Editing Philosophy of science (section)

==Other topics==
===Reductionism===

[[Analysis]] involves breaking an observation or theory down into simpler concepts in order to understand it. [[Reductionism]] can refer to one of several philosophical positions related to this approach. One type of reductionism suggests that phenomena are amenable to scientific explanation at lower levels of analysis and inquiry. Perhaps a historical event might be explained in sociological and psychological terms, which in turn might be described in terms of human physiology, which in turn might be described in terms of chemistry and physics.<ref name="StanUnity">{{cite web |url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-unity/ |title = The Unity of Science |access-date = 2014-03-01 |last1 = Cat |first1 = Jordi |year = 2013 |website = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140407014121/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-unity/ |archive-date = 2014-04-07 |url-status = live}}</ref> [[Daniel Dennett]] distinguishes legitimate reductionism from what he calls ''[[greedy reductionism]],'' which denies real complexities and leaps too quickly to sweeping generalizations.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Levine|first1= George|title= Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World|date= 2008|publisher= Princeton University Press|isbn= 978-0-691-13639-4|page= 104|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=koy-zqecyewC&q=dennett+%22greedy+reductionism%22+%22bad+science%22&pg=PA104|access-date= 28 October 2015}}</ref>

===Social accountability===
{{See also|The Mismeasure of Man}}
A broad issue affecting the neutrality of science concerns the areas which science chooses to explore{{mdash}}that is, what part of the world and of humankind are studied by science. [[Philip Kitcher]] in his ''Science, Truth, and Democracy''<ref>
{{cite book
 | last = Kitcher
 | first = Philip
 | author-link = Philip Kitcher
 | title = Science, Truth, and Democracy
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=frrhdqnMNzsC
 | series = Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science
 | location = New York
 | publisher = Oxford University Press
 | date = 2001
 | isbn = 9780198033356
 | access-date = 26 September 2020
}}
</ref>
argues that scientific studies that attempt to show one segment of the population as being less intelligent, less successful, or emotionally backward compared to others have a political feedback effect which further excludes such groups from access to science. Thus such studies undermine the broad consensus required for good science by excluding certain people, and so proving themselves in the end to be unscientific.