A third way for science in society
Maxine Clarke
Friday, 27 February 2009 13:08 UTC
Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins, director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK, in the 5 March edition of Nature (458, 30; 2009 – free to access online for a week). Prof Collins identifies three waves in the history of social science attitutes to scientific research: first, an attempt to understand and interpret it; second, scepticism about it; and third – well, third is what he says social scientists must now do – work out what is right about science, not just what is wrong. He writes:
This third wave will be resisted. Post-modernists have become comfortable in their cocoon of cynicism. And some natural scientists have become too fond of describing their work as godlike. Others are ready to offer simple-minded criticisms of deeply held beliefs. But the third wave is needed to put science back in its proper place…..
Science’s findings are to be preferred over religion’s revealed truths, and are braver than the logic of scepticism, but they are not certain. They are a better grounding for society precisely, and only, because they are provisional. It is open debate among those with experience that is the ultimate value of the good society.
Science, then, can provide us with a set of values — not findings — for how to run our lives, and that includes our social and political lives. But it can do this only if we accept that assessing scientific findings is a far more difficult task than was once believed, and that those findings do not lead straight to political conclusions. Scientists can guide us only by admitting their weaknesses, and, concomitantly, when we outsiders judge scientists, we must do it not to the standard of truth, but to the much softer standard of expertise.
What do you think about whether, and how, social scientists and others should interpret the “values” of scientific research and “truth” to society at large?
Updated 04 March 2009 18:22 UTC
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Your (Ehsan’s) examples are all fine by me, Maxine. I wasn’t complaining about social science per se. My beef was that when social science turned to investigate science, often very little of substance seemed to be generated. So I was looking to find examples where social scientists had come up with something perceptive about the practice of science itself (or scientists themselves). So the challenge stands… ;-)
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Mike Hulme’s asks “How do Collins’s scientific values help us in tackling difficult issues such as climate change or genetically modified crops?” [Nature 458, 702 (2009)].
One of the first insights encountered when approaching the GM crops subject scientifically is that genetic information is modified since the emergence of life on earth. Therefore, the categories of “GM” and “non-GM” are not adequate for the object of the debate. The issue is made unnecessarily difficult by the use of inadequate categories. I think this is a good illustration how the scientific value of objectivity, i.e. of using concepts and categories that are adequate to the object of scientific study and debate, helps to tackle difficult issues.
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People say that the «wise one who knows the right, but not a lot». Social scientists are people who must be particularly wise, because they not only know much, but they know how to find in this “much” the most important.
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