Question #1
A paradigm is a set of ideas, practices, beliefs, and procedures that a given discipline follows. The beliefs of that discipline dictate its practices and procedures, which come to define the discipline. STEM fields follow set, unified paradigm, while social sciences explore the problems and solutions presented by various paradigms.
From the perspective of Kuhn, science is not objective, instead it is relative. In other words, the STEM disciplines are socially constructed fields that are based on a universally accepted theoretical model in a given scientific community. Participants and researchers of these fields accept this model, and it guides their research, standards, and procedures. This behavior is known as normal science, which is where scientists agree on a certain paradigm and then work to expand on that theoretical foundation through scientific research and study. Because participants in these fields all share the same foundational model, there is widespread agreement on the basics. Thus, newcomers into a STEM field, such as physics, need to be socialized to the paradigm of that field, which comes in the form of pre-requisites. Pre-requisites enable students to learn the foundation of physics, so that they can learn the do operate in that field.
Social sciences differ from STEM, or natural sciences, because there is no universally accepted paradigm, or set of foundational beliefs. Instead, social sciences study various paradigms, and evaluate the problems and solutions that these paradigms pose to society. Additionally, research in the social sciences is chosen with regards to its societal importance, while research in natural sciences is chosen by what the scientific community deems as important.
Question #2
Facts do not exist independently of theory, because theories determine what is perceived as true. It is not possible to scientifically investigate the world by only using facts, because those facts are only deemed so by scientific communities and their chosen paradigms. Kuhn’s answer would be that facts are defined and determined by the scientific community through which they exist. This is because there needs to be widespread agreement among a group for something to even be considered a fact. Facts can be viewed differently by two groups depending on how they perceive the facts in relation to their paradigm. In the event of a scientific revolution within a scientific community, the previously conceived “facts” are critiqued and evaluated in relation to the new shift. For example, in the 1800s, an anomaly occurred with the discovery of Mercury’s orbit that could not be explained by Newton’s widely accepted theory of gravity. Despite that, scientists at the time used Newton’s framework to explain the discovery as a different type of gravitational body that affected Mercury. Eventually, Einstein offered an explanation that did not follow the gravity paradigm. This example illustrates how a widely accepted “fact” is only a truth in relation to the paradigm used to define it. Theories are used in an attempt to describe the chosen facts. Thus, a scientific theory is what enables a fact to exist within a given community.
Question #3 a) The public safety discourse sought to frame motor vehicles as inherently dangerous machines due to their speed. Fueled with sadness and outrage, citizen members of public safety councils blamed pedestrian deaths from automobiles on the speed of the automobile. They did this by controlling the narrative for accidents; painting automobiles as killing machines that could not be driven safely. Pedestrians viewed horse-drawn carriages as much less dangerous than automobiles, even though they were close in size and weight. The chief difference between the two was speed, and because automobiles were created to go much faster than carriages, speed became the primary culprit for pedestrian deaths. Thus, the danger of the automobile was exclusively linked to it’s speed. By equating speed with danger, automobiles were painted as killing machines. This framing of speed as dangerous also made automobiles a threat regardless of the type of driver behind the wheel. This differs from today’s rhetoric, which follows that cars can be successfully driven if motorist’s use safe driving techniques.
b) The solution to the framing of speed as an inherently dangerous component of cars was restrictions on automobiles, particularly speed reduction in the form of speed governors. Because it was difficult to meet the pedestrian demand of removing cars from the streets, speed reduction was viewed as the next best option. Speed was seen as the primary danger that needed to be reduced and limited. This first came in the form of speed limits, where automobiles needed to conform to the original order of the streets and the speeds of streetcars and horse-drawn carriages. In some cities, like Cincinnati, popular opinion began to favor mechanical speed restrictions over speed limit laws. The people wanted there to be laws requiring motorists outfit their vehicles with speed governors; a device that limited automobile speed. The speed governors were a drastic attempt by the people to try to limit the speed of the vehicles in order to increase safety for the public. It was seen as a valid solution to the framing of the automobile as inherently dangerous due to its speed, and not due to the quality of the driver.
Question #4 a) Before the invention of reckless driving, motorists were seen as fully responsible for motor accidents, and pedestrians were the innocent victims. A primary reason for this was that the majority of the population at this time was made up of pedestrians and not motorists, which made vehicles a luxury and not a necessity. This also gave pedestrians unlimited and superior rights to the streets over motorists. There was no pedestrian obligation to watch out for their safety. This meant that streets were viewed as a public space that belonged primarily to the pedestrian, and they were allowed to access the streets in whatever way they saw fit. Accident responsibility was placed solely on the motorist, and they were responsible for not causing them. Pedestrians were innocent victims who were unable to cause harm to others in the way that motorists caused harm and death. Pedestrians used children as the innocent martyrs at the hand of the evil motor drivers. Thus, the invention of reckless driving changed social standards and shifted primary use of city streets from pedestrians to automobiles, with pedestrians being downgraded to designated walking areas.
b) The invention of reckless driving by motordom shifted the reasoning for the problem of motor accidents. It changed from conceptualizing the automobile as an inherently dangerous technology to a problem of pedestrians and a small minority of drivers that drove recklessly. The handful of drivers that drove dangerously meant that the majority of motorists were safe drivers. Thus, this invention shared, or rather placed, the blame on pedestrians, their negligence, and limited street space. This meant that pedestrians shared accident responsibility and they were now in charge of their own safety. Public safety education became part of school curriculum, and educators, parents, and law enforcement began teaching children about the dangers of “jaywalking” and the importance of taking safety precautions in the streets.
Question #5
The social group that is the most convincing in framing the problems and solutions for the artifact will be able to construct that artifact’s reality and achieve closure. The main problem traffic engineers wanted to associate with automobiles was lack of efficiency in regards to street space. Popular opinion at the time followed agreement with the ideologies of technocracy. This rhetoric allowed for the opinions of traffic engineers to be more important than the opinions of motordom, because of the general skepticism associated with private ideologies. However, their efficiency discourse failed, because they were not able to successfully convince the public that street space was a public good owned by pedestrians and public transportation. This was partly due to a cultural shift from technocracy to associationism during the 1920s. Motordom’s commodification discourse followed that streets needed to change to accommodate the demand of motorists, which meant that motorist’s problems needed to become publicly accepted and valued. freedom-based argument, government stance, pedestrian safety initiatives, the gas tax, and the public’s “freedom” culture all allowed for the success of commodification. Additionally, the president’s official stance on the issue meant that the government supported the commodification discourse and valued the private industry. The American ideal of freedom was popular during this period, especially because it was heralded by the president, and motordom capitalized on the “personal freedom” ideologies by associating that with the rights of motorists. Thus, a theory for why some framings achieve closure could be due to the broader ideals of the public at the time. Motordom achieved closure in large part due to the popular opinion of broader ideals among the public and government at the time.
Question #6
The anti-GE movement was successful, because of its structured organization. Anti-GE activists created an organizational network that disseminated information about GMOs to the public that changed public perception. An organizational network of activists, made up of intellectuals and other anti-GE groups, emerged that generated new ideas and knowledge about GEs. It is important to note that these were not just individuals, but organizational groups that formed a strong community. Groups such as BWG and Greenpeace worked across an international network to host campaigns, sit-ins, conferences, and workshops to spread their views of GEs. There was no opposing group that could combat the dissemination of these ideas. Thus, the anti-GE movement ideas began to prevail. Their organizational capacity was effective, because it began to become part of everyday public life. With high-priced organic foods in markets, GMO’s became the less healthy counterpart to organic foods. This meant that the average person that went grocery shopping had their perceptions shaped about GE’s health safety. The scientific and college communities did not have the organizational capacity to combat these perceptions about GE that began to form public opinion. They were able to cultivate scientific knowledge, but they did not have the ability to share it with the public. The goals of these scientific communities is to produce knowledge for fellow scientists, not the public. Thus, the framing of GE was undertaken by a community of activists and organizations who socially re-constructed the scientific conception of GMOs. The public’s opinion was formed from social activist groups, and not the scientific community, because they had no way of combating the perception of GE’s on an organizational level due to their lack of cohesiveness.