Hi Peter,
  This would really be an interesting to study. That said, I should make a point that is implied, but not necessarily explicit. Being a scientist does not mean on has a scientific worldview. For most, science is a methods-based epistemology. So, they operate from a “methodological naturalism” that works in the domain they study, but they do not have a coherent worldview grounded in science or believe that science is the way to model existence in its totality.   Consider this poll from 2009 on Scientist beliefs, which find that about 50% “belief in god/deity” and only 40% are NOT theists:

A survey<http://pewresearch.org/politics/report/528/> of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1<https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/#fn-12952-1> Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey<https://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Do-the-Democrats-Have-a-God-Problem.aspx> of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.

So, I would say that most scientists do not have a scientific worldview OVERALL. Note, I certainly am NOT saying this bad thing. It is a very reasonable argument to say that modern science epistemology is not adequate to give rise to a worldview. I would interpret these folks as having a scientific view and a theological view. Of course, this was the original view…modern science as I am referring to it was “natural philosophy” that grew out of a Christian worldview.

Best,
Gregg


From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Peter Sforza
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK 4 Scientific Worldviews

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
________________________________
Hi Gregg,

Thanks for sharing this.  I'll contemplate this more deeply, and my reaction is that there are many many more fragmented and incomplete/incoherent worldviews and most scientists haven't found a practical need or a perception that is is important to bring in a worldview framing.   The main reaction I find emerging through my 25 years in academia (in 5 different colleges and admin) is that many scientists are not fully aware of their worldview or framing from within the disciplinary fog. I am hopeful that more scientists are perceiving the importance of worldview on the Interpretation and Inferences that can be made. We can re-interpret Newtonian physics or Relativity now along with Quantum Perspective.... but will we actually attempt this when there is still so much entangled with old/current frames.

I did a small experiment in the spirit of a meta-integral exploration that is part of my current research.  On an interdisciplinary team, I asked all participants to provide information about their data, methods, models, theories. It was clear in doing this with multiple teams over 2 years that many scientists are working deeply embedded in a disciplinary frame that emphasizes expertise. So this may lead to a narrowing of worldview in order to hone in on an expertise narrative/evidence and work within the funding and traditional structures/incentives/dis-incentives. There are always a few individuals who are aware of worldview, epistemological, ontological, metaphysical framings etc but I'm damn sure this isn't the norm in science and engineering. I have less intimate experience on the inside of a psychology dept but from the debates and dialog of philosophers and psychologists, I'd say that it's likely more than hard science and engineers who are in a certain binds or practices that keep the perception and acknowledgement of worldview implications to a bounded frame.

Is there a worthwhile distinction,  A Separation of Concerns, for
 science - scientists - institutions of science

The entanglements of worldview across the AQAL framing of Sean Esbjörn-Hargens seems like a reasonable way to test if your synthesis and generalization is holding.  However, just in writing that I would guess that you'll need more worldviews to describe the multi-valence of a collection of real  cases.   If you just look backwards and try to summarize, you end up with citations of a few important figures, but the reality of actual science practice as humans is abstracted away. Also, do those well-known scientists represent the bulk of science, and also how the non-scientists views science.

Similarly, in the practice of science, how do we consider observations and measurements? Is there a separation of concerns of:
  the observation/measurement act from;
  the procedure, which may be used for  other observations and;
  the feature-of-interest

Hope this helps.

best regards,
Peter

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 8:29 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hi TOK Folks,

I have been writing a bit in my in-progress book, The Problem of Psychology and Its Solution, frames science (i.e., as a modernist, empirical, natural, scientific methods-based system of justification) and the kind of scientific worldview it offers.  I have identified four different broad scientific worldviews and would love to get your take.

First, there is the reductive physicalist flatland view, which we can call Scientific Worldview A. This is the view of people like John Watson and his neuro-reflexology, Alex Rosenberg and his embrace of scientism and physical reductionism, and the eliminative materialists. The most recent PT blog I did was on highlighting why I think this is silly<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_202104_reductive-2Dphysicalism-2Dis-2Dsilly&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=I62G3NiPCEMg96zjr2Cr8hif2fvBsK19G2x2ai9Ygb8&e=>. I don’t think too many people really adopt this view or offer strong defenses of it. I think this is mostly a rhetorical position against any “fluffy” ways of thinking, although it can’t be taken seriously on its own terms, as strong versions end up arguing that arguments don’t really exist, thus it collapses in on itself.

Second, there is what I would call “weak epistemological emergentism” (Scientific Worldview B). These are the folks who embrace a broad materialist view of science, and, at the same time, they acknowledge that emergent properties are key and that we need to talk about them. This is someone like Sean Carroll and his poetic naturalism (or, what I would call, “poetic physicalism”). There is a lot of confusion about what exactly emergentism means. But the two weakest versions of emergentism are that (a) aggregate groups have properties that don’t appear in the individual units (i.e., fluidity emerges with lots of water molecules, but does not exist at the individual molecule level) and (b) that our vocabularies and epistemological approaches require us to talk about “higher level” phenomena. However, these folks argue that we could, in theory, reduce it all ontologically to quantum fluctuations. This is scientific worldview B, which I think would probably characterize the majority of big picture scientists. I think Big History generally falls here, as does Consilience, probably David Deutsch. Classifying these folks is hard to say, because I don’t think they understand the difference between their view and the ToK/UTOK view.  Many people on the TOK list lean in this direction, but I think most then find the ToK to be an upgrade (although I welcome defenses of Worldview B over C)

Third, there is the ToK/UTOK formulation, which gives a kind of “strong or ontological emergentism” (Scientific Worldview C). (Note, I will no longer be publicly using “strong emergence” as I did in this blog because<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_202004_strong-2Demergence-2Dis-2Dvalid-2Dconcept&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=5xMoJLHyTNq9mWeRYKN5webOoIxzQET727A_GKfF0nM&e=> John V does not like the term, but it is useful here and consistent what how it is often described, such as here by Chalmers<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.consc.net_papers_emergence.pdf&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=9Le4o_QTvGkYwB_hdF0MIrAfKWGwTycKXEwf1W7PUyY&e=>). The difference between this and weak can be thought of in terms of the shape of the ToK. A weak version might give a single cone of complexification. The strong version argues that new causal properties emerge that are not reducible ontologically to the levels beneath them. Specifically, there are epistemic/communication/information processes at the level of Life, Mind, and Culture that cannot be ontologically reduced to the levels beneath them. The key here is that the ToK argues for two kinds of emergence. One weak/within, one “strong”/between dimensions. The ToK thus rejects physicalism or materialism, as it implies an ontological reduction akin to the kind of weak emergence that happens within a dimension. Rather, the ToK gives us a view that is “naturalistic” and “behavioral”. That is, science is about observing, describing, and explaining patterns of behavior in nature at various levels and dimensions of complexity, mapped by the ToK and Periodic Table of Behavior. Crucial to the ToK/UTOK is an ontological substance continuity—but new causal emergences as seen in the cosmic evolution from Energy to Matter to Life to Mind to Culture to the scientific knower. The strong version of the ToK/UTOK is that this is ontologically complete. The weak version is that this is ontologically sound (i.e., coherent naturalism) and we are agnostic about other possible realities that might influence the picture (anywhere from dark matter to an infinite cosmic consciousness).

Fourth, there is the post-materialistic vision of science, Scientific Worldview D. Two examples are the Galileo Commission report<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__galileocommission.org_report_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=zmMMEoM72SdlCFmI0SUXA3j_4oAwxxrqwXKPJc08z3w&e=> and  Sean Esbjörn-Hargens work in the “Integral Exo Studies<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DcdRvOSyTJ0s&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=_UB-4kTE8C4_S_xZqxclu4V5FZaQ-5sUbiDbQCosiPI&e=>.” These perspectives see the need for a different metaphysics than given by a coherent naturalism. This domain is, of course, not homogenous, as it opens up many possible paths. One general way to characterize it would be an approach to science that argues that an emergent naturalistic behaviorism as given by the ToK is not adequate to explain empirically documentable phenomena that warrant belief. For example, NDEs that point to a life beyond, past lives/reincarnation, higher dimensions of a consciousness field that afford parapsychological phenomena, the existence of god/s, etc are enough evidence to conclude that the emergent naturalistic picture is not sufficient for coherence. (Note, I think that the Galileo report is hard to read here, because half of it is about criticizing Worldview A strongly and Worldview b weakly, but it is not really positioned in relationship to Worldview C.

Finally, of course there are traditional theological worldviews, like Catholicism, but I am not considering them here because they are theological rather than scientific.

I am curious to hear what folks think of this taxonomy of scientific worldviews. It seems to me “A” is out. I don’t know how you could argue for a stronger version of reductionism that what Carroll puts out in The Big Picture. If anyone knows of works they consider to be strong examples of this that are well-done, please let me know. Obviously, I think Worldview C is better than B for a host of reasons, starting with the Enlightenment Gap and the problem of psychology.

Worldview D is interesting and worth deep consideration, and I know several people on the TOK list lean in this direction.

but I don’t think it warrants being called “scientific”. That is, although I appreciate the evidence that is offered for it and find it to be pointing to possible truths, I don’t think it gives enough metaphysical/ontological coherence and at the same time raises too many questions. That is, it works as an effective argument against Scientific Worldview A, and somewhat B. But once you have Scientific Worldview C, especially placed in the context of UTOK which frames science as a kind of justification system, rather than “The Truth about the Ontic Reality,” then the argument for Worldview D as science gets much more wobbly.

Welcome thoughts, per usual. Might do a blog on this.

Regards to all!
G

___________________________________________
Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)

Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.
Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:
https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GKO5LL9XNyDuPv2eo8bx1V6XpkmfvAb2Z-JWiDSrdLA&s=ZTJOn2UbVfGed9mY7iYwI83Fj-sg2jTZ20t08D0h2OI&e=>

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1