Knowledge and its applications

Science Technology Society Relations THE argument refers to a dimension of science, technology and society relations. I will try to argue that there is a normative structure to this relationship, which follows from a normative structure of knowledge which was historically constituted with the rise of science. When we accord authority to science in matters of knowledge we do it for two basic reasons. 1. We think science is a knowledge enterprise based on openended enquiry that is conducted without any regard for authoritative knowledge, it is based on evidence and experiment, its mode of enquiry is public, and so on. We agree with the paradigm of knowledge that science articulates. 2. Secondly, we accord it authority based on the technological marvels that science has given us. It is the second part that I am concerned with today. Are science and technology basically one or are they basically different. If different how is this difference constituted. There is the question about good technology and bad technology and whether science is to blame for bad technology. I argue that this difference is constituted by the separation of application of knowledge from testing of knowledge in the context of science.

In fact there is a big puzzle in science with regard to the question of testing or verification. In the 20th century we have moved from verifiability principle to falsifiability principle to the theories that theories can not be verified or falsified by facts because facts themselves are theoretically constituted with reference to particular paradigms. I will argue that this puzzle itself is partly a result of the very same separation between application of knowledge and testing of knowledge. Consider a recent conference announcement: What distinguishes science from all other human endeavors is that the accounts of the world that our best, mature sciences deliver are strongly supported by evidence and this evidence gives us the strongest reason to believe them. While this is the distinctive mark of science, unanimity has still to emerge among philosophers of science about the logic of confirmation and induction used to relate evidence to science. Scientists are continuously producing knowledge which they know are strongly supported by evidence, but they themselves or the philosophers of science are unable to produce an account, an epistemic account, of the production of tested knowledge. What is proposed here is a general account of the testing of knowledge minus the two conditions which were self-imposed on earlier attempts namely that this account should be such that it should apply to science but not to other knowledge and that this account should be independent of the knowledge in question. Our account of testing applies to all knowledge including science and the particular knowledge in question plays a central role in its own testing. Knowledge is tested only through its application. In other words, in order to test any knowledge-claim, we perform an action on the

basis of that knowledge and assess if the outcome is consistent with this knowledge. To take the simplest of instances, if I say that there is a person behind that wall listening to my presentation, you will get up from your seat and take a look around the corner. You are testing the knowledge by performing an action based on this knowledge. If you further wanted to confirm whether that person is just standing there or in fact listening to the lecture, you would signal the lecturer to stop speaking for a moment and watch the behaviour of the person, and so on. But this knowledge has no application beyond here and now. Knowledge that has application in multiplicity of contexts, we can call theoretical knowledge. Science is concerned with this kind of knowledge. Testing a theory in science means to go on broadening the range of its application. If the theory is found effective in one context, it does not mean it is true. Similarly, if it is found to be ineffective in one context, it does not mean it is not true. Scientists do not give up Newtonian mechanics for all contexts of application after relativity and quantum theory have been discovered. In this perspective, testability of a theory simply means the possibility of conceiving a way in which it can be applied, which in turn, means that an action can be performed based on that theory. Falsifiability of a theory means the same thing. We reserve the concept of verification for a further condition of testability especially relevant when knowledge is produced in a research community. The process of application of knowledge is verified here by others in order for it to be accepted. Kuhnian proposition without Kuhnian theoretical apparatus: If knowledge is tested only in its application, then any action to test that knowledge is based on that knowledge itself. This should include performing an experiment. If we are designing an experiment to test a scientific proposition or calculation, design of

the experiment will have to be guided by the same knowledge. Kuhn noted this and interpreted it as a consequence of theoryladenness of facts. The argument on testability of knowledge based on its application seems surprising because we are accustomed to think of application as beyond the sphere of science proper. Science is the site of production and verification of knowledge, application of this knowledge is supposed to start after this knowledge has been transferred to the public sphere and the technological field. There is a corresponding assumption that once the knowledge has been passed on, the process of testing of that knowledge has ceased. The claim is that the sphere of application starts right within science and it is central to the process of testing and verification. And it extends beyond the boundaries of a discipline or boundaries of science, to the whole domain where this knowledge plays any role. Since the process of application is closely tied up with testing, we can also say that the process of testing of scientific knowledge continues beyond the sphere of science. Any situation, where an action is performed, an action in which scientific knowledge is one of the factors, is a new test for that knowledge. A hybrid seed produced in the research laboratories is taken by the farmer and planted in a new soil, the hybrid seed is being tested in new conditions. When the hybrid seed is on test, then the knowledge behind that is also on test. We can actually speak of testing science and scientific knowledge by the impact it has had on society, for better or worse. This is not to deny that science indeed is a site of production and verification of knowledge in its own right. A research community is engaged in the production of new knowledge and is the location of a body of technical knowledge both tacit and explicit - that is required to generate new knowledge. Moreover, in a research

community, not only do we have to produce knowledge that can be tested, but we have to do so in a manner that is adequate to the norms of validity and methods of proof in the current stage of the discipline. We have to produce knowledge that is considered valid by the research community. Kuhn has used the notion of a paradigm to designate the complex of norms, procedures, and assumptions etc, which govern normal scientific practice. Sometimes, new knowledge appears that challenges the prevailing paradigm. A fissure occurs in a field of research and a new paradigm may replace and absorb the old one. While it is true that the resolution of conflicts between paradigms cannot be carried out according to pre-determined procedures of reason or logic, the testing of theory takes us beyond the solipsistic implications of such a claim. The theory or knowledge that is being tested is a new factor, which is not yet a part of the paradigm, and which plays a central role in its own testing. Moreover, the discipline or the research community does not operate in a vacuum. The whole research community itself has to produce knowledge that is considered of value by the society at large and also by the corporate body supporting research governments, corporations, societies, associations, military and so on. While scientists may pursue knowledge for its own sake, for the people at large and especially for the corporate body supporting research, it has an obvious cognitive significance in terms of the goals that can be achieved. It is the logic of testing that ensures this. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY How does this separation of testing and application constitute the difference between science and technology? Science is production of tested knowledge

Technology is application of scientific knowledge Laboratory testing is for scientific theories, field testing is for technology. If some technology does not work, it is on account of fault in application. It does not reflect on the knowledge which is represented by the technology. (Knowledge and Technique) Conversely, if a technology works, it does not mean that that is an indication that the knowledge behind that technology or technique has any validity. This schema for evaluation of knowledge is one piece in the order of knowledge that science sought to institute in society. All valid knowledge is produced by science. Other knowledge that exists in society is not valid. There may be useful techniques in society, but no valid knowledge. Scientific knowledge is created by research communities organised in disciplines. These disciplines are cognitively organised in a hierarchy with physics as the most fundamental science. Scientific community is engaged in disinterested research This kind of scheme in the evaluation of knowledge is part of a much more complex and historically developing normative structure of knowledge.