Science & Education 1, 49-70, 1992.

9 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

49

Science, Objectivity and Moral Values I

ALBERTO CORDERO
Queens College, City University of New York, Flushing, NY 11367-1597, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT: Scientificfacts are loaded with values, but, it is argued, this does not viciously
compromise the objectivity of scientific claims, because the values that permeate scientific
discourse (a) are loaded in turn with facts, (b) are not immune from critical revision, and
(c) have changed in the past and continue to be subjected to revision. In science, unlike
such enterprises as Scientific Creationism, values are discovered, introduced, tested and
challenged in the same way that other aspects of scientific discourse are. All of this makes
scientific discourse relevant to the contemporary exploration and critique of human values
in general, particularly as more aspects of life become illuminated by science.

1. SCIENCE WITHOUT THE FACT/VALUE DICHOTOMY

My goal in this paper is to argue for the human value of scientific knowledge. I am particularly interested in the applicability of science and contemporary scientific thought to the discussion of human values and goals.
My starting point is a discovery that has been with us for some time,
namely that scientific claims are value-laden. 2 It is an important discovery,
because it ruins the hopes of a philosophical objectivist program that goes
back to classical antiquity. I will contend, however, that the goals of
objectivism are better fulfilled without the philosophical framework with
which it has been traditionally associated.
I realize, of course, that this is a rather strange claim to make. Philosophical objectivism, surely, has always been in the forefront of the fight
against vicious ideology in science, particularly the social sciences.
Facts and Values

It is no accident that we owe the most influential formulation of the

fact/value dichotomy to a champion of rational sociology, Max Weber. 3
According to the conception of science that he advocated, the concept of
'value' stands in reassuring contrast to the concept of 'fact'. We simply
recognize the latter but must select the former, Weber thought. Because
he wanted to save objectivity, he was opposed to any form of assessment
which could not be promptly enforced on all. W e b e r was thus led to a
conception of objectivity that effectively divorces the search for wisdom
from science. In his view, science can tell us what the facts are and how
they relate to one another; it can tell us how to get from one place to
another in the world of natural possibilities. Scientific knowledge cannot
tell us, however, where to go.

50

ALBERTO CORDERO

One of the most interesting products of the critique of positivism is the

realization that even the best natural sciences are seriously at odds with
Weber's ideal. Fundamental physics and biology are virtually devoid of
the rule-governed assessments that Weber had in mind. Very little in
science can be promptly enforced on all humanity; values do seem to play
a central role in scientific assessments. In science neither facts nor values
are merely recognized but everything is actively selected. Have all the
hopes of classical objectivism thus been defeated?
My answer to this question will be a clear 'no'. Those hopes are not
completely ruined. Although it cannot be denied that scientific facts are
the result of active selection, in the 'hard sciences' the selection that takes
place is in turn the product of informed judgement, based on the detailed
application of prior information, not just emotional feeling.
A simple factual report like 'hey, this guy has a massive salmonella
infection' requires a level of recognition that is loaded with theories and
values. The presence of salmonellas in a patient is best established with the
help of techniques whose credibility rests heavily on both the acceptance of
various optical, chemical and biological theories, as well as on the satisfaction of various epistemic standards of reliability. When it comes to the
facts, certain markers of reliability are definitely valued.
Still, there is excellent reason for speaking of facts in connection with
the detection of salmonellas. The theories and models involved in their
detection have been found to be paradigmatically reliable on the basis of
such valued markers of reliability as success, coherence, consistency with
other reliable information available, fertility, and testability. There is no
denying, in this sense, that the practices upon which science relies to
decide whether or not something is factual presuppose both theories and
values. But it is far from obvious that such dependencies necessarily
destroy objectivity.
The debate about value-loaded facts connects with a parallel debate
about theory-loaded observations in science. The positivists trusted the
senses as sources of reliable information far more than any theory. They
assumed the existence of an observational language which was neutral
with respect to theory and unproblematic with respect to truth, and they
thought of theories as just convenient logical devices for expressing the
world of observable reality.
Observation, however, is never theory-neutral in real science. As Hanson and others have pointed out since the 1950S, 4 tO see something in
science is to be able to give some further information about what sort of
thing one sees. Even in a case as basic as 'it feels hot', the relevant point
is 'that it feels hot'. Technically put, scientific observation is 'propositional'
in a fundamental sense, i.e., it is not mere observation but observation
that. In the case of the salmonella report with which I began, the person
who makes it does not merely see salmonella; he sees that the bugs
under the microscope are salmonella typhosa, that they would be killed by
chlorine, and so on. A completely untrained person would probably see

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

51

the salmonella on the microscope, but not that they are salmonella. A
less neutral situation will illustrate this. From time immemorial, the presence of stony marine shells far from the sea has raised questions as to how
they came to be there. Contemporary biologists see, with no difficulty, that
they are the fossilized remains of long-dead animals. Many educated
people in the seventeenth century, however, saw with comparable ease
that those mollusk-like stones were the product of forces, 'sports' of nature
that could never really have lived. 5
Epistemic Values and the Facts
So, to the extent that factual reports aim at, and comprise assessments
of, reliability, values and theories are involved; but not just any values
and theories. The values involved have to do with epistemic reliability
and may thus be called 'epistemic'; they are grounded in such human
needs as truth, autonomy, understanding and control of the environment.
It is with regard to this aspect of the human circumstance that such traits
as coherence with the best information, conceptual fertility, empirical
adequacy and testability have proved valuable and are held in considerable
esteem as 'epistemic values'. In the same vein, to the extent that theories
are involved in factual reports, not just any theory from the scientific
corpus qualifies, but only those that are deemed reliable beyond reasonable doubt.
The bottom line is that what passes for a legitimate factual report in
science is never neutral with respect to epistemic values and reliable
theories, nor unproblematic with respect to truth, but the facts of science
are special nonetheless. A report is said to be factual only if it satisfies
the standards of reliability characteristic of science.
Relativist Fears
The fear, of course, is that if one accepts that facts are loaded with values,
then the objectivity of facts may be completely destroyed.
The fear is strengthened by widespread doubts about the capacity of
experiment and observation to contrast theories with 'the facts', let alone
refute any scientific theory. I am referring to Quine's Duhemian assertion
that 'Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic
enough adjustments elsewhere in the system'. 6 According to this claim,
crucial experiments are not really possible in science, because theories are
always tested via a network of auxiliary hypotheses, and so no theory
needs ever be rejected. Any apparent refutation can always be ingenuously
reversed by modifying auxiliary hypotheses.
This form of Quinean relativism, if correct, would realize Weber's fears
by making the encroachment of merely preferential values upon science
impossible to stop. Think of the fundamentalist, literal reader of the Bible
who takes faith to be epistemically valuable. If Quinean relativism were
correct (and fundamentalists were clever enough), the literal reading of

52

ALBERTO CORDERO

the Book of Genesis could, with the help of some choice of propositions,
be made to account for the same phenomena as contemporary evolutionary biology.
Placed in the context of Quinean relativism, the value-dependence thesis
becomes thus a strong thesis in which science's claims to objectivity are
massively and consistently devalued. If the facts of science are loaded with
theory and the scientific critique of theory is indeed frustrated by Quinean
relativism, then any allegedly empirical confrontation of a value with a
fact can always be in principle redirected toward the theoretical network
that surrounds the fact in question.
Mere Possibilities Are Toothless Tigers

A fundamentalist reading of the Bible can be made to account for the

same phenomena as contemporary biology, implies the Quinean strong
thesis. Notice, however, that the initial viability of such a reading has at
best the character of a mere logical possibility. The implication of the
strong thesis is not that science fails in its search for reliable information
about the world, but only that it cannot draw on absolute or logical
guarantees of success. That would be disturbing if science were looking
for certainty; fortunately, it is not.
I think the strong thesis has initial plausibility only if we fail to take
into account the following crucial aspect of contemporary scientific
thought: science has rationally transcended the need for absolute epistemic
foundations. It has moved away from the foundationalist approach to
knowledge characteristic of earlier and more aboriginal intellects, and
become a different kind of project. Science has moved away from the
biological and paleoculturally conditioned 'certainties' of the past and
learned to work with tentative foundations that are based on current
knowledge.
The foundations of contemporary science are thus open-ended and
neither have the character of absolute givens nor are pretended to be
theory-neutral. 7 It will be my claim that the values embodied by science
have undergone a similar transformation. None of them functions as an
absolute given.
Overview

I will deny that the value-dependence thesis casts specific doubts on the
objectivity of the natural sciences. My thesis in section 2 will be that,
although scientific facts are shaped by certain values, the values in question
are in turn shaped by facts. My thesis in section 3 will be that the possibility
of arbitrary values viciously encroaching upon the natural sciences is utterly implausible. I will consider the scientific scrutiny of values in section
4. Finally, in section 5, I will present an argument from moral integrity
for the relevance of scientific thought to the contemporary search for
general values and goals.

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

53

2. VALUES PRESUPPOSEFACTS
To the extent that the satisfaction of epistemic values is a necessary
condition for making acceptable factual reports, Weber's defense of scientific objectivity fails. Despite the inadequacies of Weber's approach, however, there seems to be something fight in the notion that facts are
different from mere preferences. In particular, it seems reasonable to
argue that the satisfaction of epistemic values cannot be a sufficient condition for facticity, for the simple reason that, in the mature sciences, the
legitimacy of a value depends on its success as a marker of reliability,
which is by no means something guaranteed in advance. I want to argue
against the strong thesis in three complementary ways: from (a) the refutability of factual reports, (b) the invariance of some facts to constitutive
value change, and (c) the implausibility of the strong thesis.

Scientific Reliability
My first argument focuses on the open-ended character of factual reports.
In scientific discourse, reliability is granted on the basis of the best current
markers for it, but its final determination depends on the way things turn
out in the empirical world. Put another way, the values associated with a
reliability report would only threaten scientific objectivity if the reliability
of a 'reliability report' could never be independently tested. That, however, is simply not true in general.
In science the factual character of a report is explicitly kept open to the
possibility of revision, and prospective reports are challenged all the time.
Reports initially accepted as reliable on good scientific grounds often turn
out to be a disappointment. The diagnosis of infections caused by ticks
used to be an arena for all sorts of embarrassing medical mistakes. So
were many early studies of the effect of cigarette smoking on health.
The scientific conception of reliability, I suggest, derives its own 'reliability' partly from the fact that it remains as tentative and open to the
possibility of revision as everything else in science.

Fact Invariance
My second argument against the strong thesis is from the invariance of
facts to value change. Numerous claims seem to have kept their factual
status for ages, despite significant transformations in the conception of
epistemic values. Blunt cases in point include the fact that the planets
move relative to the stars and that male humans have nipples.
If history shows anything, it is that in science the facts have rarely been
loyal to the values which initially led to their identification. When Darwin
developed his theory of evolution, he made liberal use of facts that had
been gathered by his teleologically-oriented predecessors, but he did not
respect the valuations which those facts originally carried. In fact, Darwin's approach turned teleological biology on its head and initiated the

54

ALBERTO CORDERO

destruction of the man-centered and goal-oriented biology then prevalent.

Where the romantic and pious Louis Agassiz saw in the records of comparative anatomy a series of vertebrate animals in which the growing
similarity of man to the creatures along the succession makes the final
purpose of life obvious, Darwin saw a series produced by common descent
with fortuitous variation and survival of the fittest. Where Palefs natural
theology saw evidences of intelligent design in nature, Darwin saw the
workings of thoroughly amoral chance in a cosmic Malthusian context.
The way in which Darwin and his followers excised teleological considerations from biology shows an important aspect of the invariance of scientific facts to value change. Facts determined with the help of a value can
be used to question that very same value as a marker of reliability and,
hence, its status as an epistemic value. It is simply not true that the uses
of a fact are necessarily loaded in favor of the epistemic valuations that
led to its determination.

The Deep Quinean Thesis

I think the two arguments just presented go a long way toward putting
the most common fears about relativism to rest. In an important sense,
however, those arguments deal only with the most superficial aspects of
the strong thesis.
Even if it is accepted that science is capable of absorbing the yields of
prior valuations, that does not quite establish that science gathers the
spoils of previous valuations in a way that saves the claims of scientific
objectivity. At first sight, a strong relativist could interpret the 'success'
of science simply as an indication that scientists have become very good
at saving their values, come what may.
If the above fears were correct, then my previous arguments would
simply provide the strong relativist with an opportunity to be 'ironic'
toward both science and my naivet& What the strong relativist wants us
to accept is that the value judgement from which a scientific fact derives
its life can always be effectively protected from refutation. This is the
subject of my third argument.
Suppose that a certain standard is accepted as a marker of reliability,
and that a theory that satisfies this standard to perfection is worked out.
Objectivism would be indeed in trouble if it were true that the valuation
of reliability involved could always be saved from refutation. The thesis
that a value could be kept come what may means that, given any appropriate domain, a reliable account which embodies that value will always be
found, if enough ingenuity is invested in the research.
It is to this deeper version of the strong thesis that we must now turn.

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

55

3. ILLUSORYRADICALISM
The strong thesis embodies Quine's famous claim that 'Any statement can
be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments
elsewhere in the system'. 6 While this claim continues to be influential
among relativists, it has been shown to be seriously incorrect.7 The first
point to notice is that Quine's argument for the claim is purely logical and
so, by its very nature, says nothing about the comparative triviality or
significance of the theories that would result from the adjustments it
specifies. As some critics of the merely logical manipulation of theoretical
networks have pointed out, s given a theory T, from the statement
"T&A--~O, but not O" one cannot deduce the statement "(For some
A')(T&A'~not O)" in a non-trivial way. Quine's claim, it turns out, is
not even an interesting logical truth. Unless support is found for it outside
logic, therefore, it must be regarded as pure dogma.
Even if, on a particular occasion, a given value could be protected
against critical scrutiny, come what may, the following case study reveals
that the cost of doing so can only be expected to be enormous in the
context of contemporary science.

Scientific Creationism
Creationists are the intellectual heirs of such people as the Seventh-Day
Adventist George Price, a colorful geologist who in 1906 offered $1000
to anyone who could show him that one kind of fossil is older than
another. 9 Creationists maintain that the biblical account of the creation
of the world is literally true and that biological evolution is not a sound
scientific theory, but only a speculation. ~~ In the 1960s they sought, and
won, court rulings that entitled religious fundamentalists to protect their
children from school classes which featured biological evolution. In the
early 1970s many creationists joined efforts and organized a 'Creation
Science Research Center' in San Diego, to prepare creationist literature
suitable for use in state schools. H They became 'scientific creationists' and
adopted a new rhetoric.
The 'scientific' works of Henry Morris, a leading creationist, try not to
let religious beliefs openly intrude. Morris seeks to justify creationist
claims solely on a scientific basis, without reference to any religious beliefs. ~2 He and his followers campaigned in the 1980s to have scientific
creationism taught in American schools along with the theory of biological
evolution, which they oppose. Among the people who have responded
favorably to their plea, there are presidents of the US, senators, politicians, and a host of other extremely influential citizens.
The philosophically interesting point about scientific creationists is that
their endeavor is fully consistent with the strong thesis. They began their
operations at the Creation Research Society by requiring members to sign
a statement of belief accepting the infallibility of the Bible. 11 Scientific

56

ALBERTO CORDERO

creationists do not openly challenge the epistemic values of mainstream

science; many even claim to treasure them. Creationists, however, endorse
faith as an additional value. To them, faith functions as an epistemic value
to be defended 'come what may', and they do have faith that the Bible is
literally and absolutely true. If the Bible is literally true, however, it
follows that evolutionary biology must be wrong. Actual creationists do
not seem to be clever enough to establish the latter, but that is beside the
point. If Quine is right, then it should be possible to save their doctrine,
come what may.
The leading strategy among scientific creationists is to show that evolutionary biology is not a scientific theory but really only a speculation. For
this they rely heavily on the thoughts of such philosophers of science as
Popper (once a defender of the view that evolutionary theory was untestable, metaphysical and based on tautologies) and Kuhn (associated with
the conception that scientific development proceeds in terms of competing
world-views rather than the accumulation of objective knowledge). The
strong thesis suggests a better strategy for the enemies of modern biology.
My point is that, although scientific creationists do not generally realize
this, their best option is as trendy Quineans on the loose. Let us review
their strategies in some detail.

The Epistemology of Dinosaur Talk

How does one go about claiming that evolutionary biology rests on no
better speculations than creationism? One must be able to maintain,
among other things, that the evidences of biological evolution do not
really challenge a literal reading of the biblical story about the creation
of life and humanity. The creationist must succeed in claiming, for example, that the remains of dinosaurs, which biologists make us believe
roamed the Earth between 240 and 65 million years ago, are not more
than 6000 old. (The latter figure comes from the calculations of such
scholars as James Ussher, the famous seventeenth century Archbishop of
Armagh, who located the creation of the world at 4004 B.C., on the basis
of the post-Adamite generations recorded in the Bible.)
Creationists resort to two devaluatory strategies. One approach is to
divorce evolutionary biology from the rest of science. Typically, creationists try to challenge the scientificity of evolutionary biology by showing
that the theory is not really testable or otherwise 'scientific' in Popperian
terms.13 Another avenue is to show that the theories of modern biology
are not known with certainty. 14 But none of these allegations work. From
an epistemological point of view, Popperianism has been shown to be
seriously flawed. ~5 From a historical point of view, no important scientific
theory has ever exemplified the methodology that such a doctrine postulates. 15 In fact, one can appeal to naive falsificationism to show that any
science is not a science. ~6 The case for demanding certainty from science
is even worse; contemporary physics and biology do not pursue certainty

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

57

but just maximally reliable information in the context of present fallible

knowledge. 17
The other major creationist approach is no better. Its aim is to devalue
the evidence for the standard theory of evolution. Creationists want to
claim, for example, that a dinosaur fossil determined to be, say, 100
million years old by mainstream science 'could' actually be less than 6000
years old. As we shall see, however, given the present level of integration
of scientific discourse, an attempt to hold the creationist thesis true in this
way would require a massive revision of the epistemic values of standard
science. Even if possible, the cost of such a move would be no less than
reversal to a prescientific conception of knowledge, one based on taboos
and spells rather than on natural reason as we know it.
Nevertheless, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that a creationist
succeeds in making his proposal coherent (something nobody to my knowledge has yet managed to do). It seems clear that the Bible hypothesis
cannot get off the ground unless the creationist is able to challenge the
credibility of some extremely well established technologies. In order to
do this, however, he would have to question at least some of the 'robust
theories' on which those technologies are based. One way to make the
creationist's predicament vivid is to reflect about two characteristics of
such theories.
(1) A theory is not called 'robust' for nothing; only extremely successful
theories that fulfil the epistemic values of mainstream science to very high
standards are granted that label. The creationist must deny that some
robust theories in this sense are reliable. He is thus faced with the following problem: unless he can raise specific doubts about a particular theory
or technology, his challenge will only succeed if he directs it toward the
present conception of epistemic valuation. In the latter case, whatever
rival conception the creationist is willing to accept, the effects of his move
could only be expected to compromise the acceptance of other robust
theories, with important consequences for the size and depth of his own
scientific background.
(2) A theory that is robust enough to be employed in the conception
and construction of a particular scientific apparatus is almost certainly
bound to be employed in many other such devices. That is in fact true in
the case of the theories employed in the technology for dating the age of
dinosaur fossils. Challenging such theories would thus involve the creationist in a confrontation with a body of mutually entrenched results, again
with important consequences for the size and depth of the creationist's
own scientific basis.
This is not to deny that techniques generally have limitations. Until
only a few years ago, the Neanderthals were thought to have lived before
the emergence of modern man. This belief, however, was based on evidences gathered with the help of dating methods that involved radiocarbon
techniques, which were known to be unreliable for materials older than
35000 years. The estimates were thus extremely tentative, particularly

58

ALBERTO CORDERO

since the age of modern man was then estimated at 40000 years. Recent
studies, based on the introduction of such techniques as thermoluminescence, electron-spin resonance and uranium series dating, now suggest
that the two groups may have been contemporaries about 120000 years
ago. 18
A Robust Calendar

Some problematic spots notwithstanding, the vast collection of organic

remains now available provides us with a body of evidence which is both
paradigmatically reliable and distinctly in favor of evolutionary biology.
It is a body that has been growing in quantity and quality for more than
a century.
Geologists and early Darwinians were unable to determine the age of
any fossils in years, but they had at their disposal the so-called 'geologic
column' as a device for measuring relative antiquity. The column is a
calendar that takes advantage of the fact that fossils occur in roughly the
same general sequence everywhere. Using this fact, the sequence of events
that correspond to the last 500 million years was basically worked out
already in the first half of the nineteenth century. The column has improved in quality and scope since the 1920s. Not only has the sequence
of the geologic column been largely confirmed, but the column has been
also vastly extended, and the age of the different strata is now calibrated
in years.
Nevertheless, creationists dispute the dates assigned by mainstream
science to most fossils and rocks, even when the dating processes employed
are based on the most reliable theories of radioactive decay. They ask
such questions as, 'how do we know that decay rates have remained
constant?', and 'how do we know that the abundance of materials has
remained the same since the origin of the Earth?'
Standard science does provide answers to these questions. There are
numerous decay paths, and they all confirm the same dates within a
comparatively small margin of error. Geochemists take samples of materials and estimate their age using several decay paths. Not just one,
but a wide variety of independent radiometric techniques are employed.
Further, the methods currently used are many, and they are based on
independent branches of science. Dating based on radioactive techniques
are checked, for example, against the results of a different and independent kind of dating that uses the symmetric flipping of the Earth's magnetic
poles.
The result is a complex system of cross-checked ways of measuring age,
none of which is committed to the theory of organic evolution. The
calendar to which these measurements lead is at the disposal of anybody
who takes the present scientific standards of reliability seriously. It provides a robust body of evidence about the age and evolution of the Earth's
natural history from about four billion years to the present.

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

59

Thus, the creationist may challenge any piece of evidence he fancies,

but the point is that, if he does this in specific terms, then he is bound to
challenge one or more extremely robust theories. He can do this, of
course, but then he has to challenge all the other applications of the theory
he has chosen to question. Since the methods for establishing the age of
a dinosaur fossil are both many and independent from one another, the
creationist's scientific basis cannot but suffer a great deal from such a
willful exercise.

Self-Defeating Radicalism
So, because the pieces of reliable scientific information about the natural
world are now so utterly entangled, because the natural sciences are
presently more integrated into a solid narrative that the untutored eye is
able to discern at first, the creationist's claim about the age of dinosaur
fossils turns out to be so strong that it seems to undermine any specific
body of standard geological and biological information on which the creationist's own 'scientific theory', whatever that is, might be claimed to
rest. He could, of course, try to save the standard scientific description of
the world corresponding to the period elapsed after his estimate for the
moment of creation, i.e., the official scientific picture for the last 6000
years. That maneuver, however, would do his case no good.
Consider the options. He could try to save science and scientific reason
in a philosophical way, by metaphysically restricting their applicability to
the last 6000 years. The creationist could claim, for example, that the
Earth is that young, but God simply made it look older for Adam and
Eve, as the nineteenth century clergyman Philip Gosse actually suggests
in his reply to the Origin. 19 God, that is, might have created the world as
if it did have a long history, just as he gave Adam a navel. According to
this view, fossils are real, but their appearance of old age is illusory. What
good, however, can this charming logical possibility do to the creationist's
story? If God is a deceiver, as the possibility under consideration implies,
then His words in the Bible cannot have absolute credibility. The exercise
that begins by restricting the applicability of scientific reasoning to the last
6000 years concludes by casting a dark shadow of doubt over the Bible
that inspired it in the first place.
Alternatively, the creationist could try to defend the view that some
particular dinosaur fossil is less than 6000 years old in specific, scientific,
terms. He could, for example, bite the bullet and try to play the Quinean
underdetermination game in specific rather than global terms, hoping to
come up with a completely different scientific theory. As we have seen,
however, the entangled interdisciplinary state of the most robust theories
in the natural sciences today would make it necessary for the creationist
to develop virtually a whole new natural science. In addition, there is
another problem. The predictions of the creationist's new scientific theory
would in all probability be different from the predictions of standard

ALBERTO CORDERO
natural science. In order to protect his new theory from refutation, therefore, he would have to indulge in a succession of ad-hoc amendments,
which in the end would require the creationist to challenge practically the
entire body of scientific information furnished by the natural sciences.
Once again, therefore, his informational state would end up in total disarray and complete poverty.
The conclusion is plain. The scientific creationist's challenge of biological evolution cannot work in favor of the literal biblical story, unless he
is willing to accept that such a story can neither be established on the
basis of scientific evidence nor said to be scientific in any meaningful way.
The creationist's theory, that is, can begin to be worked out as a theory
only at the cost of very dramatic changes in the standards of reliability
presently endorsed by mainstream science. The actual cost would be to
give up the conception of epistemic values from which our present standards of reliability derive their life.
The Strong Thesis is not even Plausible
Unless the creationist agrees that he is reasoning from faith alone, his
project seems therefore bound to fail. For the theoretical revisions to
which he is committed push him to challenge the very facts that he could
conceivably use to ground his Bible story. His denial that dinosaur fossils
can be more than a few thousand years old deprives him of the theories
that might help him to establish scientifically, say, the archeology of the
Bible. My point is that an honest creationist seems committed to nothing
less than pre-scientific agnosticism.
So, not only is it not a logical truth that, given a value v, a reliable
theory Tv that embodies it will be found if scientists try hard enough. It
turns out that such a claim is also extremely implausible. The mere logical
possibility on which the strong thesis derives its life is simply preposterous,
as preposterous as, say, the logical possibility that babies are born from
cabbages.

4. THE SCIENTIFICSCRUTINYOF VALUES

Admittedly, the failure of the creationists' attempt to support faith as an
absolute epistemic value, come what may, dispels the fears raised by the
strong thesis only for the person who has learned to live without certainty.
Admittedly also, absolute certainty was once valued as the principal
marker of reliability. But scientific values change. Science develops and
learns what to value and how to value; that is the subject of this section.
Knowledge Without Certainty
Certainty is a property of valid conclusions from true premises in deductive
inference. How did certainty come to be devalued in science?

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

61

Already in the days of Descartes many thinkers realized that reasoning

in what we call 'modern science' is neither exclusively deductive nor
primarily guided by certainty. Scientific inferences are available in plenty,
and some are astonishingly convincing, but their 'validity' is generally
problematic. Today, no non-trivial scientific theory is either inferred from
theory-neutral data known to be true, or derived from principles known
with certainty. Theories are inferred with the help of both data that are
loaded with products of previous science, as well as specific directions to
theory construction that are furnished by current scientific information.
A case for certainty with regard to a number of theoretical principles
did exist, however, until the beginning of our century. Some aspects of
physical reality appeared to be accessible to the mind by indubitable
intuition. For a long time Euclidean geometry was not only regarded as
a confirmable physical geometry, but also as one that could be known
'from within'. How else was one to explain the manifest ability of some
kids to 'rediscover' Euclidean geometry in the equivalent of primary
school? (The slave boy in the Meno and the precocious Pascal are two
choice examples). The classical theory of time spelled out by Kant seemed
just as indubitable, as did various principles of material substance. 2~ The
development and critical acceptance of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics frustrated whatever was left of the claims of this form of
metaphysical foundationalism in science.
The search for absolute validity and absolute truth proved a failure in
science, but this did not completely question the success of science as a
knowledge-seeking enterprise, although it did frustrate the traditional
hope of guaranteeing that success. It was soon agreed, however, that the
latter does not depend on certainty, but just on having smashing predictive
and explanatory power. As a result, the contemporary natural sciences
no longer attempt to build on certainty, but simply on reliable information.
Certainty is no longer a goal.
Today, physics, biology and rigorous psychology are after neither observations that are neutral with respect to theory and unproblematic with
respect to truth, nor theories that rest on philosophical foundations of any
kind. What the natural sciences are now after is theories that are both
successful in their conceptual and experimental applications, and coherent
with the growing framework of reliable findings that centuries of scientific
investigations have left as a legacy.

The Demise of Teleology

The devaluation of certainty as a marker of reliability is just one of
the many examples of valuational change in science. The devaluation of
teleological connections is another.
Teleological connections were once valued as markers of reliability.

62

ALBERTO CORDERO

Before the days of Darwin, it was customary to confirm biological accounts

by the intelligence and purposeful connections they revealed in nature.
That is what 'physiology' was originally about. As many historians of
science have pointed out, the structure of living things was not only a
mystery; it was an awe-inspiring mystery. Overwhelmed by it, the early
biologists tended to by-pass questions about the origin of living structures
and saw anatomical connections as products of an intelligent plan. 21 In
every portion of nature there appeared to be superb design which attested
to the existence of purpose in even the minutest organism or part. The
'progressive' succession of species was equally obvious to most thinkers.
I have already commented on Agassiz's conviction that the zoological
scale exhibits a tendency toward an objective end, his acceptance that the
growing similarity to man of the creatures along the succession of vertebrate animals makes the final purpose of life obvious. Darwin's theory
put a big question mark on teleological considerations such as this in
biology, but the devaluation of teleology as a marker of reliability was far
from instantaneous and did not run its course until well after Darwin's
death.
The best early arguments against the Origin were designed to show that
Darwin's anti-teleological account could not explain, in its own terms, the
diversity and complexity of present-day life. Many of those arguments
were extremely compelling from the perspective of late nineteenth century
science. Intelligent people - Lord Kelvin (W. Thomson) was one of
them - wondered how the superb design one finds in even the dirtiest
aspects of life could be the result of fortuitous variation in less than an
inconceivably huge amount of time.
Kelvin used the best physics of his day to demonstrate, from considerations of heat loss, that Darwinian theory could not be correct. 22 From
such reasonable notions as that the Sun is an incandescent liquid mass
which is dissipating its energy in a purely physical way, and that the Earth
is just a massive rock that was once completely molten, Kelvin concluded
that in the recent past the Earth's heat must have been too hot to permit
life. From measurements of the temperature gradient in mines and a
calculation of the dissipation of the Earth's heat from an original molten
condition into the space around it, he estimated the age of the Earth at
about 20 million years. That, Darwin agreed, was too little time for his
mechanism to do the required job, which is one of the reasons why
subsequent editions of the Origin show a retreat toward Lamarckian accommodations.
Another major objection to Darwin's theory concerned the transmission
of variations, an objection that was not satisfactorily answered until the
re-discovery of Mendelian genetics in the early years of this century. 23 As
a result, Darwin's mechanism of fortuitous variation was for a long time
more suspect to many than the notion of teleologically directed change.
The problem of geological time was not resolved until the discovery of

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

63

radioactivity and nuclear fusion; only then it became clear that the Earth
is continuously heated by the former, and that the Sun's fuel is not
chemical but nuclear. Only then was the anti-teleologist able to show that
his theory is actually able to accomplish what traditional biologists had
claimed it could never do.
So, the epistemic values of science have changed over the last few
hundred years. Many thinkers, however, emphatically deny that facts can
ever lead to changes in values or goals in a justified way.

Anti-Naturalist Dogma
Just as Weber claimed that value judgements have to be radically distinguished from factual judgements, Moore argued that a fallacy, the socalled 'naturalistic fallacy', is committed whenever ethical terms are defined in terms of something non-ethical. One cannot derive an 'ought'
from an 'is', thought Moore. In his view, the factual terms of the natural
sciences were strictly non-ethical. Since only a brief reply to the naturalistic
fallacy is possible here, I will concentrate on one aspect: the conception
of the fallacy.
The thesis I want to suggest is that Moore's position is definitely not
theory-neutral and, further, that the theory on which it rests amounts to
mere dogma. The naturalistic fallacy presupposes that values have a life
that can be divorced from all facts, that there are principles and valuations
to be had which are terminally final with respect to any facts. This simply
flies in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. We have considered the case of science. Scientific theories are no more inferred from
theory-neutral data than scientific values are inferred from value-neutral
descriptions. The case of scientific creationism shows what happens when
a value is placed too high above the facts. Not only does human reason
have no clear access to absolute values and principles, but all the nonrational methods claimed to lead to them have long become suspect.
Further, the pretension that there are values which cannot be traced to
facts has led to all kinds of intolerance and abuse to those who do not
share them.
The discovery that values are not absolute need not, however, lead to
cynicism, just as the discovery that knowledge is not absolute need not
lead to skepticism. Cynicism becomes a plausible position only if we
choose to blind ourselves to the valuational contrasts and distinctions that
are made available to us in the practical life. The way in which the critique
of epistemic values proceeds in science ought to give pause to anyone
wishing to deny the significance of the fact-value connections of science
by subjecting that critique to 'philosophical' conditions of adequacy which
it does not satisfy.

64

ALBERTO CORDERO

Arguing about Values

The above examples of rational value change in science provide, I think,
a deeper understanding of how arguments about values are possible. Each
one of the three values I have reviewed (faith in literal revelation, philosophical certainty, and understanding of the transcendent ends of things)
emphasizes a different modality of argumentation.
The discussion of the creationists' rhetoric shows how it is possible to
argue against the legitimacy of a value, in this case faith, in terms of such
considerations as the coherence of the concepts on which it depends, the
acceptability of its implications, and the quality of the information from
which it derives its force.
The devaluation of certainty as a marker of scientific reliability attests
to the poverty of values that fail to mark practical contrasts. If there are
contrasts of reliability to be marked, but no piece of scientific knowledge
is certain, then certainty is simply of no value in the context of science as
a knowledge-seeking enterprise. A value may thus be challenged if it
proves too difficult (or too easy) to satisfy, or if its power to guide us in
the intended way becomes significantly reduced. Cartesian certainty has
been found to be of little value to cognitive endeavors in exactly this
sense.
Finally, the dismissal of teleology as an epistemic marker in science
shows a case in which the legitimacy of a value is questioned when it
becomes clear that the goals with which it is connected, in this case the
explanation of detailed biological organization, can be better fulfilled
without it. In the long run, Darwinian theory was able to explain all the
awe-inspiring structures and processes that the defenders of teleology had
claimed a non-teleological biology could never explain.
The conclusion is two-fold, First, actual values do not seem to be more
universally applicable or absolutely objective than scientific theories and
scientific claims in general, but they can be argued about in light of the
facts just as well. Second, if my previous considerations are correct, values
can be as objective as the best scientific descriptions -- as objective, for
example, as the standard optical laws of reflection and refraction. What
more objectivity can one reasonably ask for?
The view for which I am arguing is, I hope, sufficiently clear: epistemic
values are not known by mere philosophical intuition, but are discovered
in experience. The values embodied by contemporary science have been
introduced, tested and modified in the same way that other aspects of
scientific discourse have. Certain features are valued because they have
been found useful to the development of a reliable picture of the world.
Why is this of any importance? Because representing the world exclusively
in terms of reliable theories and reliable information is central to our
contemporary idea of rational fulfillment, an idea which, in turn, has been
built upon a picture of the world and humanity grounded in previous
reliable findings. This brings us to my final argument.

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

65

5. SCIENCEAND WISDOM
The discovery and development of values within the natural sciences does
more for us, I think, than providing an example of how facts and epistemic
values can be profitably coupled together.

Morality without Absolutes

The way in which science has forged the objectivity of its values is, I
suggest, of particular interest to a certain type of person in the contemporary world. I have in mind a person who agrees that science is acceptably
objective, and who cannot honestly take as legitimate any absolute truths
or values, let alone ones that are imposed by mere authority. I am referring
to a person that has outlived the quest for absolutes, yet one who is aware
of his needs and who has managed to develop a sense of reliable access
to the world through scientific thought, however limited this kind of access
might look relative to previous 'philosophical' or 'religious' standards. I
will call this person the 'humane naturalist'.
Having moved away from the traditional search for metascientific foundations, the humane naturalist does not take the so-called 'naturalistic
fallacy' more seriously than he does the old logical problem of induction
or Quinean relativism. To this person, the successful way in which science
has changed its own cognitive values and valuations is of interest because
it shows how one can move from feelings, prejudice, error and received
goals into autonomous and objective valuations by bringing the best information to bear on the conception of values and goals. This interest of the
humane naturalist becomes increasingly intense as more and more aspects
of human life are illuminated by science.

An Ideal of Integrity
Science has learned to keep thought and action coupled together by subjecting its own values to a continuous process of pragmatic critique. It is
a process in which the search for a reliable set of values and views by
which to live the life of science has moved knowledge to its present state
by making those values coherent with the reliable information available.
The question for the humane naturalist is, to what extent can such a
critique be generalized to cover other values?
I realize, of course, that there exists a broad range of philosophical
opinion on this matter, but the position I want to explore seems to have
credibility for the type of person I have already specified. Two points are
central to the humane naturalist.
(1) It is disastrous to isolate one's values from either one's conduct, or
one's best picture of the world. To do so would amount to trusting raw
feelings and uncultivated nature in an age that no longer discerns absolute
intelligence in the wild. Ordinary nature has adaptatively efficient taboos

66

ALBERTO CORDERO

and spells to offer, and these must be taken seriously (some of them have
propelled us a long way), but never as absolutes.
(2) It is desirable to reflect on one's values. Three old reasons stand
out for this. First, because reflecting in this way fulfills the humane naturalist's idea of autonomy. Reflection about values allows one to stand back
from received responses and to think. It is a first step away from being
manipulated. Second, because spontaneous valuations easily involve inconsistencies, as the case of the creationists reveals. Third, because if
values are to guide the actions of the humane naturalist, those values must
be critically reviewed and shaped up for the task, for intuitive valuations
are known to be usually myopic and limited.
The position of the humane naturalist is thus harmonious with the
facts of science. He challenges, in fact, the defenders of metascientific
conceptions of human interests, from Weber to Habermas. 24 In the humane naturalist's view values originate in human interests, but human
interests are increasingly illuminated by scientific scrutiny, and are open
to change in light of scientific results as much as the epistemic values of
science are. These considerations can be elaborated indefinitely, but talking in the abstract about morality is dangerous. It is best to bring the
matter home with the help of a particular case.

Socratic Questions
Chimpanzees are used in various kinds of medical experimentation. What
makes them ideal laboratory animals is their considerable physiological
similarity with humans. The experiments in question, however, are generally painful to the chimpanzees, often fatal. Chimpanzees are also fun
to watch, with the result that many end up in zoos and circuses all over
the world. Others, less fortunate, are killed by poachers, their stuffed
bodies or parts sold to collectors.
Is it right to treat chimpanzees this way? Should we be kinder to them?
If so, why? My final purpose in this paper is to explore how our knowledge
of the facts can influence our answer to these sorts of questions.

Chimpanzee Life
Chimpanzees have been found to have a tendency to develop cultures, in
particular dietary cultures, e5 The chimpanzees of Mahale, for example,
feed on spiny leaves and like Camponotus ants. Although these delicacies
are also available in Gombe, chimpanzees from that region never touch
them and have a definite preference for Crematogaster ants. Chimpanzees
also differ in their processing of the same food items. In opening hardshelled fruits, the chimpanzees of Gombe throw them against tree trunks
or rocks, while in Mahale the same kind of fruits are bitten open. Only
West African Chimpanzees use stones in opening nuts. Cultural differences mark many other aspects of ape life. For example, the Chimpanzees

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY AND MORAL VALUES

67

of Mahale display patterns of mutual grooming and courtship that are

completely different from those observed at Gombe.
Another interesting trait is the chimpanzees' ability for communication
by means of complex gestural dialects. 26 In addition, recent studies reveal
that chimpanzees possess rudiments of linguistic abilities that were thought
to be distinctly human. They have been found to have a capacity for sign
language involving a vocabulary of 130 signs (that is actually a full onetenth the size of the vocabulary employed by most college students in a
25 page paper).
More astonishing still is the capacity of chimpanzees for intelligent
deceit. They seem able to determine whether or not a certain person is
to be trusted. In one experiment, 27 a chimpanzee was shown the insides
of two locked opaque containers, one of which had food. The chimpanzee
was then introduced to two trainers, neither of whom knew the location
of the food. One was a 'fair' trainer who would never take advantage of
the information given to him by the chimpanzee. The other trainer played
the role of 'mean' character and would always eat all the food in the
container. The chimpanzee learned to withhold information from the
mean trainer, but not from the 'cooperative' one.
The question is, are these findings sufficient to convince someone like
the humane naturalist that chimpanzees have something like a 'right to
live'? I think not, if what is meant by the term 'right' is that it can be
never justifiable to kill a chimpanzee, and that the wrongness of killing
him is independent of the undesirability of the consequences that would
follow from that act. But then, such a conception of the right to live is
bankrupt even in the context of human life.
The Good Life
A more promising line for the humane naturalist is suggested by the
relative instrumentality of values encountered in our exploration of science. The simplest hint is that chimpanzees are capable of enjoying something of what we are willing to call 'good life'. A plausible line of reasoning
for the humane naturalist is, thus, as follows. Because we do have a
conception of the life worth living, and because we now have sufficiently
clear indications that normal chimpanzees have a life comparable to that
of a two year old human being, we seem compelled to granting some
worth to the life of chimpanzees, at least if it is accepted that the life of
a human baby is worth living.
The humane naturalist has yet another relevant set of beliefs. First, like
most of us, he agrees that, except in extreme circumstances, it is wrong
to kill someone who seems to be enjoying life. Second, he is satisfied that
the studies mentioned also reveal that killing a chimpanzee can have
painful effects on its offspring and family. Finally, there is the humane
belief that killing chimpanzees in less than extreme circumstances could
encourage us to take human life lightly.

68

ALBERTO CORDERO

This is not to say that the humane naturalist is bound to claim that all
chimps have lives that are worth living. None of the above considerations
is terminal. Every one of the reasons just given is open to discussion. The
interesting point, however, is that any scientifically informed answer the
humane naturalist might care to give to the questions with which I began
has implications beyond the world of chimpanzees.

Morally Loaded Descriptions

What makes the study of chimpanzees interesting for present purposes is
that the reports involved are morally loaded. Consider the following two
points.
(1) Given the present state of our knowledge about both chimpanzees
and humans, it is difficult to defend a radically differential treatment for
the two species on the basis of any one feature purported to be essentially
or exclusively 'human'. Take, for example, the property of intelligence.
Every bit of evidence indicates that the cleverest chimps are in fact cleverer
than the least clever human beings.
(2) Evolutionary biology, cognitive studies, psychology, and the philosophy of science, strongly encourage us to abandon the traditional essentialist conception of humanity and to replace it by a view that affirms the
existence of gradual 'ensoulment' in nature, both within each species as
well as across different species, with some overlapping here and there,
conspicuously in the case of apes and humans.
The most important lesson for us is, I suggest, that those who maintain
that the life of chimpanzees cannot be worthy of any respect have to
explain why, in spite of the compelling scientific findings now at our
disposal, their reasons do not apply to babies and mentally feeble people.
The conclusions invited by the above paragraphs are not necessarily
'comfortable'. If we agree to apply our current conception of the good
life to the life of normal chimpanzees, then it seems that we must agree,
for example, that 'right and wrong' admit of degree and, further, that it
is wronger to kill a mature chimpanzee than a newborn baby, and wronger
still to kill a four year old human than a chimpanzee. Also, to use chimpanzees in clinical experiments would seem as wrong as to use seriously
handicapped babies or mentally feeble humans, and as wrong to hunt and
stuff chimpanzees as to do so with human beings in the specified categories. None of this is unproblematic, of course, let alone neutral. But it is
all very scientific, and that is exactly the gist of my story.
There is no neutral point of view from which to assess either values or
facts. There is always the possibility of ultimate disagreement. Nevertheless, the type of rational person for whom the explorations attempted in
this paper are meant, being a person oriented toward the integration of
thought and action, cannot fail to check his moral views against the most
reliable information at his disposal.
The question of the moral status of chimpanzees is forbiddingly com-

SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY

AND MORAL VALUES

69

plex, but happily we do not have to further address it here in order to

appreciate the relevance of scientific thought to the search for better
values and goals by those who have broken away from absolute values
and foundationalist philosophies.

NOTES
1. Research for this paper was made possible in part by RF-CUNY (grant PSC-CUNY
669106). A preliminary version of this paper was given at Universite de Fribourg,
Switzerland, May 1990.
2. The value-ladeness thesis relevant to this essay is addressed with particular clarity in
Graham (1981), Putnam (1981), and McMullin (1983).
3. Weber (1917).
4. See, in particular, Hanson (1958), Hesse (1974), Brown (1977), Shapere (1982), Greenwood (1990), and Shapere (1991).
5. Bowler (1983).
6. Quine (1953), p. 43.
7. Take, for example, the concept of observation in contemporary physics, as analyzed by
Shapere (1982). His studies show how (a) the best current theories of the workings of
an object that is being observed, (b) the best scientific conception of the transmission
of information originating in that object, and (c) the best understanding of the scientific
receptors by means of which that information is gathered, all play a crucial role in
making scientific observation objective.
8. The logical status of Quine's radical claims is examined most dearly in Shapere (1987).
For an illuminating discussion of ad-hoc auxiliary hypotheses, see Grunbaum (1976b).
The degenerating effect of recalcitrant conservatism is compellingly analyzed in Greenwood (1990),
9. The offer is made in Price (1906).
10. Riley (1922).
11. Numbers (1982).
12. See, in particular, Morris (1984).
13. Roth (1977).
14. Ruse (1977).
15. See, for example, Feyerabend (1975) and Grunbaum (1976a).
16. Kitcher (1982).
17. Cordero (1990).
18. Mellars & Stringer (1989).
19. Gosse (1928).
20. Defenders of the indubitable character of a good deal of the classical theory of time are
found active as late as 1970. See, for example Swinburne (1968). An illuminating account
of contemporary revisions of concepts concerning time, space and substance is found in
Shapere (1991).
21. Toulmin & Goodfield (1962).
22. Thomson (1894). Thomson, W. [Lord Kelvin] (1894). Popular Lectures and Addresses
London: H.H. Kramer.
23. Bowler (1988) pp. 268-281.
24. See, in particular, Habermas (1971).
25. Nishida (1986).
26. Van Lawick-Goodall (1967).
27. Woodruff & Premack (1979).

70

ALBERTO

CORDERO

REFERENCES
Agazzi, E. & Cordero, A. (eds): 1991, Philosophy and the Origin and Evolution of the
Universe. Synthese Library. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Bowler, P. J.: 1983, Evolution, the History of an Idea. London: Univ. of California Press.
pp. 33-35
Brown, H. I.: 1977, Perception, Theory and Commitment: The New Philosophy of Science.
Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Cordero, A.: 1990, 'Evolutionary Ideas and Contemporary Naturalism'. In Agazzi &
Cordero, pp. 399-440.
Feyerabend, P.: 1975. 'How to Defend Society Against Science'. Radical Philosophy 11, 3-8.
Gosse, E.: 1928, Father and Son, London: Heinemann, Windmill Library.
Graham, L.: 1981, Between Science and Values. New York: Columbia U.P.
Greenwood, J. D.: 1990, 'Two Dogmas of Neo-Empiricism'. Philosophy of Science 57, 553574.
Grunbaum, A.: 1976a, 'Is the Method of Bold Conjecture and Attempted Refutations
Justifiably the Method of Science?' British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27, 105136.
- - :
1976b, 'Ad hoc Auxiliary Hypotheses and Falsificationism'. British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science 27, 329-362.
Habermas, J.: 1971, Knowledge and Human Interests, Boston: Beacon Press.
Hanson, N. R.: 1958, Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.
Hesse, M. B.: 1974, The Structure of Scientific Inference. London: Macmillan.
Kitcher, P.: 1982, 'Believing Where We Cannot Prove'. In Abusing Science, pp. 30-54.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Maxwell, N.: 1984, From Knowledge to Wisdom. Oxford: Blackwell.
McMuUin, E.: 1983, 'Values in Science'. In Asquith, P. D. and Nickles T. (eds.): 1982,
Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 2, pp. 3-28.
Mellars, P. and Stringer, C. (eds.): 1989, The Human Revolution: Behavioral and Biological
Perspectives on the Origin of Modern Humans. Princeton: Princeton U.P.
Morris, H. M.: 1984, History of Modern Creationism. San Diego: Master Book Publishers.
Nishida, M.: 1986, 'Local Traditions and Cultural Transmission'. In Smuts, B. B. et al.
(eds.), Primate Societies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Numbers, R. L.: 1982, 'Creationism in 20th Century America'. Science 218, 538-544.
Price, G. M.: 1906, Illogical Geology: The Weakest Point in the Evolution Theory. Los
Angeles: Modern Heretic.
Putnam, H.: 1981, Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.
Quine, W. V. O.: 1953, From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.
Riley, W. B.: 1922, 'The Evolution Controversy'. Christian Fundamentals in School and
Church 4.
Roth, A, A.: 1977, 'Does Evolution Qualify as a Scientific Principle?' Origins 4, 4.
Ruse, M. : 1977, 'Karl Popper's Philosophy of Biology'. Philosophy of Science 44, 638-61.
Shapere, D.: 1982, 'The Concept of Observation in Science and Philosophy'. Philosophy of
Science 49, 485-525.
- - :
1987, Observation, Reason, and Knowledge, forthcoming.
: 1991, 'The Universe of Modern Science and its Philosophical Exploration'. In
Agazzi & Cordero (1991), pp. 87-202.
Swinburne, R.: 1968, Space and Time. London: Macmillan.
Toulmin, S. and Goodfield J., 1962, The Architecture of Matter. Chicago: The Univ. of
Chicago Press.
Van Lawick-Goodall, J.: 1967, My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees. Washington, D.C.:
National Geographic Society.
Weber, M.: 1917, 'The Meaning of "Ethical Neutrality" in Sociology and Economics'. The
Methodology of the Social Sciences, pp. 1-47. Glencoe, Ill: The Free Press (1949).
Woodruff, J. and Premack P.: 1979, 'Intentional Communication in the Chimpanzee: The
Development of Deception'. Cognition 7, 333.