metaphysical Spirit that is behind phenomena. This has been called a "dialectical phenomenology". * For Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is "the reflective study of the essence of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view." Phenomenology takes the intuitive experience of phenomena (what presents itself to us in phenomenological reflexion) as its starting point and tries to extract from it the essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience. When generalized to the essential features of any possible experience, this has been called "transcendental phenomenology". * Martin Heidegger believed that Husserl's approach overlooked basic structural features of both the subject and object of experience (what he called their "being"), and expanded phenomenological enquiry to encompass our understanding and experience of Being itself, thus making phenomenology the method (in the first phase of his career at least) of the study of being: ontology.
Ontology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being (part. of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία: science, study, theory) is the most fundamental branch of metaphysics. It studies being or existence and their basic categories and relationships, to determine what entities and what types of entities exist. Ontology thus has strong implications for conceptions of reality.
Philosophy of mind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Dualism and monism are the two major schools of thought that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism can be traced back to Plato, Aristotle and the Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy, but it was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century. Substance dualists argue that the mind is an independently existing substance, whereas Property dualists maintain that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from and cannot be reduced to the brain, but that it is not a distinct substance. Monism is the position that mind and body are not ontologically distinct kinds of entities. This view was first advocated in Western Philosophy by Parmenides in the 5th century BC and was later espoused by the 17th century rationalist Baruch Spinoza. Physicalists argue that only the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind will eventually be explained in terms of these entities as physical theory continues to evolve. Idealists maintain that the mind is all that exists and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Neutral monists adhere to the position that there is some other, neutral substance, and that both matter and mind are properties of this unknown substance. The most common monisms in the 20th and 21st centuries have all been variations of physicalism; these positions include behaviorism, the type identity theory, anomalous monism and functionalism.
Cascading failure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A cascading failure is failure in a system of interconnected parts, where the service provided depends on the operation of a preceding part, and the failure of a preceding part can trigger the failure of successive parts. [This also applies to systems of logical reasoning, especially if the fundamental axioms contain erroneous assumptions but also if propositions are not properly verified and contradictory findings are not properly dealt with.]
History of ideas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history. Work in the history of ideas may involve interdisciplinary research in the history of philosophy, the history of science, or the history of literature.
Intellectual history - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Intellectual history refers to the history of the people who create, discuss, write about and in other ways propagate ideas. Although the field emerged from European discourses of Kulturgeschichte and Geistesgeschichte, the historical study of ideas has engaged not only western intellectual traditions, including, but not limited to, those in the far east, near east, mid-east and Africa. Intellectual history is closely related to the history of philosophy and the history of ideas. Its central perspective suggests that ideas do not change in isolation from the people who create and use them and that one must study the culture, lives and environments of people to understand their notions and ideas. This is also fraught with the sentiment of hostility towards, or mistrust of, intellectuals and intellectual pursuits known as anti-intellectualism. This may be expressed in various ways, such as attacks on the merits of science, education, or literature.
Naïve realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Naïve realism is a common sense theory of perception. Most people, until they start reflecting philosophically, are naïve realists. This theory is also known as "direct realism" or "common sense realism". Naïve realism claims that the world is pretty much as common sense would have it. All objects are composed of matter, they occupy space, and have properties such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour. These properties are usually perceived correctly. So, when we look at and touch things we see and feel those things directly, and so perceive them as they really are. Objects continue to obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone present to observe them doing so. [W]e have to give up the idea of [naive] realism to a far greater extent than most physicists believe today." (Anton Zeilinger)... By realism, he means the idea that objects have specific features and properties — that a ball is red, that a book contains the works of Shakespeare, or that an electron has a particular spin... for objects governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, like photons and electrons, it may make no sense to think of them as having well defined characteristics. Instead, what we see may depend on how we look." Quantum mechanics is increasingly applied to larger and larger objects. Even a one-ton bar proposd to detect gravity waves must be analysed quantum mechanically. In cosmology, a wavefunction for the whole universe is written to study the Big Bang. It gets harder today to nonchalantly accept the realm in which the quantum rules apply as somehow not being physically real... "Quantum mechanics forces us to abandon naive realism". And leave it at that.
Consensus reality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Consensus reality (rarely or mistakenly called "consensual reality") is an approach to answering the question 'What is real?', a profound philosophical question, with answers dating back to prehistory; it is almost invariably used to refer to human consensus reality, though there have been mentions of feline and canine consensus reality. It gives a practical answer - reality is either what exists, or what we can agree by consensus seems to exist; the process has been (perhaps loosely and a bit imprecisely) characterised as "[w]hen enough people think something is true, it... takes on a life of its own." The term is usually used disparagingly as by implication it may mean little more than "what a group or culture chooses to believe," and may bear little or no relationship to any "true reality", and, indeed, challenges the notion of "true reality". For example, Steven Yates has characterised the idea that the United States Federal Reserve Notes (not "backed" by anything) are "really worth a dollar" as "part of what we might call our consensus-reality... not... real reality." The difficulty with the question stems from the concern that human beings do not in fact fully understand or agree upon the nature of knowledge or knowing, and therefore (it is often argued) it is not possible to be certain beyond doubt what is real. Accordingly, this line of logic concludes, we cannot in fact be sure beyond doubt about the nature of reality. We can, however, seek to obtain some form of consensus, with others, of what is real. We can use this to practically guide us, either on the assumption it seems to approximate some kind of valid reality, or simply because it is more "practical" than perceived alternatives. Consensus reality therefore refers to the agreed-upon concepts of reality which people in the world, or a culture or group, believe are real (or treat as real), usually based upon their common experiences as they believe them to be; anyone who does not agree with these is sometimes stated to be "in effect... living in a different world." Throughout history this has also raised a social question: What shall we make of those who do not agree with consensus realities of others, or of the society they live in? Children have sometimes been described or viewed as "inexperience[d] with consensus reality," although with the expectation that they will come into line with it as they mature. However, the answer is more problematic as regards such people as have been characterised as eccentrics, mentally ill, divinely inspired or enlightened, or evil or demonic in nature. Alternatively, differing viewpoints may simply be put to some kind of "objective" (though the nature of "objectivity" goes to the heart of the relevant questions) test. Reality enforcement is a term used[citation needed] for the coercive enforcement of the culturally accepted reality, upon non-conforming individuals. It has varied from indifference, to incarceration, to death. Materialists [positivists, naive realists and empiricists], however, may not accept the idea of there being different possible realities for different people, rather than different beliefs about one reality. So for them only the first usage of the term reality would make sense. To them, someone believing otherwise, where the facts have been properly established, might be considered delusional. Objectivists, though not necessarily materialists, also reject the notion of subjective reality; they hold that while each individual may indeed have their own perception of reality, that perception has no effect on what reality actually is; in fact, if the perception of reality differs significantly from the actual reality, serious negative consequences are bound to follow. [All major mystic traditions are objectivist.] The theory of reality enforcement holds that belief in consensus reality — on which the apparent persistence of consensus reality's existence may depend — is "enforced" through various means applied against those who challenge it, including involuntary commitment. Reality enforcement has also been used to apply to the promotion of consensus reality, such as in education.
Simulated reality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—often computer simulated—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not know that they are living inside a simulation. In its strongest form, the "simulation hypothesis" claims it is probable that we are actually living in such a simulation. This is different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality. Virtual reality is easily distinguished from the experience of "true" reality; participants are never in doubt about the nature of what they experience. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to distinguish from "true" reality. The idea of a simulated reality raises several questions: * Is it possible, even in principle, to tell whether we are in a simulated reality? * Is there any difference between a simulated reality and a "real" one? * How should we behave if we knew that we were living in a simulated reality?
Pragmatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The epistemology of the early pragmatists was heavily influenced by Darwinian thinking. Pragmatists were not the first to see the relevance of evolution for theories of knowledge: the same rationale had for example convinced Schopenhauer that we should adopt biological idealism because what's useful to an organism to believe might differ wildly from what is actually true. Pragmatism differs from this idealist account because it challenges the assumption that knowledge and action are two separate spheres, and that there exists an absolute or transcendental truth above and beyond the sort of inquiry that organisms use to cope with life. Pragmatism, in short, provides what might be termed an ecological account of knowledge: inquiry is construed as a means by which organisms can get a grip on their environment. 'Real' and 'true' are labels that have a function in inquiry and cannot be understood outside of that context. It is not realist in a traditional robust sense of realism (what Hilary Putnam would later call metaphysical realism), but it is realist in that it acknowledges an external world which must be dealt with.
A priori and a posteriori (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning, respectively. Attempts to define clearly or explain a priori and a posteriori knowledge are part of a central thread in epistemology, the study of knowledge. Since the definitions and usage of the terms have been corrupted over time and therefore vary between fields, it is difficult to provide universal definitions of them. One rough and oversimplified explanation is that a priori knowledge is independent of experience, while a posteriori knowledge is dependent on experience. In other words, statements that are a priori true are tautologies. Economists sometimes use "a priori" to describe a step in an argument the truth of which can be taken as self-evident. "A posteriori", on the other hand, implies that an argument must be based upon empirical evidence. [The core assumption of empiricism is that 'a priori' knowledge is impossible, but this is accepted 'a priori'.]
Social epistemology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Social epistemology is a broad set of approaches to the study of knowledge, all of which construe human knowledge as a collective achievement. Social epistemologists may be found working in many of the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, most commonly in philosophy and sociology. In addition to marking a distinct movement in traditional, analytic epistemology, social epistemology is associated with the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).
Historical revisionism (negationism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past... "Historical revisionism" (also but less often in English "negationism"), as used in this article, describes the process that attempts to rewrite history by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts. [Western naive realism, arrogance and cultural imperialism has resulted in the deliberate and unwitting revision of history to portray many cultures as inferior and not worthy of serious attention and portraying western civilisation as the only important one. This is common in western academia of all types, which results in their historical sources being purely or primarily western.] Perpetrators of such attempts to distort the historical record often use the term because it allows them to cloak their illegitimate activities with a phrase which has a legitimate meaning. Illegitimate historical revisionists rely on a number of Illegitimate techniques to advance their views such as presenting as genuine documents which they know to be forged, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attribute their own conclusions to books and other sources that say the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support their views, and deliberately mistranslate foreign languages sources to support their views. [Also deliberately or unwitting misinterpreting foreign information in naive ways and then ascribing the naivety to the foreign source.]
Non-denial denial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Non-denial denial is a term for a particular kind of equivocation; specifically, an apparent denial that appears to be direct, clearcut and unambiguous when heard, but on further examination is not a denial at all. A non-denial denial is not a lie per se, because what is said is literally true, but is instead a form of deception known as an evasion.
Phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A phenomenon (from Greek φαινόμενoν, pl. φαινόμενα - phenomena) is any occurrence that is observable.
Falsifiability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, it means that it is capable of being criticized by observational reports. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable. Not all statements that are falsifiable in principle are falsifiable in practice. For example, "it will be raining here in one million years" is theoretically falsifiable, but not practically. On the other hand, a statement like "there exist parallel universes which cannot interact with our universe" is not falsifiable even in principle; there is no way to test whether such a universe does or does not exist. [However the assertion that it must "be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment" is intrinsically naive realist and has led to absurdities such as when behaviouralism emphatically declared that consciousness does not exist and that people only appear to be conscious but there is actually nothing happening inside because those things were not accessable to empirical observation.]
Truth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The meaning of the word truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.[1] The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree. Various theories of truth continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute. This article introduces the various perspectives and claims, both today and throughout history.
Metacognition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Metacognition is the knowledge (i.e. awareness) of one's cognitive processes and the efficient use of this self-awareness to self-regulate these cognitive processes. It is traditionally defined as the knowledge and experiences we have about our own cognitive processes. [This is the principle scientific method in Eastern cultures and helped them see through naive realism. However it was the complete lack of metacognition in the West that allowed empiricism to take hold, even though it is based on naive realist foundations. Metacognition is still neglected by the vast majority of empirical scientists and leads to entrenched false beliefs, arrogance and subtle delusions, resulting in Scientism.]
Objectivity (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Objectivity is both an important and notoriously difficult concept to pin down in philosophy. While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are "mind-independent"—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity. [The issue of naive realism confounds this issue enormously. The objective reality cannot be perceptible to the mind because the mind cannot directly grasp objective things, but only mental things.]
Moderate realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Moderate realism as a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals holds that there is no realm in which universals exist, but rather universals are located in space and time wherever they are manifest. A universal, like greenness, is supposed to be a single thing. It is opposed to both full-blooded realism, such as the theory of Platonic forms, and nominalism. Nominalists consider it unusual that there could be a single object that exists in multiple places simultaneously.
Truth-value link - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The principle of truth-value links is a concept in metaphysics discussed in debates between philosophical realism and anti-realism. Philosophers who appeal to truth-value links in order to explain how individuals can come to understand parts of the world that are apparently cognitively inaccessible (the past, the feelings of others, etc.) are called truth-value link realists.
Critical realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data (for example, those of primary qualities) can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data (for example, those of secondary qualities and perceptual illusions) do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events. In short, critical realism refers to any position that maintains that there exists an objectively knowable, mind-independent reality, whilst acknowledging the roles of perception and cognition. [The idea that "sense-data... can and do accurately represent external objects" is still a form of naive realism even though critical realism attempts to account for 'anomalous' perceptions such as halucination.]
World view - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung. Welt is the German word for "world", and Anschauung is the German word for "view" or "outlook." It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.
Naive Realism Redux - Telic Thoughts: Naïve realism can be propped up with both confirmation bias and disconfirmation bias. When a group shares in the same brand of naïve realism, it can serve as the fulcrum for their tribalism. And when one group thinks it “sees the world as it is,” and sees the other group as those who “do not see the world for what it is,” this breeds a certain degree of arrogance and defensiveness, causing the one group to see the other as being composed of people who are stupid, dishonest, and brain-washed. Such stereotypes feed back into naïve realism in the form of confirmation bias (where the one group is constantly looking for anecdotes to support the stereotypical perception) and tribalism (where the one group experiences tribal cohesion as the result of such activity)... Overcoming naïve realism is difficult because group dialogue, usually thought to be a good way of helping people to see things from the other point of view, can actually only further polarize opinions on a topic. Ordinary dialogue does not necessarily lead to recognition of the ambivalent nature of “right and wrong” on an issue.

Argument

Argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In logic, an argument is a set of one or more declarative sentences (or "propositions") known as the premises along with another declarative sentence (or "proposition") known as the conclusion. A deductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises; an inductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is supported by the premises. Each premise and the conclusion are only either true or false, not ambiguous. The sentences comprising an argument are referred to as being either true or false, not as being valid or invalid; arguments are referred to as being valid or invalid, not as being true or false. [However this is only applicable within a given paradigm, which should be stated along with the argument. It is only within the naive realist paradigm that is assumed that there is only one possible paradigm in which logical argument can occur.]
Logic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Logic is the study of the principles of valid inference and demonstration. The word derives from Greek λογική (logike), fem. of λογικός (logikos), "possessed of reason, intellectual, dialectical, argumentative", from λόγος logos, "word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle". As a formal science, logic investigates and classifies the structure of statements and arguments, both through the study of formal systems of inference and through the study of arguments in natural language. The field of logic ranges from core topics such as the study of validity, fallacies and paradoxes, to specialized analysis of reasoning using probability and to arguments involving causality.
Argumentation theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Argumentation theory, or argumentation, embraces the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion; studying rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings. Argumentation is concerned primarily with reaching conclusions through logical reasoning, that is, claims based on premises. Although including debate and negotiation which are concerned with reaching mutually acceptable conclusions, argumentation theory also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent is the primary goal. This art and science is often the means by which people protect their beliefs or self-interests in rational dialogue, in common parlance, and during the process of arguing. Argumentation is used in law, for example in trials, in preparing an argument to be presented to a court, and in testing the validity of certain kinds of evidence. Also, argumentation scholars study the post hoc rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have made irrationally.
Critical thinking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation. It includes possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense. In contemporary usage "critical" has a certain negative connotation that does not apply in the present case. Though the term "analytical thinking" may seem to convey the idea more accurately, critical thinking clearly involves synthesis, evaluation, and reconstruction of thinking, in addition to analysis. Critical thinkers gather information from all senses, verbal and/or written expressions, reflection, observation, experience and reasoning. Critical thinking has its basis in intellectual criteria that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance and fairness.
Reasoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Reasoning is the cognitive process of looking for reasons for beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings.[1] Humans have the ability to engage in reasoning about their own reasoning using introspection. Different forms of such reflection on reasoning occur in different fields. In philosophy, the study of reasoning typically focuses on what makes reasoning efficient or inefficient, appropriate or inappropriate, good or bad. Philosophers do this by either examining the form or structure of the reasoning within arguments, or by considering the broader methods used to reach particular goals of reasoning. Psychologists and cognitive scientists, in contrast, tend to study how people reason, which brain processes are engaged, and how the reasoning is influenced by the structure of the brain. Specific forms of reasoning are also studied by mathematicians and lawyers.
Argument map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: An Argument map is a visual representation of the structure of an argument in informal logic. It includes the components of an argument such as a main contention, premises, co-premises, objections, rebuttals and lemmas. Argument Maps are often used in the teaching of reasoning and critical thinking, and can support the analysis of pros and cons when deliberating over wicked problems. The latest advacement in argument mapping enables research and analysis of naturalistic human decision making in real life contexts of risk and uncertainty. These techniques are presented by Facione and Facione in Thinking and Reasoning in Human Decision Making: The Method of Argument and Heuristic Analysis (The California Academic Press, 2007). This book describes the theory, technique, and application of this new analytical methodology. Among other things it shows how to construct decision maps from oral and textual expressions of individual or group decisions. A&H Method decision maps illustrate the combinination of reasons-claim argument strands as well as the influences of cognitive heuristics and psychological dominance structuring which emerge from those data.
Concept map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Concept mapping is a technique for visualizing the relationships among different concepts. A concept map is a diagram showing the relationships among concepts. Concepts are connected with labelled arrows, in a downward-branching hierarchical structure. The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases, e.g., "gives rise to", "results in", "is required by," or "contributes to".
Mind map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing. It is an image-centered diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of information. By presenting these connections in a radial, non-linear graphical manner, it encourages a brainstorming approach to any given organizational task, eliminating the hurdle of initially establishing an intrinsically appropriate or relevant conceptual framework to work within. A mind map is similar to a semantic network or cognitive map but there are no formal restrictions on the kinds of links used.
Semantic network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A semantic network is often used as a form of knowledge representation. It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices, which represent concepts, and edges, which represent semantic relations between the concepts.
Cognitive map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Cognitive maps, mental maps, mind maps, cognitive models, or mental models are a type of mental processing (cognition) composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual can acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment.
Informal logic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Informal logic (or, occasionally, non-formal logic) is the study of arguments as presented in ordinary language, as contrasted with the presentations of arguments in an artificial, formal, or technical language (see formal logic). Informal logic emerged in North America in the early 1970s as an alternative approach to the teaching of introductory logic courses to undergraduate students. It quickly became affiliated with the Thinking Skills Movement and especially with critical thinking (see below). Later still it became affiliated with the interdisciplinary inquiry known as Argumentation theory. The precise nature and definition of informal logic are matters of some dispute. Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair define informal logic as "a branch of logic whose task is to develop non-formal standards, criteria, procedures for the analysis, interpretation, evaluation, criticism and construction of argumentation in everyday discourse."
Axiom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be self-evident. Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other (theory dependent) truths.
Premise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In discourse and logic, a premise is a claim that is a reason (or element of a set of reasons) for, or objection against, some other claim. In other words, it is a statement presumed true within the context of an argument toward a conclusion. Premises are sometimes stated explicitly by way of disambiguation or for emphasis, but more often they are left tacitly understood as being obvious or self-evident ("it goes without saying"), or not conducive to succinct discourse.
Co-premise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A co-premise is a premise in reasoning and informal logic which is not the main supporting reason for a contention or a lemma, but is logically necessary to ensure the validity of an argument. One premise by itself, or a group of co-premises can form a reason.
Objection (argument) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In informal logic an objection, also known as a refutation, is a reason arguing against a premise, lemma or main contention. An objection to an objection is known as a rebuttal.
Lemma (logic) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In informal logic and argument mapping, a lemma is simultaneously a contention for premises below it and a premise for a contention above it.
Conclusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A conclusion is a proposition, which is arrived at after the consideration of evidence, arguments or premises.
Counterargument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In reasoning and argument mapping, a counterargument, also known as a rebuttal, is an objection to an objection. A counterargument can be used to rebut an objection to a premise, a main contention or a lemma. A counterargument might seek to cast doubt on the truth of one or more of the first argument's premises, or to show that the first argument's contention does not follow from its premises in a valid manner, or the counterargument might pay little attention to the premises and Common structure of the first argument and simply attempt to demonstrate the truth of a conclusion incompatible with that of the first argument.
Validity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The term validity (also called logical truth, analytic truth, or necessary truth) as it occurs in logic refers generally to a property of particular statements and deductive arguments. Although validity and logical truth are synonymous concepts, the terms are used variously in different contexts. Whether or not logical truth is analytic truth is a matter of clarification.
Wicked problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The concept of "wicked problems" was originally proposed by Horst Rittel (a pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University of California, Berkeley) and M. Webber in a seminal treatise for social planning. Rittel expounded on the nature of ill-defined design and planning problems which he termed "wicked" (that is, messy, circular, aggressive) to contrast against the relatively "tame" problems of mathematics, chess, or puzzle solving.
Critic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The word critic comes from the Greek κριτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, which itself arises from the Ancient Greek word κριτής, krités, meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation. The term can be used to describe an adherent of a position disagreeing with or opposing the object of criticism. Modern critics include professionals or amateurs who regularly judge or interpret performances or other works (such as those of artists, scientists, musicians, or actors), and typically publish their observations, often in periodicals. Critics are numerous in certain fields, including art, music, film, theatre or drama, restaurant, and scientific publication critics.
Discourse ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Discourse ethics, sometimes called "argumentation ethics", refers to a type of argument that attempts to establish normative or ethical truths by examining the presuppositions of discourse.
Rationality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding. A logical argument is often described as "rational" if it is logically valid. However, rationality is a much broader term than logic, as it includes "uncertain but sensible" arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like, whereas logic deals principally with provable facts and demonstrably valid relations between them. For example, ad hominem arguments are logically unsound, but in many cases they may be rational. A simple philosophical definition of rationality refers to one's use of a "practical syllogism".
Syllogism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός — "conclusion," "inference"), (usually the categorical syllogism) is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form. In Aristotle's Prior Analytics, he defines syllogism as "a discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so."
Sophism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In the modern definition, a sophism is a confusing or illogical argument used for deceiving someone.
Straight and Crooked Thinking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Straight and Crooked Thinking, first published in 1930 and revised in 1953, is a book by Robert H. Thouless which describes flaws in reasoning and argument. [I highly recomend this book!]
Common misconceptions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A list of uncontroversial clarifications to common misconceptions.
List of fallacies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A list of logical fallacies.
List of misquotations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A famous misquotation is a well-known phrase attributed to someone who either did not actually say it in that form of words, or did not say it at all.
List of topics related to public relations and propaganda - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Evasion (ethics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Evasion is, in ethics, an act that deceives by stating a true statement that is irrelevant or leads to a false conclusion. For instance, a man knows that another man is in a room in the building because he heard him, but in answer to a question, says, "I have not seen him," thereby falsely implying that he does not know.
Evidence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Evidence in its broadest sense includes anything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Philosophically, evidence can include propositions which are presumed to be true used in support of other propositions that are presumed to be falsifiable. The term has specialized meanings when used with respect to specific fields, such as policy, scientific research, criminal investigations, and legal discourse. The most immediate form of evidence available to an individual is the observations of that person's own senses. For example an observer wishing for evidence that the sky is blue need only look at the sky. However this same example illustrates some of the difficulties of evidence as well: * someone who was blue-yellow color blind, but did not know it, would have a very different perception of what color the sky was than someone who was not. Even simple sensory perceptions (qualia) ultimately are subjective; guaranteeing that the same information can be considered somehow true in an objective sense is the main challenge of establishing standards of evidence. * there is also the question of what is meant by 'blue', and how we measure it. (If determined by a particular wave-length of colour - then how do we actually measure this?) * there is also the question of how evidence 'translates' e.g. is 'blau' in German universally translated as 'blue' in English: Germans may have different words for different parts of the spectrum; thus 'evidence' is a social construction.
Conjecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In scientific philosophy, Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" to indicate a proposition which is presumed to be real, true, or genuine, mostly based on inconclusive grounds, in contrast with a hypothesis (hence theory, axiom, principle), which is a testable statement based on accepted grounds. [In this sense empiricism is a conjecture.]

Science in Society

Sokal affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Sokal affair (also Sokal's hoax) was a hoax by physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text (published by Duke University). In 1996, Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University, submitted a paper of nonsense camouflaged in jargon for publication in Social Text, as an experiment to see if a journal in that field would, in Sokal's words: "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."
Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is the effort to understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable evidence as the basis of that understanding.
Science and technology studies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Science and technology studies (STS) is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these in turn affect society, politics, and culture.
Science studies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Science studies is an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in a broad social, historical, and philosophical context. It is concerned with the history of scientific disciplines, the interrelationships between science and society, and the alleged covert purposes that underlie scientific claims. While it is critical of science, it holds out the possibility of broader public participation in science policy issues.
Merton Thesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Merton Thesis is an argument about the nature of early experimental science proposed by Robert K. Merton. Similar to Max Weber's famous claim on the link between Protestant ethic and the capitalist economy, Merton argued for a similar positive correlation between the rise of Protestant pietism and early experimental science. The Merton Thesis has resulted in continuous debates. The Merton Thesis has two distinct parts: Firstly, it says that the changes in the nature of science are due to an accumulation of observations and better experimental technique; secondly, it proposes that the popularity of science in England in 17th century, and the religious demography of the Royal Society (English scientists of that time were predominantly Protestants or Puritans) can be explained by a correlation between Protestantism and the values of the new science. He specifically singles out English Puritanism and German Pietism as causally significant in the development of the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. Merton attributes this connection between religious affiliation and sustained interest in science to a strong compatibility between the values of ascetic Protestantism and those associated with modern science. Protestant values were seen to have had the effect of stimulating scientific research by inviting the empirical and rational quest for identifying the God-given order in the world and for practical applications; just as they legitimized scientific research through religious justifications.
Strong programme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The strong programme is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies is credited as being unparalleled. The largely Edinburgh-based school of thought has illustrated how the existence of a scientific community, bound together by allegiance to a shared paradigm, is a pre-requisite for normal scientific activity. The strong programme is a reaction against previous sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as phrenology. Failed theories would be explained by citing the researchers' biases, such as covert political or economic interests. Sociology would be only marginally relevant to successful theories, which succeeded because they had revealed a true fact of nature. The strong programme proposed that both 'true' and 'false' scientific theories should be treated the same way -- that is, symmetrically. Both are caused by social factors or conditions, such as cultural context and self interest. All human knowledge, as something that exists in the human cognition, must contain some social components in its formation process. The presence of social factors alone is not enough to falsify a scientific theory.
Science wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between "postmodernists" and "realists" (though neither party would likely use the terms to describe themselves) about the nature of scientific theories. In brief, the postmodernists questioned the objectivity of science and encompass a huge variety of critiques on scientific knowledge and method within cultural studies, cultural anthropology, feminist studies, comparative literature, media studies, and science and technology studies. The realists countered that there is such a thing as objective scientific knowledge and accused the postmodernists of having practically no understanding of the subject they were critiquing.
EASST - European Association for the Study of Science and Technology: EASST is an interdisciplinary scholarly society, which reflects the closeness of history, philosophy, psychology and sociology of science in recent years. It also welcomes a policy perspective on science and technology. Cross- disciplinary interaction and cross-fertilisation between humanistic and policy-oriented studies are important aims.
Society for Social Studies of Science: The main purpose of 4S is to bring together those interested in understanding science, technology, and medicine, including the way they develop and interact with their social contexts.
Science Studies Network: The point of departure is, for many, an appreciation that science is a jointly intellectual, material, and social enterprise; it brings diverse resources to bear on the project of constructing stable, reliable systems of knowledge about the natural and social world. It is the goal of Science Studies to understand how such knowledge is produced and authorized, what distinguishes it as scientific knowledge, how it evolves and is inflected by the contexts of its production, and what its normative implications are: what ethical obligations and other forms of accountability constitute "research integrity" in particular contexts of practice.
Agnotology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Agnotology, formerly agnatology, is a neologism (term recently 'coined') for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The term was coined by Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology. Its name derives from the Greek word agnosis, which means "not knowing". More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before. A prime example of the deliberate production of ignorance cited by Proctor is the tobacco industry's conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty. Some of the root causes for culturally-induced ignorance are media neglect, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness. [Also naive realism, arrogance, cultural bias, elitism and empiricist indoctrination.] Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not "come to be," or are ignored or delayed. For example, knowledge about plate tectonics was delayed for at least a decade because key evidence was classified military information related to underseas warfare. [Also the majority of the human condition has been ignored for centuries due to empiricist, materialist and naive realist prejudice.]
Systems theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field of science and the study of the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science. More specificially, it is a framework by which one can analyze and/or describe any group of objects that work in concert to produce some result. This could be a single organism, any organization or society, or any electro-mechanical or informational artifact.
Sociology of science and technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The sociology of science and technology is a broad field combining elements of the rich interdisciplinary field of science studies, as well as distinct sociological theories on the history of science.
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. The field is defined by an interest in one of a set of "traditional" problems or an interest in central or foundational concerns in science. In addition to these central problems for science as a whole, many philosophers of science consider these problems as they apply to particular sciences.
Sociology of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Sociology of science is the subfield of sociology that deals with the practice of science. Generally speaking, the sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."
Sociology of knowledge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Sociology of Knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. The term first came into widespread use in the 1920s. With the dominance of functionalism through the middle years of the 20th century, the sociology of knowledge tended to remain on the periphery of mainstream sociological thought. It was largely reinvented and applied much more closely to everyday life in the 1960s... in The Social Construction of Reality (1966) and is still central for methods dealing with qualitative understanding of human society. Although very influential within modern sociology, the sociology of knowledge can claim its most significant impact on science more generally through its contribution to debate and understanding of the nature of science itself, most notably through the work of Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Sociology of scientific knowledge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Sociologists, philosophers of science, historians of science, anthropologists and computer scientists, have engaged in controversy concerning the role that social factors play in scientific development relative to rational, empirical, and other factors.
Theories and sociology of the history of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The sociology and philosophy of science, as well as the entire field of science studies, have in the 20th century been preoccupied with the question of large-scale patterns and trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical sense. Science as a social enterprise has been developing exponentially for the past few centuries. In antiquity, the few people who were able to engage in natural inquiry were either wealthy themselves, had rich benefactors, or had the support of a religious community. In contrast, today there are more scientists alive now than have lived in all previous times. Scientific research has tremendous government support and also ongoing support from the private sector. Available methods of communication have improved tremendously over time. Instead of waiting months or years for a hand-copied letter to arrive, today scientific communication can be practically instantaneous. Earlier, most natural philosophers worked in relative isolation, due to the difficulty and slowness of communication. Still, there was a considerable amount of cross-fertilization between distant groups and individuals. Nowadays, almost all modern scientists participate in a scientific community, hypothetically global in nature (though often based around a relatively few number of nations and institutions of stature), but also strongly segregated into different fields of study. The scientific community is important because it represents a source of established knowledge which, if used properly, ought to be more reliable than personally acquired knowledge of any given individual. The community also provides a feedback mechanism, often in the form of practices such as peer review and reproducibility. Most items of scientific content (experimental results, theoretical proposals, or literature reviews) are reported in scientific journals and are hypothetically subjected to the scrutiny of their peers, though a number of scholarly critics from both inside and outside the scientific community have, in recent decades, began to question the effect of commercial and government investment in science on the peer review and publishing process, as well as the internal disciplinary limitations to the scientific publication process.
Historiography of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The historiography of science usually refers to the study of History of Science in its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools) and to the study of its own historical development ("history of History of Science", i.e., the history of the academic discipline called History of Science). Since the mid-19th century, ideas about the history of science and technology have been tied to important philosophical and practical questions, such as whether scientific conclusions should be regarded as progressing towards truth, and whether freedom is important for scientific research. Put broadly, the field as a whole examines the entire spectrum of human experience relating to science and technology, and how our understanding of that experience has changed over time. Historiography of science is a much more recent discipline than history of science, although they have exerted great mutual influence on each other, through the study of theories, changes in theories, disciplinary and institutional history, the cultural, economic, and political impacts of science and technology, and the impact of society on scientific practice itself.
Scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Scientific method refers to the body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to predict dependably any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context. Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process must be objective to reduce a biased interpretation of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.
Models of scientific inquiry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Scientific inquiry has two functions, first, to provide a descriptive account of how scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, second, to provide an explanatory account of why scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it appears to do in arriving at genuine knowledge of its objects.
Scientism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The term scientism can be used as a neutral term to describe the view that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations, and over other fields of inquiry, such as the social sciences. It also can imply a criticism of a perceived misapplication or misuse of the authority of science in either of two directions: 1. The term is often used as a pejorative to indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims. In this sense, the charge of scientism often is used as a counter-argument to appeals to scientific authority in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry. 2. The term is also used to pejoratively refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry," with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience". It thus expresses a position critical of (at least the more extreme expressions of) positivism.
Scientific imperialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Scientific imperialism refers to any situation in which science seems to act imperiously, such as "the tendency to push a good scientific idea far beyond the domain in which it was originally introduced, and often far beyond the domain in which it can provide much illumination." It can thus mean an attitude towards knowledge in which the beliefs and methods of science are assumed to be superior to and to take precedence over those of all other disciplines. "Devotees of these approaches are inclined to claim that they are in possession not just of one useful perspective on human behavior, but of the key that will open doors to the understanding of ever wider areas of human behavior." It is also apparent in "those who believe that the study of politics can and should be modelled on the natural sciences, a position defended most forcibly in the United States, and those who have dissented, viewing this ambition as methodologically unjustified and ethically undesirable." Scientific imperialism, "the idea that all decisions, in principle, can be made scientifically - has become, in effect, the religion of the intellectuals," for it seems to reflect "a natural tendency, when one has a successful scientific model, to attempt to apply it to as many problems as possible. But it is also in the nature of models that these extended applications are dangerous." Science appears most imperialistic when it seeks domination over other disciplines and the subordination of 'non-believers,' or those it perceives as being insufficiently educated in scientific matters. It can thus involve some zealotry, and perhaps a fundamentalist belief that science alone stands supreme over all other modes of inquiry. In this it may resemble cultural imperialism, as a rather rigid and intolerant form of intellectual monotheism. If it acts monopolistically then science does indeed seem rigid, ruthless and intolerant.
Denialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Denialism is a term used [within Scientism] to describe the position of governments, business groups, interest groups, or individuals who reject propositions on which a scientific or scholarly consensus exists. Such groups and individuals are said to be engaging in denialism when they seek to influence policy processes and outcomes by illegitimate means.
Rhetoric of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of scientific inquiry is a rhetorical activity. It emerged from a number of disciplines during the late twentieth century, including the disciplines of sociology, history, and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in departments of English, speech, and communication. Rhetoric is best known as a discipline that studies the means and ends of persuasion. Science, meanwhile, is typically seen as the discovery and recording of knowledge about the natural world. A key contention of rhetoric of science is that the practice of science is, to varying degrees, persuasive.
Collective intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Collective intelligence is a form of intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computers. The study of collective intelligence may properly be considered a subfield of sociology, of business, of computer science, and of mass behavior—a field that studies collective behavior from the level of quarks to the level of bacterial, plant, animal, and human societies. Some figures prefer to focus on collective intelligence primarily in humans and actively work to upgrade "the group IQ". Collective intelligence can be encouraged "to overcome 'groupthink' and individual cognitive bias in order to allow a collective to cooperate on one process—while achieving enhanced intellectual performance." Collective intelligence phenomenon have been defined as "the capacity of human communities to evolve towards higher order complexity and harmony, through such innovation mechanisms as differentiation and integration, competition and collaboration." "collective intelligence also involves achieving a single focus of attention and standard of metrics which provide an appropriate threshold of action". The approach of some academics is rooted in the "Scientific Community Metaphor".
Scientific community metaphor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In computer science, the Scientific Community Metaphor is one way of understanding scientific communities. In this approach, a high level programming language called Ether was developed that made use of pattern-directed invocation to invoke high-level procedural plans on the basis of messages (e.g. assertions and goals). The Scientific Community Metaphor builds on the philosophy, history and sociology of science with its analysis that scientific research depends critically on monotonicity, concurrency, commutativity, and pluralism to propose, modify, support, and oppose scientific methods, practices, and theories. Of course the above characteristics are limited in real scientific communities. Publications are sometimes lost or difficult to retrieve. Concurrency is limited by resources including personnel and funding. Sometimes it is easier to rederive a result than to look it up. Scientists only have so much time and energy to read and try to understand the literature. Scientific fads sometimes sweep up almost everyone in a field. The order in which information is received can influence how it is processed. Sponsors can try to control scientific activities.
Politicization of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The politicization of science is the manipulation of science for political gain. It occurs when government, business, or interest groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way the it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. Historically, these groups have conducted various campaigns to promote their interests in defiance of scientific consensus, and in an effort to manipulate public policy.
Heresy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Heresy is a dislocation of some complete and self-supporting system of belief, especially a religion [which includes Scientism], by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.
Galileo Gambit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The technique consists of pointing out that important scientific theories were often dismissed out of hand when they were first proposed. A commonly used example is the Heliocentric Theory. The writer or speaker then compares their own theory with that of Galileo and implies that they are similarly advancing a valid theory which is being rejected without being fully considered. They also seek to imply that those rejecting their theory are close-minded and lacking vision. [This term is usually used to denigrate attempts by non-establishment scientific researchers to have their work fairly treated. Naive realists cannot conceive that they are naive realists, hence they cannot discern that they are in fact being closed-minded. They cannot but see themselves as standing up for "obvious self-evident truths" such as empiricism and materialism and they cannot help but see the other as delusional and evasive.]
Pseudoscience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Pseudoscience is defined as a body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific or made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status. [The naive realist assumptions at the core of empiricism not only "lacks supporting evidence" but have been proven false so empirical science is open to being called a pseudoscience. It is protected from this charge by the other requirements of a pseudoscience but it is empirical science that defines the "scientific method" and that ascribes "scientific status" to itself. As for plausability, it seems plausible but only from a naive realist perspective.]
Scientistic materialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Scientistic materialism is a philosophical stance which posits a limited definition of consciousness to that which is observable and subject to the scientific method. The term is used as a pejorative by proponents of creationism or intelligent design. [ID is a naive realist misinterpretation of politicized Christian propaganda but so too is Scientism, only in more subtle ways. Both are part of a confused naive realist discourse.]
Timeline of the history of scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: This Timeline of the history of scientific method shows an overview of the cultural inventions that have contributed to the development of the scientific method. For a detailed account, see History of the scientific method.
History of scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The history of scientific method is inseparable from the history of science itself. The development and elaboration of rules for scientific reasoning and investigation has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and many eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of one or another approach to establishing scientific knowledge. Some of the most important debates in the history of scientific method center on: rationalism, especially as advocated by René Descartes; inductivism, which rose to particular prominence with Isaac Newton and his followers; and hypothetico-deductivism, which came to the fore in the early 19th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a debate over realism vs. antirealism was central to discussions scientific method as powerful scientific theories extended beyond the realm of the observable, while in the mid-20th century some prominent philosophers argued against any universal rules of science at all.
History of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by a global community of researchers making use of scientific methods, which emphasize the observation, experimentation and explanation of real world phenomena. Given the dual status of science as objective knowledge and as a human construct, good historiography of science draws on the historical methods of both intellectual history and social history.
History of science and technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history which examines how humanity's understanding of the natural world (science) and ability to manipulate it (technology) have changed over the millennia. This field of history also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of scientific innovation. Histories of science were originally written by practicing and retired scientists, starting primarily with William Whewell, as a way to communicate the virtues of science to the public. In the early 1930s, after a famous paper given by the Soviet historian Boris Hessen, effort was focused into looking at the ways in which scientific practices were allied with the needs and motivations of their context. After World War II, extensive resources were put into teaching and researching the discipline, with the hopes that it would help the public better understand both science and technology as they came to play an exceedingly prominent role in the world. In the 1960s, especially in the wake of the work done by Thomas Kuhn, the discipline began to serve a very different function, and began to be used as a way to critically examine the scientific enterprise. At the present time it is often closely aligned with the field of Science studies. Modern mathematical science and physical engineering as it is understood today took form during the scientific revolution, though much of the mathematics and science was built on the work of the Greeks, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, Indians and Muslims.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift.
History and philosophy of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. While it may seem an umbrella term, as described above people in the field of HPS consider this fusion of history of science with philosophy of science to be perfectly natural. The origin of this hybrid approach is reflected in the career of Thomas Kuhn... This attitude is also reflected in his historicist approach, as outlined in Kuhn's seminal Structure of Scientific Revolutions, wherein philosophical questions about scientific theories and, especially, theory change are understood in historical terms, employing concepts such as paradigm shift. "History of science without philosophy of science is blind ... philosophy of science without history of science is empty"
History and philosophy of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interpretation of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: An interpretation of quantum mechanics is a statement which attempts to explain how quantum mechanics informs our understanding of nature. Although quantum mechanics has been tested extensively in very fine experiments, some believe the fundamentals of the theory are yet to be fully understood. There exist a number of contending schools of thought, differing over whether quantum mechanics can be understood to be deterministic, which elements of quantum mechanics can be considered "real", and other matters. Although today this question is of special interest to philosophers of physics, many physicists continue to show a strong interest in the subject.

Technology in Society

Technology Dynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Technology Dynamics is broad and relatively new scientific field that has been developed in the framework of the postwar Science and Technology Studies field. It studies the process of technological change. Under the field of Technology Dynamics the process of technological change is explained by taking into account influences from “internal factors” as well as from “external factors”. Internal factors relate technological change to unsolved technical problems and the established modes of solving technological problems and external factors relate it to various (changing) characteristics of the social environment, in which a particular technology is embedded.
Technology and society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Technology and society or technology and culture refers to the cyclical co-dependence, co-influence, co-production of technology and society upon the other (technology upon culture, and vice-versa). This synergistic relationship occurred from the dawn of humankind, with the invention of the simple tools; and continues into modern technologies such as the printing press and computers.
Social construction of technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Social construction of technology (also referred to as SCOT) is a theory within the field of Science and Technology Studies (or Technology and society). Advocates of SCOT -- that is, social constructivists -- argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. They also argue that the ways in which a technology is used cannot be understood without understanding how that technology is embedded in its social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism and is sometimes known as technological constructivism.

Sociological Factors in Science

Actor-network theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to social theory and research which originated in the field of science studies. Although it is best known for its controversial insistence on the agency of nonhumans, ANT is also associated with forceful critiques of conventional and critical sociology. Developed by two leading French Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, the British sociologist John Law, and others, it can more technically be described as a 'material-semiotic' method. This means that it maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and 'semiotic' (between concepts). It assumes that many relations are both material and 'semiotic' (e.g. the interactions in a bank involve both people and their ideas, and technologies. Together these form a single network). ANT tries to explain how material-semiotic networks come together to act as a whole (e.g. a bank is both a network and an actor that hangs together, and for certain purposes acts as a single entity). As a part of this it may look at explicit strategies for relating different elements together into a network so that they form an apparently coherent whole. Many ANT scholars assume that such actor-networks are potentially precarious. Relations need to be repeatedly 'performed' or the network will dissolve. (E.g. the bank clerks need to come to work each day, and the computers need to keep on running.) They also assume that networks of relations are not intrinsically coherent, and may indeed contain conflicts (e.g. there may be poor labour relations, or computer software may be incompatible).
Social constructionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Social constructionism or social constructivism is a sociological and psychological theory of knowledge that considers how social phenomena develop in particular social contexts. Within constructionist thought, a social construction (social construct) is a concept or practice which may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society. Social constructs are generally understood to be the by-products (often unintended or unconscious) of countless human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature. This is not usually taken to imply a radical anti-determinism, however. Social constructionism is usually opposed to essentialism, which defines specific phenomena instead in terms of transhistorical essences independent of conscious beings that determine the categorical structure of reality. A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the creation of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. Socially constructed reality is seen as an ongoing, dynamic process; reality is reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it.
Social control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Social control refers to social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliances to the rules of a given society or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of chaos or anomie. Some theorists, such as Emile Durkheim, refer to this form of control as regulation. Sociologists identify two basic forms of social control: 1. Internalization of norms and values, and 2. The use of sanctions, which can be either positive (rewards) or negative (punishment).
Symbolic interactionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Symbolic interactionism is a major sociological perspective that is influential in many areas of the discipline. It is particularly important in microsociology and social psychology. Symbolic interactionism is derived from American pragmatism and particularly from the work of George Herbert Mead, who argued that people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative... People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.
Definition of the situation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The definition of the situation is a fundamental concept in symbolic interactionism. It is a kind of collective agreement between people on the characteristics of a situation, and from there, how to appropriately react and fit into it. Establishing a definition of the situation requires that the participants agree on both the frame of the interaction (its social context and expectations), and on their identities (the person they will treat each other as being for a given situation).
Impression management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In sociology and social psychology, impression management is the process through which people try to control the impressions other people form of them. It is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It is usually synonymous with self-presentation, if a person tries to influence the perception of their image. Impression management (IM) theory states that any individual or organization must establish and maintain impressions that are congruent with the perceptions they want to convey to their publics (Goffman, 1959). From both a communications and public relations viewpoint, the theory of impression management encompasses the vital ways in which one establishes and communicates this congruence between personal or organizational goals and their intended actions which create public perception. The goal is for one to present themselves the way in which they would like to be thought of by the individual or group they are interacting with. This form of management generally applies to the first impression. The idea that perception is reality is the basis for this sociological and social psychology theory, which is framed around the presumption that the other’s perceptions of you or your organization become the reality from which they form ideas and the basis for intended behaviors. The actor, shaped by the environment and target audience, sees interaction as a performance. The objective of the performance is to provide the audience with an impression consistent with the desired goals of the actor. The audience can be real or imaginary. IM style norms, part of the mental programming received through socialization, are so fundamental that we usually do not notice our expectations of them. While an actor (speaker) tries to project a desired image, an audience (listener) might attribute a resonant or discordant image.
Self monitoring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Self-monitoring theory is a contribution to the psychology of personality. The theory refers to the process through which people regulate their own behavior in order to "look good" so that they will be perceived by others in a favorable manner. It disintinguishes between high self-monitors, who monitor their behaviour to fit different situations, and low self-monitors, who are more cross-situationally consistent.
Self-verification theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Self-verification is a social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves, that is self-views (i.e. self-concepts and self-esteem). A competing theory to self-verification is self-enhancement or the drive for positive evaluations. Because chronic self-concepts and self-esteem play an important role in understanding the world, providing a sense of coherence, and guiding action, people become motivated to maintain them through self-verification strivings. Such strivings provide stability to people’s lives, making their experiences more coherent, orderly, and comprehensible than they would be otherwise. Self-verification processes are also adaptive for groups, groups of diverse backgrounds and the larger society, in that they make people predictable to one another thus serve to facilitate social interaction.
Looking glass self - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In the looking-glass self a person views himself or herself through others' perceptions in society and in turn gains identity. Identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do. The looking-glass self begins at an early age and continues throughout the entirety of a person’s life as one will never stop modifying their self unless all social interactions are ceased.
Total institution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A total institution, also referred to as a voracious institution, as defined by Erving Goffman, is an institution where all parts of life of individuals under the institution are subordinated to and dependent upon the authorities of the organization. Total institutions are social microcosms dictated by hegemony and clear hierarchy. Some boarding schools, concentration camps, colleges, cults, prisons, summer camps, outdoor education programs, mental institutions, sailing ships, boot camps, monasteries, convents, dictatorships and orphanages fit this description. Another view of total institutions defines them as places where rites of passage and indoctrination occur within their confines in such a way that the total institution acts as a secret society within the society, one which shapes newcomers willingly or unwillingly into a new and more or less permanent social role. Fraternities and sororities are exemplary of this definition of total institutions. [Scientism seeks to create a total institution by defining what is 'real' in its own limited context and then imposing this on all aspects of human knowledge.]
Indoctrination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned... Instruction in the basic principles of science, in particular, can not properly be called indoctrination, in the sense that the fundamental principals of science call for critical self-evaluation and skeptical scrutiny of one's own ideas. [However positivism and the unquestionable naive realist foundations of empiricism result in far reaching materialist indoctrination.] Noam Chomsky remarks, "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments." Robert Jay Lifton argues that the objective of phrases or slogans like "blood for oil," or "cut and run," is not to continue reflective conversations but to replace them with emotionally appealing phrases. This technique is called the thought-terminating cliché.
Thought-terminating cliché - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance. The term was popularized by Robert Jay Lifton in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Lifton said, “The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”
Loaded language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Loaded language is verbiage that attempts to influence the listener or reader by appealing to emotion rather than logic. Types of loaded language include loaded words and loaded questions.
Obscurantism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Obscurantism (from the Latin obscurans, "darkening") is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known. There are two common senses of this: (1) opposition to the spread of knowledge—a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. The first and older sense of the term 'obscurantism' refers to practices that favor limits on the extension and dissemination of knowledge... The notion that rulers or leaders [or Scientistic elites] know what is best for the people can be found in all forms of totalitarianism; “obscurantism and tyranny go together." "Obscurantism" is also a polemical term accusing authors of writing in a deliberately vague and abstruse style in order to hide their vacuousness: the writer's ignorance is obscured. Philosophers who are not empiricists or positivists are often accused of such obscurantism. [This is because naive realists are unaware that they are naive realists a