Report R1.10 Science of Culture and Culture of Science Seminar Leader: D. P. S. Bhawuk, University of Hawai'i, USA Bhawuk[at]Hawaii.Edu As cross-cultural researchers, we are all scientists, and therefore, buy into the value system of rational science, which was discussed in the first section of the paper. But we are also a part of some culture, and so we share a worldview from that culture, often implicitly. Increasingly, the scientific worldview is being adopted in the western countries, but there is still a lot of resistance in other cultures to a total acceptance of the scientific worldview. No systematic research has been done on how people use both scientific worldview in some domains, and their own cultural worldviews in other domains. Like other human activities research too is influenced profoundly by the worldviews formed by cultural orientations of its practitioners. These influences affect the choice of research problems, the formulation of conceptual models and methodology. It was suggested that western cultures value analysis of a problem by breaking it down into its component parts where as Asians tended to be more holistic in their analysis. Scientists adhere to a worldview shaped by the culture of science that has evolved over time and has in turn been influenced by a number of factors. They value certainty, objectivity and impersonality highly. Precision, accuracy and reliability are characteristics of scientific inquiry. Tenets of logic are considered as one of the basic building blocks of science. For example something cannot be true and false at the same time. These fundamentals are rarely questioned in the scientific realm. In contrast, the Indian worldview does not follow the basic tenets of western logic. It seems to embrace positions that can be interpreted as contradictory from a scientific worldview. For example, something can both be true and false at the same time or good can be worse than bad. Attempts have been made to facilitate an interaction between science and Indian worldview. One interesting example is the scientific study of the effects of transcendental meditation. However, even in this case scientists have put forth ‘secular’ explanations for the phenomenon. Thus though science draws from other worldviews, it ultimately reduces it to its own and does not really resolve the conflict between the two worldviews. In examining the practices of scientists, one finds that they are driven not only by the all-important worldview of science, but also by the influences of other cultural worldviews. They often turn to these other cultures when science fails to give an adequate explanation. Such use of multiple paradigms cannot be resolved if one were to subscribe to a rationalist, logical pattern of thought. The seminar leader suggested that a multi-paradigmatic approach might make scientists more aware of their approaches to research. Reported by Srikant Panigrahy, with inputs from D. P. Dash and Jacob D. Vakkayil. Copyleft Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home |
