Framing science: how values and perspectives shape the focus of research. From the editorial:

Ideological commitments and social and political values have always influenced scientific research. Such values can light the way for science or lead into darkness. For most of the history of medical research, studies have disproportionately focused on men. As a result, we know far less about how various ailments manifest in women, and how to treat those ailments with appropriate drugs at appropriate dosages….

Scientists’ and societies’ values shape what research questions are posed, how many resources are devoted to answering those questions, what the exact aims of the research consist in, and more. Even for science’s greatest successes, these social values are a motivating influence. Einstein’s revolutionary theories of physics were in part inspired by his concerns about how to set clocks at different train stations to the same time. In 2006, I attended a talk in which the preeminent evolutionary biologist Richard Levins said that his scientific work begins with the question of what science will do for the children. Our interests and our values are the engine of scientific discovery.

Ideological awareness is thus essential to our understanding of science. The failure to recognize the pervasive influence of values on science is a danger because problematic roles for values can proceed unchecked if their role is not acknowledged….

[P]eriodically through science’s long history, there are abhorrent instances of scientific research going wrong for ideological reasons. This is one reason why we need the humanities. We need philosophers to help lay bare and analyze how values shape science; we need historians to reveal science’s broader societal context.

h/t Rob Townsend @rbthisted

For other posts on humanities and science, see here