cultural normativity vs. scientific rationalism

[lemur]

Science often comes up with reason to deviate from cultural normativity in the interest of some rational reason. The famous movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" derives its title from the idea that science can generate truths that pose inconvenient consequences for heeding them. Since truth is presumably immutable in an absolute sense, the question is whether cultural normativity can avoid it permanently, or at least until some crisis forces changes to be undertaken? If so, is there any practical function to science or is it just a futile exercise in understanding things that refuse to change until they're forced to?

[Marat]

The sociologist Max Weber has characterized modern society as being distinguished by its greater rationalization than previous eras, so the force of objectivity is relatively greater against the power of cultural norms. In contrast, in earlier times, norms could survive much longer against the pull of conflicting scientific evidence. For example, there were Jesuit universities throughout Europe in the 18th century which a century after Newton's 'Principia' persisted in teaching Aristotelian physics, since it was held at the time to be more congenial to Roman Catholic doctrine. Now those who cling to beliefs because of their normative associations even though their basis has been scientifically disproved are social outsiders, such as modern Creationists.

 

However, it is worth keeping in mind that both facts and values are real for us. You could say that it is just as much objectively certain that murder is wrong as that the boiling point of water at sea level is 100 degrees C. Kant had the proper solution to the relation between science and moral value when he described them as parallel interpretations of reality, each offering a valid perspective in its own terms, but each confined to its own terms, so that they could not conflict. Thus both law and morality stipulate that all people are equal even though they are in fact always entirely distinct as a matter of fact. We can affirm both truths simultaneously, though from differing perspectives.