This year's "science wars" debate took place on 22 March 1999 and was recorded on minidisc and digital video. It was chaired by Dr. Kirk Junker.
Science Wars: what exactly is at stake? Is it about contesting the social standing and the public image of science? OR Is it a battle of wits between the scientists and the humanists to see who can win the contest of what counts as knowledge and what does not?
As with any large-scale debate of this sort, it is the extreme positions that get publicised. The extreme positions in this case are:
(2) Hard-line scientists, on the other hand, see science as being completely asocial. They believe that science proceeds logically and rationally, without any regard for the social and cultural.
Scientists believe that there is a qualitative difference between the epistemology of science and that of other disciplines, and that the very ideals of inquiry on which science is based–empirical observation, logical deduction and hypotheses testing–set it apart from other disciplines.
A large part of the debate centres around the argument about what counts as scientific knowledge and what does not. What activities should be counted as ‘scientific’? Others would argue that the conflict lies in the question over who is entitled to speak for science. Should it only be the natural scientists and engineers? Or have historians, philosophers and sociologists of science something legitimate to say about science? People speaking about disciplines outside their own tend to make people within those disciplines feel uncomfortable.
Hopefully, in today's debate these questions will be answered by Cormac, Gavin, Adriana and Elsa. One thing that I think we can take from this is that the Science Wars debate is not a bad thing. Any debate that seeks to question the unquestionable is definitely worthwhile.
The Science Wars Debate: the case in favour of Alan D. Sokal 
Although his article was ostensibly an attack on post-modern interpretations of scientific theories, there were broader issues which Sokal wanted to address. He wanted to attract attention to the decline in standards of rigour and reliability in the academic community. He also had a political aim, to defend the left from postmodernism and social constructivism. Sokal also subsequently suggested what he believes is a valid sociology of science.
Thus there are three main themes in Sokal’s writings on the Science Wars: academic reliability; the political implications of what constitutes knowledge; and the sociology of science.
Academic Reliability:
Much of what I write is second-hand information taken from the literature.
Therefore I am relying on a faith in scientists and practitioners in other
academic disciplines and the explanations they provide when I am constructing
my argument. This is why the issue of reliability is so important. The
dissolution of the boundary between reliable work and wishful speculation
must be avoided. Otherwise, if the information published in academic journals
cannot guarantee certain standards of accuracy and reliability, by association
the value of all published academic work will fall appreciably.
The Politics of Knowledge:
By arguing whether it matters if the Sun goes around the Earth or
the Earth goes around the Sun we may be missing the point. For the vast
majority of people it is irrelevant. As Kirk said at the end of the debate,
we still have not answered the "So what?" question.
Sokal believes that this debate has potential political and moral implications. It is not merely an academic skirmish between the sciences and the humanities. The very essence of what truth is and whether unbiased judgements of opposing arguments or propositions can be made is at stake.
If we accept epistemological relativism then our ability to distinguish between right and wrong (materially or socially) becomes severely clouded. One expresses one’s views within a specific discourse which, objectively, has no more value than that of your opponents. This, according to Paul Feyerabend, is what should occur in a free society.
Yet I think that freedom should be the right to point out what is true despite any ideology. One should be free to ask awkward questions rather than providing convenient and self-serving answers. One should try to overcome inconsistencies and reveal ignorance without fear of the consequences. As Winston Smith writes in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four." Epistemological relativists might argue that saying two plus two make five is equally valid. This argument makes no reference to material reality, nor is it consistent with counting one, two, three, four, five.
As Eric Hobsbawm argues in refuting epistemological relativism in history, "In short, . . . there is no clear difference between fact and fiction." Therefore, if the notion of epistemological relativism becomes received wisdom I believe that the ultimate casualty of the science wars could be the concept of truth. The implications of this can be horrendous.
A Sociology of Science and the ethics of Science:
Sokal does not object to a sociology of science per se. On the contrary,
he has said how he thinks a sociology of science should work. It could
apply to three areas: one, the sociology of science; two, individual ethics;
three, social ethics. These questions do not affect the underlying scientific
ontology or epistemology.
No scientific work is acontextual since any work is guided by notions of what is worth studying. The sociology of science could study the extent to which the truths known in any given society are influenced by social, economic, political, cultural and ideological factors?
Individual ethics deals with the types of research scientists ought to undertake (or refuse to undertake)? Some scientists claim they merely pursue objective scientific questions whose applications they are completely independent of. However, this attitude reminds me of the concentration camp guards who protested their innocence after the Second World War by claiming that they were only taking orders. Scientists who assume this position, I believe, are reneging on their rights and responsibilities as citizens who must live in a society where their work may be applied. Many scientists though may feel that due to pressures of employment, funding, etc., that they cannot afford to look beyond the aims and motivations of their employer or funder, if they are to continue their work.
Social ethics deals with the question of what types of research ought society to encourage, subsidise or publicly fund (or to discourage or forbid)? This, in my opinion, is why greater public informedness about science is necessary. For example, if one cannot count how can one then be expected to make an informed decision as to whether two plus two makes four or five? It is for this reason that discussions about science should be intelligible, relevant and reliable. This is also why the abstruse and recondite language used by many cultural studies writers et al. is so disconcerting.
Conclusion:
Sokal claims that there are absolute criteria by which the truth
can be discerned and contending positions of knowledge can be judged objectively.
The alternative is that the contending ways of knowing the world are equally
reliable, i.e. epistemological relativism is justified.
For example, Paul Feyerabend states that no objective assessment of knowledge can be made. Value judgements of one tradition can only be made from the perspective of another. The promulgation of science as an objective body of knowledge merely indicates its privileged role as the dominant ideology of contemporary society.
Sokal disputes this and believes that social constructivist and post-modernist work is devalued by its lack of a basis in material reality. Forms of knowledge which do not attempt to resolve and eliminate the inconsistencies between their knowledge and objective material evidence are less valid as explanations of how the world works. Adherence to a scientific epistemology, and the scientific method, ensures that the knowledge one obtains has been rigorously tested and is logically sound. This does not mean that scientific knowledge is certainly right, but that it has been tested according to criteria more rigorous than other forms of knowledge must undergo.
The Science Wars are not really about a battle between scientists,
and social constructivists or post-modernists. It is about the concept
of truth. Sokal believes that science is the best means of seeking the
truth about the natural world. It is by revealing ignorance and illusion
about the natural world the natural sciences proceed. Different epistemologies
are not equally valid for this purpose. And the only way we can judge their
validity is by their correspondence to an objective material world.
Bibliography:
Collins, H.M., and Pinch, T. (1993) The Golem. Cambridge
University Press.
Feyerabend, P. (1978) Science in a Free Society. Verso
Editions/NLB, London.
Fuller, S. (1998) The Science Wars: Who is the real
enemy?
Gillott, J. and Kumar, M. (1995) Science and the Retreat
from Reason. The Merlin Press Ltd., London.
Gross, P.R. and Levitt, N. (1994) Higher Superstition:
The academic left and its quarrels with science. John Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore and London.
Gross, P.R. and Levitt, N. and Lewis, M.W. (eds.)
(1996) The Flight from Science and Reason. Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, New York.
Johnston, R.J. (1986) Philosophy and Human Geography:
An introduction to contemporary approaches. Edward Arnold, London.
Junker, K. and Fuller, S. (1998) Beyond the Science
Wars Open University Press.
Mermin, N. David, (1996) 'What's wrong with this sustaining
myth?' Physics Today (March) pp. 11-13.
Sokal, A. D. (1997) ‘What the Social Text affair does
and does not prove’ in Koertge, N. (ed.) A House Built on Sand: Exposing
postmodernist myths about science. Oxford University Press. At (on Monday
March 8 1999) http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/noretta.html.
Sokal, A. D. (1996) ‘Transgressing the boundaries:
An afterword’ in Dissent, 43 (4), pp. 93 - 99. At (on Monday March 15 1999)
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/. . .
Sokal, A. D. (1997) ‘A plea for reason, evidence and
logic’ in New Politics, 6 (2), pp. 126 - 129. At (on Monday March 15 1999)
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/nyu_forum.html
Weinberg, S. (1996) 'Sokal's Hoax' The New York Review,
August 8, pp. 11-15.
Is there a science war? Not really, but there is perhaps, a phony war (I believe this war is a minor symptom, and not a major cause, of the decline of science). The manifestations of this ideological scrap were not obvious to me as an undergraduate, or as a commercial laboratory chemist. It was only upon entering the MSc. in Science Communication, that I became aware of this most academic of skirmishes.
During the first term of this course, my classmates and I were also introduced to perspectives of science, which came from outside of science. Some of these perspectives were met with hostility from much of the class. The Armagh lecture hall, it seemed, was a microcosm of what appeared to be going on in the big bad world of academia – much ado about nothing. I for one could not understand the hostility, but was in fact quite taken by these new standpoints.
One particularly interesting view came from sociology. While sociological ideas on science are far from watertight, they still, I believe have something to contribute to science. It was with this in mind, I volunteered my services to defend Harry Collins for the Science Wars radio debate.
Collins believed that scientific knowledge could be expressed as a dichotomy. On the one hand there was the algorithmic model. This is the belief that science can be laid out in a cut and dry set of rules or instructions. On the other is what Collins called the enculturational model. Here scientific knowledge is much more complex and value-laden, because it is tied to history, culture and human nature. Collins believes the latter is the true model.
Drawing on the work of the Austrian philosopher, Wittgenstein, Collins also introduced the concept of tacit knowledge. This is knowledge, which cannot be acquired through instruction, but only through experience. The skill needed to ride a bike is a clear example of this.
In our class, the loudest voices against Collins dismissed the above observations as obvious and trivial. Whether these same people believed what they were saying is a matter of conjecture. I remain convinced, however, that the vast majority of practicing scientists today are woefully unaware of the true nature of scientific knowledge, and instead live in their own little world of Mertonian ideals.
In his book, Changing Order, Collins gives some very full and descriptive observational accounts of scientific practice. In my opinion, he does not pontificate, but instead lets the accounts speak for themselves. His chapter detailing the struggle to replicate the TEA laser emphatically exposes the problem of knowledge transfer, while the ‘Experimenters Regress’ chapter is a litany of Mertonian norm violations.
These accounts of Collins’ struck a chord with my own experiences of laboratory life. The head of the quality control department wanted me to write an instruction document for a particularly complex and temperamental instrument, which would cover every eventuality. I implored him on the impossibility of this task. My pleas fell on deaf ears. I never finished that document. Former colleagues tell me, a year later, that it is still not finished.
At the time of this radio debate, the current edition of Nature, ran a major article entitled ‘ Science Comes to Terms with Fraud’ - Again an example from the real world that shows science as an imperfect social construct. The anti-Collins voices in the class, as far as I am aware, have never worked in a commercial laboratory or similar situation. At the risk of having a fatwa issued against me, I suggest that these same individuals would be less hostile to Collins and his ilk, if they had worked in a real laboratory environment.
In the broader picture, there are those who felt that the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) was a misconception from the very start. These people, I believe were just showing the territorial nature of the human psyche. They did not like the idea of ‘them’ sticking their nose into ‘our’ business. This childish reaction culminated in the paranoid Higher Superstition by Gross and Levitt. Their scattergun tactics made no contribution to sensible debate.
A more interesting, but still somewhat immature pot shot at sociology was the Sokal Hoax. On the basis of this singular event, it was declared that science is indeed the best form of knowledge – an argument upheld by the opposition in this radio debate. Wherefore art thou inductive reasoning?
In the introduction of Science Wars, Andrew Ross highlights a possible criticism of the SSK. Instead of, as some scientists might claim, saying too much, the sociologists have not said enough, “In opting for a program of social realism that eschewed value-laden moralistic critique, SSK’s passive explanation of science’s social construction met with charges of political quietism”. This seems a no-win situation. I believe, however, that the passive approach was the correct one. The time for a more sophisticated model will be when there is more formal, mature and constructive debate between all the disciplines, not just sociology and science.
The SSK is indeed in its infancy. It stands to reason, therefore, that the work of Collins and others has many gaps and shortcomings. A seam of naiveté and tactlessness runs throughout his work. In The Golem, a book he co-wrote with fellow sociologist, Trevor Pinch, he uses the metaphor of the Golem for science. The Golem is a mythical Jewish figure, a clumsy but powerful giant, with ‘truth’ written on its forehead. The great irony here is that as powerful as the metaphor was, in the end it was clumsy and offensive. It was bound to draw the ire of scientists.
One of the contributors to Science Wars is the feminist Hilary Rose. Although sympathetic to Collins and Pinch’s political project, she does have a problem with the lack of reflexivity in their work, “Thus while they show us the scientists actively socially constructing their ‘neat and tidy myths,’ we are invited to believe that C&P’s own sociological accounts of science are real.”
She also quite rightly deplores their use of the word myth to describe the methodical and painstaking work of laboratory practice.
Throughout her essay (My Enemy’s Enemy) she criticises Collins for his sexist tendencies. This is not the first piece of feminist text I have come across, which could be regarded as over-analytical. Collins is no more sexist than the rest of us, man or woman. Indeed, to his credit, in Changing Order he reproduces the chauvinistic comments of one particular scientist. He does not comment on it directly, but his disapproval is arguably, inferred.
The opposition got no argument from me when they stated that science is the best form of knowledge. I agree wholeheartedly. This does not mean, however, that it is above criticism or beyond reproach. Collins and the rest of the SSK are carrying out valuable and pioneering work, which with a bit maturity and intelligence from all concerned should benefit science greatly.
The "Science Wars" can be understood as an interdisciplinary clash about the social standing of science. Even though much of the debate has taken place during the second half of this century, the origins of the discussion lie further back on time. I will here provide a short historical introduction to situate this much heated debate.
After World-War II sociologists started studying science empirically for the first time. Up until then, scientific knowledge had been exempted from sociological studies because sociologists themselves thought that there was no need for such approach. Science was understood to be based on rationality itself and a logical search for truth. Thus most sociologists claimed that only the circumstances surrounding the production of scientific knowledge were within their grasp, but not its very content and nature. Basically, this reflects what is probably the most important set of objections to the sociology of scientific knowledge: that scientific knowledge simply does not stand in need of any explanation, because logic itself is perceived to constitute a set of connections between premises and conclusions which can be traced by our minds.
Incidentally, the post-World War II period is also perceived as the crucial turning point in the changed relationship of science to power (military, economic and political). This very change led to the to massive government support of science.
The fact that the debates about the social standing of science spurted in this historical period is probably caused by the general realisation that science was becoming increasingly important in everyday life. And this is both in the military side (including the manufacture of weapons and the atomic bomb) and on the industrial side.
With this brief historical background in mind, we can focus on the crunch of the "Science Wars" debate. This lies on the findings of a series of sociologists who looked at how scientists work and how they routinely justify their findings both to the rest of the scientific community and to the public. What they found out –and what seemingly came to great surprise- was that scientists are not that different from everybody else. Scientists, after careful debate and examination, were concluded to be as human in their practices as anybody else!
Now, why was that the cause of so much conflict as to actually label the debate as "the Science Wars"? Apparently, it was the aversion by some to perceive science as a culturally embedded and interested activity, which seemed to take away the authoritative and almost sacred status of science.
My argument is that it is precisely here where the problem lies: in the perception of science as untouchable and as a producer of "truths". To develop my argument I will explain what I consider scientific knowledge to be based upon, and how that differs from the actual practice of science. In doing so I will consider some of Harry Collins’ arguments, since he represents a leading figure of the sociology of science as a discipline, and I will point out how I disagree with him in a fundamental way.
I think that the production scientific knowledge and the practice of science need to be differentiated. In my opinion, scientific knowledge is indeed based on extreme rationality. It results from the rigorous procedure known as the scientific method, which I believe does generate a logic of justification and does provide a technique for the objective appraisal of the merits of scientific theories. However, that does not mean that scientists themselves are extremely rational and logical creatures, neither does it mean that the practice of science is.
I don’t think that science brings about truths, but rather it produces scientific truths, which is a very different thing. One of the things I love the most about science, and indeed what prompted me to base my University education around it, is that science does not attempt to explain everything (or at least that is my approach to it and how I understand it), but instead is quite modest in what it attempts to elucidate.
Thus, a most-basic pre-requisite to any scientific study is the setting of limits of what a scientific study attempts to explain. Thus, anything outside the defined range specified is put a-side, and anything outside the context described is considered meaningless. Such "framing" of an experiment needs to be a rigorous and exhaustive task.
Again, the set-up of the experiment’s procedure needs careful spelling out. This needs to include a statistical treatment which will account for both human and machine errors, giving what is known as an error-range, and differentiating statistically significant and insignificant results. This procedure will often involve the collection of data, which are then analysed.
Finally, the results are noted and interpreted, and this last point is the basis of the discussion of the experiment.
This description of the production of scientific knowledge, however, should not be confused with the actual practical side of science, and here is where I would like to mention some of the conclusions of the sociologist of science Harry Collins.
I agree with Collins when he says that there are tacit elements of knowledge in science. Thus, tacit or intuitive reasoning is often what may allow a researcher to pose a hypothesis on the first place. However, the results of intuitive reasoning are not suitable for inclusion in a piece of scientific research unless they are rationalised, in which case the cease to be intuitive.
Collins argues that replication of a scientific experiment is not possible, because most of it represents tacit ways of knowing what cannot be expressed. In my opinion, however, the very purpose of replication of scientific experiments is to nullify the possible effects of that acquired tacit knowledge.
I do think that being a scientist consists of the acquisition of a series of skills, many of which will be tacit, and I do think of science in the practical sense as labour, but this differs from the presentation of this science, which should only include the solid, coherent and replicable results.
Science is a widely practised discipline with its own human characteristics,
because its practitioners are people. I would argue that the products of
science are still characterised by a high degree of objectivity and rationality,
and the quest is still for some type of truth, which I would call scientific
truth and which by no means I would believe represents any kind of ultimate
truth. If a social approach to science finds that the expectations of what
science is do not actually correspond with the discipline practised as
science, I would argue that to be the subject of debate. Why not
concentrate in the reasons why science is perceived the way it is, and
what its characteristics are that intimidate non-scientists? I do not understand
why science itself is attacked, when there is an obvious misunderstanding
of what it means to start off with. I think this "the science wars" is
a war of words and personal conflicts, between sociologists and scientists,
but also between single individual’s conceptions and pre-conceptions.
One of the most often critiqued in the science war is Paul K Feyerabend : on both sides of the scientific debate.
Scientists such as Alan Sokal, for example, who claimed in the French newspaper Le Monde, the 31 January 1997 about the Sokal Hoax that Bruno Latour hides "all what is radical, original and false in the "new" sociology of science : we can, and we must, explicate the story of science, without matter of the truth or fallacy of the scientific theories, it means that if we are honest we have to explain the acceptance of the theories of Newton and Darwin without invoking the empirical proofs of these theories. And Sokal said "From this attitude to the ideas that there are not any empirical arguments for theses theories or that these one are without any importance there is a step which is often skipped (by Feyerabend, for example) and which bring straight to the irrational".
On the other hand sociologists accused him of having an extreme position which hides the real work of sociology and other "science studies". The differences between Feyerabend and the others warriors of the science is certainly great, but I think that the originality of the Feyerabend's analyse is often misunderstood. The main issues of the science war is then perhaps to examine if we can still blindly accept what we are told by scientists and believe that science is good for us (even if it seems not so good : nuclear bombs, mad cow disease, GMO) or if we may accept the not so enthusiastic analyse of some non-scientists .
Since some decades now, sociologists, historians and philosophers have tried to study what makes science so specific, so different from the other ways of improving knowledge. The most evident thing seems to be as Cormack and Adrianna said, that the science is universal and independent of historical or sociological context. In fact one part of the science war comes from this belief : scientists denied that there is any significant relationship between the historical and social context of scientific discovery to the key elements of what constitutes science itself.
Gavin gave us an abstract of the Strong Programme of David
Bloor which decided to treat the Science as if it were not different, to
understand superior, to any other system of belief.
The main idea was the principle of symmetry: The sociologists
have to study the conditions that bring about belief, without prejudices
as to whether the belief is true or false, rational or irrational, or even
successful or a failure. Thus for example the considerable attention given
to highly controversial and marginal fields of science such as research
on gravity waves (cf.Gavin's text), vacuum existence (Shapin and Sheffer)
or to the everyday life in laboratories (Bruno Latour).
As a result of these studies, the scientific knowledge appeared as strongly influenced by the disciplinary structure of the scientific community and not simply by the scientific ideas that happens to be current or proved (for example nobody manages at the beginning to replicate Boyle's experimentations in Europe). This part of the science war ended with a complete success for the "science studies" which managed to prove that human biases play a major role in the acceptation or the refutation of a theory.
Now most people admit that the study of science by non-scientists could teach us a lot of things about the limits and the quality of the validity of the scientific theory. However it was only a first step in the refutation of the science as an all, with its methods unable to make a mistake, its workers, gentlemen working for the good of humanity. Unfortunately various searchers stopped theirs scepticism there (Bruno Latour for Example thinks that "at the end there is a difference between the theory which has been accepted and the theory which has been rejected" ).
However Feyerabend do not stop there and goes one step further;
The principal claim of the scientists is that science is more
than a human activity like the others and that explain the science results
by human causes is not take care of its specificity : The experiments,
verifications, the rationality and so on give us the truth.
For scientists, Feyerabend has abandoned this particularity and does not
take care of the validity of the theory. It is why, for them it result
in thinking that the reality described by scientists has no link with
"the Reality".
In fact Feyerabend gives an important place to the contents of his
theories in his demonstration.
He proves for example in Against Methods, in studying the contents
of the arguments during some controversies, that a theory does not owe
its success always to its superiority over previous theories when measured
by normal criteria or rationality but to a variety of factors that are
external to experimental or mathematical calculation.
His most famous example is the description of the Galileo revolution and its successful outcome. He managed to demonstrate that Galileo's theory (the earth was in constant motion around the sun) and the Newtonian mechanics were not superior to Ptolemaic science, in showing that far from being purely speculative Aristotelian physics obeyed much of Karl Popper' rule.
This idea is particularly important for science because the issue in question is the power. What gives the power to science after the idea that it is universal and always true?
For me it is certainly that it works (Cf. medicine or astronomy) and that it helps us to advance our knowledge of the world. Hence Feyerabend shows us that astronomy before Galileo was working as well as astronomy of today with its non-explained facts as well as with its explained facts. Through this example he reminds us that all system of tough are only a representation. Science is a myth like magic can be in some societies : we can believe that we have the answers to the questions we have always asked, but we can not be sure these answers will not change. Worst of all these changes do not give us the guarantee of an improvement in our representation of the world.
Does a method which does not give us a certain improvement in our
knowledge deserve to have a such important place in our outlook on politics,
education or even religion?
Do we not have to consider some alternative methods ?
Even some other ways of understanding our environment which belong to some
"archaic" society or "completely irrational" stream as astrology or magic
?
Do we not confuse science and technology because the "applications
of science " are surely positive ? Science claims the benefits of
technology in the name of its "method to find the true" : the Rationality,
but we can doubt with Feyerabend if a such miracle recipe really exist
?
Bringing science and scientificity down to earth and showing that
it is no more, but certainly no less than any other discourse, Feyerabend
ask us these questions and some others which for the moment the scientists
have no answers. Will we discover that Science is perhaps only an additional
hoax ?
The place of science in the economy, politic or in our everyday life, does in any case mean that it is the only or better way to increase our knowledge.
It is necessary for us to continue developing researching this area and thus prove that it is perhaps not as perfect as we thought, and even to discover that it is perhaps the "less worst " way of improving our condition of life.
After that it will not means that we will reject science after reading
the books of Paul Feyerabend as we continue to prefer the less worst of
the regime for Plato, the
democracy.
In the meantime we will perhaps be able to avoid the actual disadvantages
of science (new religion, environmental threats, uniformity, dictatorial
reign and so on).
Last year's class on "science wars" took the form of a radio debate, in which each person in the class argued the position of one of the thinkers who have published in this series of polemics. The debate was edited from 80 minutes to 40 minutes and broadcast on Dublin Weekend Radio on 102.2 fm at 11am on Saturday 18 April and 25 April 1998 (in 2 parts) on the New Frontiers programme.
see course bibliography for more details
E-mail: helena.sheehan@dcu.ie