Conventional Science May Lead to Social Exclusion

Science and technology have created the dominant paradigm to explain almost entire of natural phenomenon. Although there have been great technological achievements as a result of scientific conceptualisation, the reality contradicts the supremacy of a single approach of thinking. In fact, any definite style of thinking by a specific group of people which is called ‘thought collectives’[1] is narrowing the overall capacity of human being, because as Anni Dugdale has mentioned ‘science, technology and society are co-constitutive each other’[2]. It means science did not substantively appear but is socially constructed and affected by ‘socio-technical systems which include various human and non-human factors’[3]. Although science and technology shape society, science itself is subject to change and a dominant scientific paradigm may have discarded as the time passes. For instance, the Ptolemaic picture of the world asserted that the earth was centring the universe and every other planet including the sun revolve around it. This idea was accepted as a fact for hundreds of years, but following the Copernicus theory which proved earth rotates around the sun, the Earth Centring paradigm was abandoned and was not considered as a scientific fact anymore. The trend of leaving the dominant paradigm has always been difficult because the previous scholars resist any sort of ingenuity which leads to leaping off from already created system of thinking, ‘just as a priest and religious leaders are into the particular thought collectives of their faith by theological college’[4] and that is why it may lead to social exclusion.

There have been several instances which prove science is not necessarily restricted to the existing scientific boundaries. The TED talk video of ‘How We'll Find Life on Other Planets’[5] , demonstrates perfectly that there has always been more than one way to seek scientific truth. Aomawa Shields explains how she examined climate models to focuses on searching life in other planets rather than following the conventional idea which mainly relays on the distance of that planet from its star. She provides a glimpse of social exclusion mentioning the intersectionality of race and gender as a black female American astronomer who uses makeup, looking fashion magazines and having a great passion with contradictions. Nevertheless, she seeks outside of the conventional fields of science which has been mainly leading by men. Risking to tackle social exclusion may lead to the further invention as the reality sometimes contradict the initial perceptions.

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[1] Anni Dugdale. “Science, technology and Society” in Sociologic: Analysing Everyday Life and Culture, ed, James Arvanitakis. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press, 2016. 363.

[2] Anni Dugdale. “Science, technology and Society”. 379.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, 370.

[5] Aomawa Shields. How we'll find life on other planets. TED Talks. 2015.