I really did.. please see comment attached to other reply here. I can only assume you didn’t read the article. It’s disguised as philosophy, but it’s filled with tons of logical fallacies. It’s anti-science propaganda in disguise as philosophy to make it palatable. The Weekley Standard has a history of anti-science agenda articles.
It's rather remarkable, then, that anti-science propaganda is being churned out by a "professor of science and society at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation and Society and the co-director of the university’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes."
"Science and Society", "Science and Technology Studies", and several similar fields are basically devoted to writing this sort of article. If this came from a chemistry professor, I'd be stunned; from a 'professor of science and society', it's almost exactly what I'd expect; that's a humanities field that studies science, often from a postmodern viewpoint.
I don't even say that as criticism; it's worth reminding people that you can follow the scientific method with real rigor and still get a completely wrong result. My biggest gripe about this article is that it missed opportunities to make its point more strongly and clearly. For instance, it could have benefitted hugely from discussing Daryl Bem. (The professor who 'proved' ESP exists with more rigor than most published psych results.)
But yes, it's pretty much the origin I would have expected.
edit: Just looked up the CSPO, and all of the same reactions apply. It's explicitly not a scientific consortium, it's devoted to analyzing the societal impacts of science and technology.
argument from relevant authority. A professor of "science and society" at an accredited university would be a relevant authority for the topic of the scientific method and its impact on society...
If I am presented with two contradictory statements, one by an expert and one not, and have no particular reason to believe one or the other, then I'm going to guess the expert is correct. Wouldn't you?
If someone posted an editorial called "Amazon is great for society and we should do nothing to trammel its growth," would you think it was irrelevant if it were written by Jeff Bezos?
I wouldn't normally say this, but since you appealed to authority first... are you aware of how absolutely dismal ASU's reputation is in academia in general?
