The Australian legal system ruled on the definition of science some years ago, however, the Australian government is now pursuing the Japanese and their whaling program on the basis of an all together different definition, explains Charlotte Ramotswe.
Dear Jennifer,
Australia has taken Japan to the International Court of Justice disputing a basis of its whaling program – that it is scientific. You wrote about this recently in the blog post “Japan Attacks Aussie Moralising on Whaling”.
In the international court, it seems that the Australian Government has argued that what the Japanese are doing does not constitute “science”. What is this thing called science? The subject has preoccupied philosophers and historian and been the subject of many books including a classic by A.F. Chalmers.
Let’s face it: at least the scientific whaling program does generate a lot of data and publications.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.