IB Philosophy 6.3.2 the Effects of Society and Social Values on Science Key Definitions

one of Robert Merton's four norms of science, holding that scientists should pursue knowledge without personal gain or self-interest as a motive. Critics argue that disinterestedness is insufficient as a moral standard, since a scientist may act without personal bias yet still bear moral culpability for failing to consider the harmful applications of their findings.

in Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science, the overarching framework of shared assumptions, methods, and exemplary problems that governs normal scientific practice within a discipline. Paradigms are socially and historically conditioned, and a paradigm shift occurs when anomalies accumulate to the point that the scientific community adopts a radically new framework.

The replication crisis is an ongoing methodological problem, especially in psychology and biomedicine, in which a significant proportion of published findings cannot be reproduced by independent researchers. It has been linked to funding pressures, publication bias toward positive results, and questionable research practices such as p-hacking.

The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), associated with David Bloor and Barry Barnes, studies how social factors, collective negotiation, and cultural context shape the content and acceptance of scientific knowledge. SSK holds that what counts as a scientific fact is partly determined by social processes rather than nature alone.

Sandra Harding's concept of strong objectivity holds that genuine scientific objectivity requires critical examination of the social position of the knower, rather than pretending the researcher is a neutral, view-from-nowhere observer.