Free Custom «Western Scientific Paradigm» Essay Paper

The western scientific paradigm is a westernized traditional framework which encompasses all of the commonly held views on scientific issues; it thereby gives a structure of what direction a research undertaking should take in a western culture and the expected performance. This pragmatic tends to define the practices in a discrete and cultural way.

Its implications for health care in the U.S

The scientific beliefs widely held in the western biomedicine have led to the rejection of the calls for the rigorous scientific investigations of many of many non-conventional modalities on the assumptions that no further light will be shade on the nature phenomena underlying health or illness through an exploration of alternative models because western science provides sufficient and reliable explanation of all pertinent phenomena.

This kind of western scientific paradigm therefore limits the practice of science to confirmation of the theories congruent with core tenets of contemporary western science, directing science away from unbiased inquiry into non-conventional medical practices based on the claims that do not fit into the contemporary United States scientific view. The history of western biomedicine is notable for its shift to use of plant derived preparation from the conventional eclectic treatment which has been practiced for long. These has been promoted with am aim of optimizing pharmaceutical synthetic to be able to target common biological markers in pathology. This shift is an evolutionary process in which a paradigm informed by indigenous healing practices grounded in disparate worldviews is being rapidly replaced with a technology-based paradigm based on na‹ve materialism.

The continuous historical standard shift in the western culture is reflected in a gradual transition from the use of complex mixtures of herbal ingredients to preparations of single herbs to active ingredients purified from single molecular moieties, and finally to be able to synthesize analogues which have been isolated from active molecular species engineered to achieve a specific biological effect on a target cellular receptor or other discrete molecular-level process underlying a postulated discrete, biologically unambiguous disease state. Movement away from mainstream medical use of crude extracts or even compound herbal preparations.

Problems associated with applying this paradigm in a culturally diverse society, such as the U.S.

The problems associated here involves the ways to identify the scientifically plausible mechanisms of action, this has forced the acceptance of the concepts that were originally regarded as invalid from the perspective of the western practices .The examples include the use of the denatured virus particles to immunize individuals against live viruses and the use of the antiseptics before and after surgery, the hypnotic trance induction in the treatment of neurosis, the use of x-rays to diagnose fractures and the use of weak electrical currents to induce seizures in the treatment of severe depression. The culturally diverse society, such as the United States is a challenge since not all the cultures are compatible.

Alternatives proposed to the Western paradigm, and their applications to the specific cultural group.
A lot of the efforts have been put in place to achieve full independence from western domination and the consideration of the non-Western intellectual traditions. It is possible to delineate the two main approaches; the traditionalist kind of approach, which seeks to revive the pre-colonial past in an unadulterated form, and secondly, an integrative approach, which seeks to combine the elements of the indigenous traditions in another developmental framework. In all the liberation struggles, however, there is a tension between the two approaches, in most developing countries there are numerous conflicts that develop on the most appropriate alternative to develop a non-Western way of doing science.

The traditional techniques in that are used in medicine, and small-scale industry has only been tolerated in case of the combination with Western approaches, mainly with the aim of producing science. The patterns of development  varies from one country to another, however the standard procedure should aim at building up a formal scientific system and technology systems that are based on the Western approaches, some informal systems should also be allowed in the training, diffusion, and servicing within non-Western approaches. These are the strategy that corresponds to the urban and rural economies' division. Generally, the socialist's ideology is that of assuming that development has been modernist, which depicts that the Western science and technology is intrinsically progressive and traditional belief systems belongs to a pre-modern past.

In most of the developing countries that are totally non-communist, some of the scientist value systems in association to the Western science have been distinguished more explicitly from the practice; certain elements of religion, beliefs and the Western philosophy have the characteristic of the "colonial mentality" or the "Westernization," and the attempts foster indigenous religions and the belief systems. The natural and the engineering sciences developed inline with the Western fundamentals, scientists in the developing countries were generally independence, but received their education from the Western countries. Non-Western philosophy and art work at some point converges to Western sciences; this implies that even though all the formal systems borrows their model partly from the on the West.

The actual research work and education have a locus of non-Western culture and the beliefs. In real sense, all the scientific aspects in the non-Western countries should be in line with the institutional traditions and the cultural patterns should be different from those that resemble the Western science. However at the some point, most of the non-Western countries tend to develop the ambition to copy from the Western models and re-apply the Westernized modes of production and general knowledge.