Project:   The Critique of Science Applied to an Env Issue 
Your Mission, should you decide to accept it:
Answer the questions found below as a group
Hand in one answer with everyone's name
- 1st & last, in alphabetical order by last name
- Include only members who are present
Indicate the date:  ____________________ 		 Indicate the name of the class
Indicate the name of the Project
Be thorough; write good answers
Use your time wisely. 
Be finished by the end of the allotted time
Name of the Project:  The Critique of Science Applied to an Env Issue

The goal of this project is to first pick an env issue & then discuss how any of the features of a critique of science might apply.  You might also consider if the critiques apply depending on the perspective of the particular stakeholder, ie: the general public, environmentalists, the media, recreationists, industrialists, govt, etc.  For example climate change is certainly one of the most complex env issues, so several of the pts below apply.  The envlists argue that there is scientific consensus on many pts about climate change, while the industrialists continue to try to mystify the science following the playbook of the cigarette corps who 'refuted' the science on the health hazards of smoking. 

SUMMARY OF A CRITIQUE OF SCIENCE:      (There is more discussion of these pts in the Review Notes)
1.  Modern culture idealizes science 
2.  Complexity overwhelms the scientific method 
3.  Complexity compounds uncertainties in any scientific inquiry 
4.  There are unsolvable methodological problems in applying the physical & social science to policy issues, as well as serious weaknesses 
5.  Science is often politicized, & the application of science to policy issues is nearly always politicized 
6.  Scientific analysis cannot create public policy 
7.  The physical sciences typically dominate the social sciences in that in the view of the public & govt administrators, it has more legitimacy & value 
8.  The scientific method is framed by paradigms & paradigms shift in a historical context 
9.  Knowledge is obj & subj but usually we think of it as one OR the other, depending on our affirmation or negation of the knowledge, 
        but in practice knowledge is both obj & subj
10.  Science is based on linear models while reality itself is much more complex 
11.  Science is subject to economic control because funding, speaking tours, etc. often flow from corp sources or from sources who are beholden to corp sources 
12.  me demonstrated that all science can show is correlation, not cause & effect 
13.  Weber demonstrated that sci should strive to be value free, but ultimately, it cannot be so 
14.  For Montesquieu, knowledge is contextual 

The End