The document discusses the role of ideals in higher education and scientific research. It argues that [1] scientific research and teaching should be primarily guided by ideals, [2] there are universal ideals that can ground science, requiring the unification of knowledge across disciplines, and [3] ideals allow for change while providing permanence and can help refute or enter new paradigms. The document presents research on the types of ideals held by scientists, how ideals influence knowledge creation, and proposes that ideals should be used to address environmental and moral crises and make education and policy more complete.

1. Combining permanence and change:
the strength of strong ideals
Filipa M. Ribeiro
University of Porto
filipa.ribeiro@gmail.com
4th
International
Conference on
Science
Matters 2013
Virginiensis

2. Are ideals unfit in
nowadays’ education?
If not, what is the place
of ideals in higher
education?

3. Bringing back…IDEALS…
• Scientific research and teaching in HEIs should be primarily
guided by ideals;
• Ideals are social facts and there are universal ideals that can
be used as a ground basis for Science;
• These grounded ideals require the unification of knowledge
created by natural & social sciences, humanities and arts;
• Ideals are the door to refute and enter into new paradigms.

4. What do we want from Science?
Do we really want this type of products from Science…? Is googleprofit science a priority?

5. What do we want from Science?
Scientific hunt in Spain (September, 2013)
… Science at any price and no respect for nature…?

6. Methods
Do scientists have
ideals? Which ones?
•
•
•
Are ideals or values embedded in the
knowledge networks of researchers?
Data sample:
388 scientists
around the
globe;
• Interviews with academic staff
members (n=30; 24 M and 6 F);
Random
sampling
method;
• Interviews took place between May
and August2013;
2009
• At 4 universities and
institutions in Catalonia;
research
• Selection of cases: Maximizing
variation in terms of academic
positions; duration of tenure;
academic disciplines; levels of
departmental productivity.

7. Ideals in science
Comparative synthesis among
the different types of ideals
within the groups of natural and
social sciences.
CURK: Colective utopia related to knowledge
IUSJ: Individual utopias related to science as a job
IUK: Individual utopias related to knowledge
IUSC: Individual utopias related to Science communication
NU: No utopias

8. Types of ideals in the social
sciences/humanities group
Phylo
CU
Knowledge
IU
Knowledge
IU
JOB
IU
Comm
No
utopias
Psycho
Sociol.
Econo
Journal.
Educat.
Polit.
Demog.
Hist.
Geog.

9. Why ideals? (2)
• 33% of
respondents
have NO IDEALS
in natural
sciences and
aprox. 25% in
social sciences.
?

10. Methods
Do scientists have
ideals? Which ones?
•
•
•
Are ideals or values embedded in the
knowledge networks of researchers?
Data sample:
388 scientists
around the
globe;
• Interviews with academic staff
members (n=30; 24 M and 6 F);
Random
sampling
method;
• Interviews took place between May
and August2013;
2009
• At 4 universities and
institutions in Catalonia;
research
• Selection of cases: Maximizing
variation in terms of academic
positions; duration of tenure;
academic disciplines; levels of
departmental productivity.

11. 1. Thinking styles (1)
I prefer dealing with specific issues rather than general problems.
I like working with projects that allow me to work in new ways of performing
tasks.
I prefer situations that don’t make me think about details.
When dealing with a problem I usually prefer to solve it by myself.
I enjoy following methods and theories already used in the past.
I enjoy situations in which I can follow a established routine.
I like seeing how what I do fits in a certain perspective
I like changing routines to improve the way tasks are done.
I prefer situations in which I can apply my own ideas, without depending on
others.
I like problems that, in order to be solved, require fixed rules to be followed.
Adapted from Sternberg and Wagner (1991)

12. 1. Thinking styles (2)
• Older researchers (> 37 years old) are more likely to engage
with tasks, projects and situations that require commitment
towards broad, global and abstract ideas;
• Younger researchers (<37) are more prone to work in
collaborative settings;
• Significative relations between the scientific field and the
thinking styles;
• All scientific fields value in a similar way the collaborative
work.

13. 2. Creation of knowledge (1)
Dense, but diverse network
Sparse, but less diverse network

14. 2. Creation of knowledge (2)
• Similarity eases
collaboration but lowers
the possibilities for
knowledge creation;
• Strong ties = values +
influence in ego’s
trajectory
• Values + Ideals =
alternative
knowledge networks

15. Ideals as social facts
• Social order is formed within cognitive-symbolic relations (Reckwitz ,
2002);
• Aesthetic consciousness: we recreate the world while we recreate
ourselves; our own desire to become something else;
• Ideals, just as values, indicate the regard for a thing, situation, or
attitude, which for some reason is esteemed or prized by the ideal
holder and to others;
• Ideals are not arbitrary man-made rules but stem from an inherent,
common regard for one’s own interest;
• No one living in this world can escape relationships. Failure to meet
ideals and values puts one in conflict with oneself.

16. Ideals in HE…
• To overcome the effects of the atrophy of ends and of the hypertrophy
of means to better tackle the educational imbalances;
• To guarantee the diversity (and well-matched strategies) in local and
individual development;
• To make the most of researchers’ networks; “Purposeful research”;
• To increase internal coherence in the relationships between
institutions and individuals;
• To maximize the legitimization of and by educational policies (policy=
purposive course of action designed to address concern);
• To better assess technological and scientific breakthroughs.

17. Ideals: How?
Ideals as intuitive
interfaces
1.
Conceptual
framework
2.Technological
analysis
Ubiquitous disciplines
beyond conflicts of
epistemic values
3. State of
the art
4.Preanalysis
of the
market
5.
Comparative
analysis
Biocentrism +
Ecocentrism

18. To every crisis a double strategy…
Level
1. Techno economic
Variables
Micro-macro
economy
2. Socio-political
Quality of life, basic
needs, groups,
classes, institutions
and power.
3.Ideals (axiological)
Environmental
limitations
System of values
and ideals
Model
Conventional for
profit institutions
Broaden
conventional;
reformist,
dependent model.
Ecodevelopment
New development

19. Which ideals?
Biodiversity

20. Work
Initiative
Humanity & Wisdom
Freedom
Affection & Motivation
Family
Love & well-being
Citizenship
Equanimity
Responsibility & Empowerment Knowledge
Hypothesis, verification &completion.
Availability
Continuity and evaluation
Moral progress
Society is all and each one of us

21. Evolution is action
• How to recycle urban
solid waste?
• How to increase net
primary productivity?
• How not to produce
genetically modified
organisms?
• How not to introduce
chemicals into the
environment?
• How to protect and
promote conservation
and restoration
operations of land and
ecosystems?

22. Human supremacy on Earth is over.
And now what?
Balance or eternity?

23. Specism and multiculturalism
We must opt for a widespread
option of attitudes and
behaviours that spread and
disseminate the diversity
(multiculturalism) and cultural
specificities. The most rich
fruitful and sustainable
environments (and nations) are
not those who boil down and
close upon themselves, but the
ones that change and multiply in
accordance to the biodiversity
and the largest possible number
of opportunities.

24. Ethics as an instinct
To rethink the use of arable soil, to
establish priorities, to optimize the
choice on the seeds, to hold and
protect the seedlings of the locations
prone to landslides, flash floods or
fires, to promote agricultural and
livestock research, to protect native
species, as well as to redeploy the
conduct of the three, r's (reduce,
reuse and recycle) presents itself not
only as an economic necessity, but
also as an ethical imperative.

25. Environmental policy and
development
Economy and society
Economy can promote society, and society should reinforce the
ontological unity between the human being and the environment
that surrounds it aiming at a perfect symbiosis.

26. Aesthetics and culture
If culture does not encourage a better understanding of us and of
our surroundings, it will isolate us, makes us sick or pathological
beings. Culture with ideals as a social reality is the synthesis of all
human creativity, in an individual and collective dynamics.

27. Ideals as the bound
• The future potential of HE and HEIs depends on the ideal-based research;
• The world is in environmental and moral crisis. Ideals are needed now
more than ever;
• Education and educational policies are incomplete without ideals;
• Strong teaching and learning must entail permanent and
transdisciplinary values and ideals so that universities become places of a
true ubiquitous education where everything that is taught and learnt
cracks the shell of convention.
• Developing policy or legislation with impacts on people or land without
accommodating ideals on biodiversity and development is incompletely
researched or developed;
• To uphold social justice.

28. Is ideals-based science a vain utopia?
• Ideals allow us to combine a
permanent valuable basis towards
improved changes.
• Ideals always suggest different
reflections and avoid mental
colonisations.
• Utopic is to think that the
current models of development
can continue to exist against all
the limitations that we have (as
the current crisis shows).

29. “Please don't make the mistake of thinking the
arts and sciences are at odds with one
another. That is a recent, stupid and damaging
idea. You don't have to be unscientific to make
beautiful art, to write beautiful things."
-
Tim Minchin, musician, comedian and writer in his 2013 occasional
address at the University of Western Australia's graduation ceremony.

30. THANK YOU!
Filipa M. Ribeiro
filipa.ribeiro@gmail.com
http://giesteira.academia.edu/FilipaRibeiro
Aknowledgements:
Credits for the pictures: Carlos Garrido