Well-Ordered Science

I know my group (group 2) discussed about well-ordered science, and next week we will be discussing it more in depth, and so on that note, I found a really interesting article by Nancy Cartwright bringing up and agreeing with Kitcher on a well-ordered science. The link is http://personal.lse.ac.uk/cartwrig/Papers%20General/WellOrderedSciencePSA2004.pdf She discusses merely what are the "right" methods to be used in a well-ordered science, having such questions as; 1. what questions can be reasonably pursued at a given time? or 2.what are the effects of pursuing a given question or given line of research? When she states these two types of questions (or I suppose you could think of them as methods), from my prospective, for question one I take into consideration as to what would be most demanding to pursue in science, such as the need to pursue finding a cure for cancer vs making electric socks. At this "given" time I would have to say finding a cure for cancer, over making electric socks. This first type of question makes me think of how many scientists really evaluate or even think of this question or also even question two. I'm sure as mentioned in class, the scientists who created the atomic bomb, had number two question brought up, but how in depth did the scientists really think about the effect. Did they just think just about the specific research, or did they go into more detail and ask specific questions or different matters, such as how would it effect society.

The different phases that Kitcher discussed in his book about a well ordered science, I can see could be very beneficial, but I don't know how well they would actually pan out. I think as a whole, for scientists, researchers etc. following more of a step by step/phase method, it could help with better/beneficial experiments.