R SOC375 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Science Book, Fringe Science, Initial Condition

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Rural Sociology
• Course: R SOC375
• Professor: John Parkins

Document Summary

Lomborg scientific facts build the appropriate foundation for knowing how to act in the world. But the recognition of a problem demands a pre-existing framework of values and interests within which problems can be recognized. The growth of considerable bodies of scientific knowledge created to resolve political dispute and enable effective decision making accompanied by growing political controversy and gridlock. Science center of debate, where ppl who advocate some line of action are likely to claim a scientific justification for their position. Scientific facts cannot overcome and may reinforce, value disputes and competing interests. Scientific knowledge is not independent of political context but co-produced by scientists and society within which they are embedded: different stakeholders in env problems possess diff bodies of contextually validated knowledge. Initial condition of this paper: science is a source of verifiable facts and theories about reality.