Unsimple Truths – Science, Complexity and Policy (Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) - Hardcover

Mitchell, Sandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226532623 ISBN 13: 9780226532622

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Synopsis

The world is complex, but acknowledging its complexity requires an appreciation for the many roles context plays in shaping natural phenomena. In "Unsimple Truths", Sandra Mitchell argues that the long-standing scientific and philosophical deference to reductive explanations founded on simple universal laws, linear causal models, and predict-and-act strategies fails to accommodate the kinds of knowledge that many contemporary sciences are providing about the world. She advocates instead for a new understanding that represents the rich, variegated, interdependent fabric of many levels and kinds of explanation that are integrated with one another to ground effective prediction and action. Mitchell draws from diverse fields, including psychiatry, social insect biology, and studies of climate change, to defend 'integrative pluralism' - a theory of scientific practices that makes sense of how many natural and social sciences represent the multilevel, multicomponent, dynamic structures they study. She explains how we must, in light of the now-acknowledged complexity and contingency of biological and social systems, revise how we conceptualize the world, how we investigate the world, and how we act in the world. Ultimately, "Unsimple Truths" argues that the very idea of what should count as legitimate science itself should change.

About this title

About the Author

Sandra Mitchell is professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226532623
• ISBN 13: 9780226532622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176