I know this is late, but it seems like the first few posts went off in the wrong direction, so:
Is science a value system?
No. Science is a
method for investigating the natural world. But it does utilize certain values in the method. Logic instead of emotion, honesty, openness, open mindedness, etc.
Are certain values advanced by science over others?
Kind of. Because science helps identify how reality works, it can provide answers that certain value systems would otherwise seek through thought alone. So it can prove the conclusions of certain value systems objectively. Ultimately, values are a matter of pure opinion, but when value systems try to explain reality, then science can step in and be the judge. For example:
1. Inequality is unfair. Value. Completely opinion-based.
2. Inequality is unfair because it causes poverty. Conclusion about how the world works. Can be tested scientifically.
Whether it should or not, typically it often seems too. The way people use science as a banner for some agenda such as atheism, skepticism, positivism, and environmentalism...
You are misreading the situation. Because science is a method, it can be used as a tool. But that doesn't mean science itself endorses anything. It's a bit like saying that Ford advocates plumbing because plumbers use Ford cargo vans. The reality is that Ford doesn't care if their cargo vans are used by plumbers or delivery-men, as long as people are buying them.
....you'd think being scientific equated to being somehow more noble and stoic than the normal human being.
Well...maybe. Science has an extremely good track record for accuracy, so as a result it can be said to work very well for certain things. For example, it has done a lot better than the Catholic Church in explaining the motion of the planets. Is that a value? No, it's just a factual reality. Is it a
result of the values that fit with the scientific process? Yes.
A certain elevation of science as the hard-earned suffered-for cause of truth. But why should that be so? Is science REALLY the sole means of discerning truth in our experience?
Science is far and a way the
most successful way of investigating how the natural world works.
And how does one determine the validity of these values presupposed by scientific progress? Certainly not scientifically...
Values are opinion-based, so opinions on that will vary.
That science used as a value system is no longer science. It may be an ideology, or a belief system, or a metaphysical position, or a political cause. But it isn't science.
That's an obvious tautology and therefore meaningless/pointless. A newspaper recycled into a notepad isn't a newspaper anymore. So what?
I simply propose that they acknowledge that there are no values in facts or knowledge per se. The value is placed on it by ourselves, and those values are what we each, in our own lives, were raised to believe in and espouse in our own lives. Is that really so hard to admit? That science expresses a devotion to ideals and aspirations that you have for yourself in your personal life. That you USE science as others would a life philosophy or a religion?
You are seeing something that isn't there. The problem you describe
would be a problem if it existed -- and any scientists would agree -- but it doesn't exist in any significant volume.