But what is the objective of scientific thinking? And how is scientific quality regarding the objective of scientific thinking defined? The values debate in the sciences has filled libraries across the world for centuries. This debate reached a level of extreme importance in the middle of the last century as a result of science's recognition of the human potential for destruction. Images, theories and methodological procedures about the world and its people generated by science, especially the manmade social, symbolical and technological systems are described in accordance with epistemological beliefs that are bound within a certain time frame. Science not only describes but also creates social, economic, technological, symbolical and as of recently, genetic and biological realities. This is a cause and consequence of historical practices of human perception, production and reproduction. Science not only analyzes on the basis of the knowledge available, but it also creates different realities and different knowledge systems. But science and research are in no way a self-centred, auto-perpetuating system, contrary to much science-skeptic argumentation. Sciences such as physics and astronomy, which apply the most stringent, restrictive and thereby also the most 'specific' criteria for standards of empirical research, have made decisive contributions to the fundamentals of the epistemological paradigm shifts which have taken place within the last century.
Click to enlarge: Scripts, India
Source: M.W.
The historical and social sciences pose questions about humankind and their political, economic, social and cultural representations. In this scientific realm we question people from the very distant past. This is made possible as a result of a fundamental cultural technique, which unleashes knowledge and productive forces in a very small time frame, in terms of the evolutionary process of 5000 years. Writing, and with it the numerical system, is a prerequisite for a chronological analysis of societal processes. The written language enables past thoughts to be systematically linked with the present and therefore, also the future. Not only is the ability to write a prerequisite for a complex systems of rule, a monetary economy, diversified provisioning, astronomy, standing armies, codification of the legal system, religious order, etc., but writing also imparts the genesis of mankind on a second symbolical, metaphorical and temporal level. Writing is localized on thoughts, actions, decisions, ideologies and even 'divine revelations' and it is in principle readily accessible in the archives. This is of course independent of whether or not its content can be understood. As manifold as the growing genetic diagram of our bio-physiological existence is, which has been taking place for millions of years, so too are the archives of written human thought that nowadays present the evolution of the scientific search for knowledge. The digital-age knowledge explosion builds its glass houses upon the ability to archive human thought. Although it sometimes appears that modern digital-age researches neglect to ask what the purpose of their scientific knowledge actually is.
Click to enlarge: Agriculture, Peru
Source: M.W.
There is one provision that is of course not placed on God or on evolutionary principles or even on a mechanical dialectic of knowledge, but instead takes responsibility for human activity as being a conscious decision of the human being. Scientific knowledge, in any area, must ultimately be valued in terms of the life-enhancing or inhospitable effects of the coexistence of human beings. The fact that scientists often seem to have neglected ethical limitations does not mean that ethical principles are not inherent within the borders of science. There are, of course, borders, that while often being blurry, do exist between a science that places its expertise in the survival and wellbeing of present and future human beings and a science that justifies the 'borderless' exploitation of natural resources and human capital, which invokes a more 'value-neutral' objectivity in order to turn a blind eye to the knowledge created and its consequences in reality. The latter is often the result of one-sided business interests and the effects of their methods. Simply stated it is about using all existing knowledge and research resources to protect, promote and keep from destroying the world's human habitat and its inhabitants. The line of thought that results is that there needs to be equal protection from ecological exploitation as there is from social exploitation! The intention of modern science is to confront problems of preservation. More specifically, the reestablishment of adequate human life and knowledge spaces on the basis of human coexistence over the next thousand years, a small frame of time when considered in the context of human existence.
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