culture
Why the hierarchy of the sciences no longer serves us
BY VAISHNAVI MOHAN
I
f COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that a
multi-disciplinary approach is the best way to work at a problem. If this is the case, why are still viewing the sciences in a hierarchy? Physics (and other natural sciences) is seen to be an extremely elite discipline in the sciences. While not everyone can study it and pursue a career in it, does it still hold value to be seen as one of the most essential sciences? It is clear that there is a hierarchy in the way we view science and the humanities, but should we continue this way? There are increasing examples to show that we cannot separate science from society. For the first time on such an urgent global scale, politics, social sciences and biological sciences have tried to work together to fight against this pandemic. This then begs the question, should there still be a hierarchy in the way we view science? But let’s first understand where this theory originated from. The concept of hierarchy in science originated from Auguste Comte, a famous philosopher who introduced positivism in the 19th century. His theory states that different sciences hold various levels of importance in society, and they can move up or down this scale of importance over time. The idea was to supply an encyclopaedic scale of the sciences from the most complex to the most general (consensus forming). Thus, the bottom of this scale would be sociology, astrology etc. The top of the scale would be mathematics and physics. When this theory was created, it supplied a structure for the sciences to grow, develop as
THE HIERARCHY IN THE SCIENCES IS NOT ONLY PREVALENT IN THE SPACE WHERE SCIENCE IS DONE, BUT IT IS ALSO PRESENT IN THE SPACE WHERE SCIENCE IS CONSUMED. 28
independent fields of study and allow for some overlap. There were many benefits to such classifications. The theory was created to supply a structure, but this led to societal changes in how the sciences were perceived. The hierarchy in the sciences is not only prevalent in the space where science is done, but it is also present in the space where science is consumed. The natural sciences are given more importance in the way they are taught, spoken about, reported on and celebrated. This may arise from the fact that natural sciences are based on consensus (as Comte suggested) and less on interpretation, thus being more strongly associated with ‘facts’ about the world, giving them more importance than the social sciences that are rooted in complexities. The classification of the sciences changed the way natural scientists viewed their role in scientific society. Robert Merton, an American sociologist, known for introducing norms to adhere to in science, said that scientists came to regard themselves as independent of society and consider science as a self-validating enterprise within society but not of it. Now, this may be a consequence of the theory of hierarchy. Still, there is no denying that the separation of the natural sciences from social sciences had no role in the scientists’ view of their position in society and the impact of the science they were doing. We are seeing increased examples of where interdisciplinary research and practices are better than separated disciplines. Though different scientific disciplines are not practised in the same exact way, applying this hierarchy among the sciences may not be helping the scientific method. Fundamentally it might not make sense to combine, for example, politics and physics, but the structure of our society prevents us from keeping them separate. The natural sciences and the social sciences influence each other more than we realise. As C. P. Snow, a novelist and physical chemist said in his famous Two Cultures lectures in 1959, there is a lack of communication between the two cultures of modern society – the sciences and the humanities. He called for a better understanding of the disciplines as the only way to consider solving world problems. As a member of both the sciences and humanities, he was appalled at the lack of collaboration. Snow found the educational system to be the root of
